Class Flashcards
o Any system of ranking people in society, as manifest in objectively-identifiable ways
May include political, gendered, ethnic, or economic forms.
o The hierarchical arrangement of individuals in society.
Based on wealth, power, and prestige.
o Every society we have found so far has had some form of stratification; no society in which everyone is effectively equal.
Some people have more wealth than others; some have more power, higher status etc.
To identify inequality, we can compare people on income or on wealth, depending on total share people in different chunks of society have.
One may lead to another: more income means you can save and invest more, and hence accumulate more wealth over time.
Lower income people less able to save; spend all income on surviving.
* Consequently, wealth gap is often much large than income gap.
Stratification
o Measures differences in annual income from e.g. wages, investments, in a particular year.
Income distribution
o Measures differences in total wealth, including pension funds, housing, other assets, as well as cash.
Wealth distribution
When analysing inequality, we may just describe different strata within society, or we may focus on more objective features shared by all those within a certain socioeconomic position.
o Ranks society as a whole by one principle (eg wealth) then compares people as statistical groups (quantiles, e.g. “top 20%”).
o Strata just statistical constructs of the sociologists: no claims of objective unity.
Strata
o A social hierarchy based on the unequal distribution of material resources
o Class identifies characteristics shared by all those in the same class position as the basis of analysis and stratification.
o Class based on certain objective features about social structure: qualitative, not quantitative
Class
The ‘everyday’ understanding of class is one example:
1. income only just enough to survive for the short term, without major savings.
2. income sufficient to save for retirement, home ownership, children’s education.
3. enough wealth & surplus income to take the risks of investing and increasing capital.
- ‘Lower’ / ‘Working’ class
- Middle class
- Upper class
Blue collar - Job in lower-paid manual labour – wore rough denim shirts
Wage- Pay at an hourly rate, typical of less-secure, lower-paid work
Job - Basic form of employment, with few prospects for promotion.
Working class
White collar - Office job, professional role – workers in smart white shirts
Salary - Pay at a monthly or annual rate; more stable, higher pay
Career - Professional work, with long-term prospects and life plan.
Middle class
Sociologists ask: is it really possible for someone to reach a particular position in society, regardless of their starting point?
It may be possible for a family to move up across generations, even if it’s hard for one person to move in own lifetime.
o Refers to an individual’s movement up or down within the economic system and the occupational hierarchy.
o Income inequality might not be as much of a concern if there is social mobility in a society.
o As people move from one class to another, the gap between the rich and the power may lessen.
Social mobility
o Children improve on parents’ social rank.
Intergenerational Mobility
o Moving up or down social ranks: rise in income, position etc.
Vertical Mobility:
o Individual improves rank in own lifetime
Intragenerational Mobility
o Moving across social ranks, to similar one in another field.
Horizontal Mobility:
Structural functionalists see social stratification as serving a function because it is found across societies.
They believe everything exists for a reason; it’s for the good of society that some people have less.
Structural functionalism
present classic account of this structural-functional position.
* Societies require many different roles to be filled
* Roles vary in the amount of education and training required
* Roles that require the most investment tend to be rewarded with higher pay
* Stratification allows us to provide such rewards: we give greater privileges as incentives to people to fulfill them.
* It is positively functional: stratification contributes to the continued smooth existence of society.
To ensure certain difficult but necessary positions are filled, society rewards those who do them very highly. This attracts most talented to do such jobs.
Davis and Moore thus assume society is meritocratic: our social position is determined by our talents and abilities.
Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore The Davis-Moore Hypothesis
highlights one key feature of class: it is (in theory) possible to change your class position.
- It is impossible to change your ascribed status - as this is a label society applies to you on the basis of certain ‘inborn’ features.
- It should be possible to change your achieved status, by definition – as it refers to the status you ‘achieve’ in life.
Davis and Moore’s
o A social position you are given because of certain unalterable characteristics, e.g. race.
Ascribed status
o A social position that you can acquire or change based on your actions (or luck), e.g. economic class.
Achieved status
- Determines an individual’s rank by their ascribed characteristics.
