Lecture 7 Pt. 3 Flashcards
caste system
usually seen as a form of social stratification based on inherited status or ascription
- a pure caste system means that birth alone determines one’s social destiny, with no opportunity for social mobility based on individual effort
- traditional caste groups are linked to occupation
- to maintain the division, you have endogamous marriage (marriage within the same rank), and you remain in the company of ‘your own kind’
indian system of caste
- Brahmins; priests and writers, Kshatriyas; warriors and rulers
- Vaishyas; merchants and landowners
- Sudras; artisans and servants
- people outside the system become ‘untouchables’, and often handle unpleasant work
- closed communities develop because of ideas of ritual purity, pollution, and exclusion
- ‘Dalits’ means ‘oppressed people’ and is used to refer to the former untouchables
- though this system of exclusion has been abolished, to this day a lot of Dalits still suffer from ‘caste’
the class system
- social class is social stratification resulting from the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and prestige
- unlike caste, estate, and slavery, it is a system that claims to be more open and based on individual achievement
- the mobility blurs class distinction
- people in industrial societies come to think that everyone is entitled to ‘rights’
- similar to the caste system, people do remain unequal
- social stratification now rests less entirely on birth, as class systems may allow more individual freedom in work careers and selection of partners
feudal Japan
was an agrarian society with a rigid caste system composed of nobles and commoners and ruled by an imperial family
- regional nobles were called shoguns, and below them was the warrior caste, the samurai
- the majority of people were commoners, and similarly to the ‘untouchables’, Japan had the burakumin
modern Japan
influenced by industrialization and the opening of Japanese society to outside influences
- the social category of ‘outcast’ was banned, though this lineage may still be looked down upon today
- after World War Il, the nobility too lost legal standing, and the notion of an emperor ruling by divine right was less accepted
- even though social stratification is mostly due to social class now, there are still influences of the previous caste system
- traditional ideas about gender also still shape Japanese society
class in the Russian federation
Russia is claimed to be the first classless society, a development after the state gained control of the economy
- analysts however pointed out that there is a four-level hierarchy: (1) apparatchiks; high government officials; (2) Soviet intelligentsia, (3) manual workers, and (4) rural peasantry
perestroika
an economic program that seeks to solve the problem of poverty and poor living conditions by stimulating economic expansion
- this was done by reducing inefficient centralized control of the economy
- this movement ultimately brought down the Soviet system itself
- upward social mobility was pretty common due to industrialization
structural social mobility
a shift in the social position of large numbers of people due more to changes in society itself than to individual efforts
4 reasons why humans have managed to sustain unequal systems over long periods of history
- ideology
- habitualization
- subjugation
- coerciona and violence
ideology
defined by cultural beliefs that serve legitimate key interests and hence justify social stratification
- examples are religious justification or the idea that the poor are simply lazy
- industrial culture advanced a new ideology: the most talented and hard-working individuals should dominate society, and poverty was seen as a state of personal inadequacy
key ideological themes of the systems of inequality
- elitism is efficient
- exclusion is necessary
- prejudice against ‘the lower orders’ is natural
- greed is good
habitualization
habitualization of inequalities in everyday life may also explain the perpetuation of inequalities
- Bourdieu argues that the educational system has systematic biases against working-class knowledge and skills
social reproduction
the maintenance of power and privilege between social classes from one generation to the next
- Bourdieu argued that this is one of the primary roles of education, along with cultural reproduction, which is the process by which a society transmits dominant knowledge from one generation to another
subjugation
states that the subjection of many subordinate groups makes them too downtrodden to challenge the dominant orders
- truly poor and socially excluded people often lack the power and resources to challenge the existing social
coercion and violence
ruling groups have coercive power, seeing as the ultimate regulation of the unequal order is the power of the coercive state
functional perspective
social inequality plays a vital part in the operation of all societies
- the greater the functional importance of an occupational position, the more reward a society will attach to it and the more
- because of disparities in income, people aspire to work better, harder, and longer
- the problem is that such a system offers little incentive for people who make their best efforts, and it is also difficult to measure functional importance
meritocracy
a system of social stratification based on personal merit
- such societies hold out rewards to develop talents and encourage the efforts of everyone
- while this promotes equality, at the same time it gives out unequal rewards, which leads to extensive social mobility, and the structure of a pure class system
- you are stratified into an educational trajectory based (also) on expected capacity, derived from standardized tests
- meritocracy is a belief system: the public must believe that the system works
Western stratification systems and meritocracy
often justified by meritocracy and they aim to eliminate the reproduction of social class by improving access to (higher) education
- where you come from no longer determines where you will end up
- the social distance between occupations is also less apparent (e.g., physicians are less respected compared to some generations ago)
Marxist and neo-Marxist ideas
argued that social stratification does not benefit society as a whole, rather, it provides major advantages to some people at the expense of others
- Marx identifies two major relations between social class and production: individuals either (1) own productive property, or (2) perform labor for others
- Marx states that through family, opportunity and wealth are passed down from generation to generation
- the legal system defends this practice through inheritance law, and exclusive schools group ‘elite’ children together
- great differences in wealth and power lead to class conflict
- Marx believed that oppression and misery would drive the working majority to ultimately overthrow capitalism
- criticism of Marx’s ideas was that he endorses an egalitarian system and that severing rewards from performance this way leads to low productivity
why there hasn’t been a Marxist revolution
- the fragmentation of the capitalist class: diffusion of ownership, such as through numerous stockholders
- white-collar work and a rising standard of living: most workers today hold white-collar occupations, higher-prestige work involving mostly mental activity
- most of these workers perceive their social positions as higher than jobs requiring physical labor
- because of the rising standard, society seems less sharply divided by rich and poor compared to Marx’s time
- more extensive worker organization: workers have won the right to organize into trade unions, which can still enhance the economic standing of the workers the union represents
- more extensive legal protections: the government has extended laws to protect workers’ rights and has given workers greater access to the courts for redressing grievances
Marx and Weber
- Weber viewed social stratification as a more complex interplay of three distinct dimensions: economic inequality, status, and power
- Marx believed that social prestige and power derived from economic position
- Weber disagreed with this, stating that one might have high standing on one dimension of inequality, but a lower position on another
- this meant that the dimensions weren’t necessarily interrelated
socioeconomic status (SES)
refers to a composite ranking based on various dimensions of social inequality
- this key contribution of Weber highlights that Weber considered social conflict as highly variable and complex
Davis-Moore thesis
states that inequality is a necessary element of social organization
- class differences then reflect both variations in human abilities and the importance of occupational roles
conflict theory
the conflict theory of Marx rejects the notion that inequality is in any sense necessary, and Marx condemned social hierarchy as a product of greed and exploitation
