Social and Class Structure: Stratification Systems Explained

Social and Class Structure

Social Stratification

Structures of social inequality representing different positions of people and groups in society.

People and groups, depending on their position in this stratified distribution, have a different or unequal access to material or symbolic rewards.

Characteristics That Are Common to All Stratified Systems in Society (Giddens)

• The classification is applied to social categories of people who have some characteristics in common without necessarily interacting or identifying themselves with the same group.
• The experiences and opportunities that a person has in life highly depend on the social category they belong to.
• The layers or stratum that determine social categories change very slowly.

Four Stratification Systems (Giddens)

• Slavery: Ownership of individuals.
• Castes: Hereditary systems of rigid social ranking.
• Estates: From traditional states to the end of feudalism.
• Classes: A large-scale grouping of people who share common economic resources that in turn influence their lifestyle.

Social Classes

Class stands apart from these other systems of stratification. Four main distinctions can be drawn:

1. Classes are not dependent on legal or religious decrees and are thus (formally at least) more fluid.
2. Class is in part achieved rather than ascribed. Some mobility between groupings can and does occur.
3. Classes are dependent on economic differentials between groups, usually either ownership of or access to material resources.
4. Class systems are more impersonal than other forms of stratification.

Key Aspects of Social Classes

• A group of people with a similar level of economic resources.
• The level of economic resources has a big influence on the lifestyle of each social class.
• Class distinction is fundamentally based on wealth, property, and occupation.

Karl Marx

Class is defined by the relationship of the group with the means of production.

• Pre-industrial societies: Landowners and peasants.
• Industrial societies: Owners of the means of production and workers (working class).

The relationship between classes is structured around exploitation.

• Pre-industrial societies: Delivery of the harvest to the aristocracy.
• Industrial societies: Work generates disproportionate wealth which capitalists take over (surplus value), whereas workers remain poor. Although improving their economic condition, the distance with capitalists is huge.

Weber

He agrees with Marx on that social class is based on objective economic conditions, but believes there are other factors which are also important, such as the technical knowledge and the position of a person in the labor market.

• The social classes are defined by economically determined relationships between its members and the market.
• The classes are one of the forms of social stratification, and do not constitute a group aware of its own unity.

Theory of the Three Components of Stratification

1. Inside the economic order: Individuals belong to classes that are stratified according to their relation with the means of production and the acquisition of goods.
2. Inside the political field: People can be part of a political party and these political parties are stratified in relation to power. The party organizes the legislative work; it coordinates and incorporates the new interests of citizens.
3. Inside the social order: Individuals belong to status groups that are stratified according to their consumption of goods: a bigger consumption means a higher lifestyle and a higher position in the social group.

New Elements in the Evolution of Modern Societies

a) Property and Control Are No Longer the Same

• Owners don’t control the worker directly.
• Direct control of workers is made through managers: controllers without property.

b) Middle Classes, New Workers

• The growth of the middle class: salaried non-manual workers, new needs of administration, growth of service sector (bank, insurance companies, business, transport, etc.).
• Change of composition: in the past, the middle class consisted of small industrialists and craftsmen, now of “employees”.

Bourdieu

The choice of lifestyle is an important indicator of class: four forms of capital that determine the class position and are interrelated:

• Economic capital: Income, role in determining social class.
• Cultural capital: Education, art appreciation, consumption, and leisure.
• Social capital: Personal network of friends and contacts.
• Symbolic capital: Having or not having a good reputation.

Books

Distinction, Habitus