- If people of certain ethnicities, religions, or genders hold certain ranks in society because of who they are, it is an ascription-based system.
Ascription-based stratification system
- Social mobility occurs in an achievement-based system.
- In this system, people’s rank depends on their accomplishments.
- Those who work hard rise up the class ranks.
The extent to which a society is achievement- or ascriptive-based depends on the level of social mobility in a society.
In some cases, ascribed statuses may affect your ‘achieved’ status.
- Racism may prevent people rising higher in the hierarchy.
Achievement-based stratification system
To understand inequality, we must consider gendered differences There are gendered patterns of domination in the home and in the workplace Feminists stress the interaction between various forms of inequality (intersectionality)
- i.e., class, race, gender, ability, etc.
Feminism
A framework or understanding how aspects of a person’s social and political identities combine to create levels of discrimination or privilege. Even inequality is unequal.
Intersectionality
Interactionists are interested in how class distinctions are maintained through social interaction Interested in the use and meaning of status symbols
Symbolic Interactionism
- Thorsten Veblen
- Purchasing expensive things (status symbols) in order to display wealth
Conspicuous Consumption
usually either Marxist (Erik Olin Wright ) or Weberian (John Goldthorpe ).
They use Marx or Weber as their starting point, but develop more contemporary analyses.
Theorists of class
There are two main points of disagreement between Marxists or Weberians:
- Is class defined as a position in a structure?
- Is class the most important/dominant form of stratification?
- Class is structural: it’s defined as a specific position within a system of social relations, defined by ownership of means of production.
- Class is central: other forms of inequality are derived from class.
Marx
Class is defined by your market situation: what resources do you have to get what you want?
- Economic class is only one form of inequality, and can itself be shaped by other forms. 3
Weber
He believed the core struggle in human societies was the class struggle. This refers to the struggle over who owns the means of production, or the means to make things society needs.
Marx developed conflict theory
o Marx’s basic assumption or premise: in order for there to be human society, there need to be actual living biological humans.
o Therefore, in order to understand society, history, and individual action, the first thing we need to understand is how a given society at a particular moment in time produces the food, shelter etc. that its people need for survival
historical materialism
Marx’s term for the tools, technologies, resources etc. that are available to a society at a particular moment in time in order to meet those material needs.
Spears and bows and arrows; industrial machinery.
o The concept of ‘means of production’ is a part of the overall materialist conception of history
Means of production
o Overall structured system of social relations in a society at a particular point in time.
o Based on the available means of production: if bows and spears are most advanced means of production, we can predict an egalitarian society in which all hunt together.
o The way a society is organized in order to produce the things its members need.
o Based on economic organization around existing technology for getting food.
o Other social relations depend on economy.
Mode of production
argues that society in general, and social inequality in particular are best understood as consequences of the mode of production in operation in a given society.
Whoever owns the means of production, or tools and materials used in making things, will hold power.
Marx
- A society whose highest technology is spears or bows and arrows will be a tribal hunter-gatherer society.
- Once we develop agriculture, social structure will change, and landowners (aristocrats) will be powerful.
- With industrialization, those who own factories etc. dominate.
Ownership of the means of production
if we understand the mode of production in a given society, we can understand the relations between its members and work out who has power over whom.
For example: in a tribe of hunter-gatherers, one person may be appointed to climb a tree and watch out for predators and prey.
- This person does ‘mental labour’ (Marx), and ends up giving orders to the others.
- They become accustomed to obeying him – not just in the hunt, but also in other parts of life.
Marx
o Specific positions within a mode of production, defined by ownership of means of production, and the relations between people in different positions.
Economic class relations are structured: those in particular classes interact in predetermined ways.
Class relations
describes contemporary society as capitalism:
- Mass production is aimed at increase of profits and capital.
- Instead of producing communally and sharing everything, we sell our labour to the employer, and take home a private wage.
Marx
have monopolized the means of production. The proletariat have no way to make a living independently, so they have to go to work for the bourgeoisie. Thus, class position gives the bourgeoisie an advantage.
o The employers, who have enough capital to invest for profit, and who own means of production (e.g. factories etc)
the bourgeoisie
