Social stratification
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1)Do you think that an individual who involves themselves with the system of stratification are highly important to understanding the fairness of what the American workforce and women rights is all about?
2)Because we live in a class based stratification system so many of our perceptions about social mobility are based on our occupations and ownership of homes and land (Kendall, p. 222). However, we often forget that many of the factors that affect social mobility are demographic: race, gender, being born into poverty, and not having the education to find a good job. Weber stresses the importance of “life chances” and believes that is no single factor, but rather a multitude of factors that are interconnected and together affect our mobility (Kendall, p. 224). What are your thoughts on Weber’s view?
Class notes from text
In class systems, people may become members of a class other than that of their parents through both intergenerational and intragenerational mobility, either upward or downward. Horizontal mobility occurs when people experience a gain or loss in position and/or income that does not produce a change in their place in the class structure. For example, a person may get a pay increase and a more prestigious title but still not move from one class to another. By contrast, movement up or down the class structure is vertical mobility. Martin, a commercial artist who owns his own firm, is an example of vertical, intergenerational mobility:
• My family came out of a lot of poverty and were eager to escape it…. My [mother’s parents] worked in a sweatshop. My grandfather to the day he died never earned more than $14 a week. My grandmother worked in knitting mills while she had five children…. My father quit school when he was in eighth grade and supported his mother and his two sisters when he was twelve years old. My grandfather died when my father was four and he basically raised his sisters. He got a man’s job when he was twelve and took care of the three of them. (qtd. in Newman, 1993: 65)
Martin’s situation reflects upward mobility; however, people may also experience downward mobility, caused by any number of reasons, including a lack of jobs, low wages and employment instability, marriage to someone with fewer resources and less power than oneself, and changing social conditions (Newman, 1988, 1993).
Classical Perspectives on Social Class
Early sociologists grappled with the definition of class and the criteria for determining people’s location in the class structure. Both Karl Marx and Max Weber viewed class as an important determinant of social inequality and social change, and their works have had a profound influence on how we view the U.S. class system today.
Karl Marx: Relationship to the Means of Production
According to Karl Marx, class position and the extent of our income and wealth are determined by our work situation, or our relationship to the means of production. As we have previously seen, Marx stated that capitalistic societies consist of two classes—the capitalists and the workers. The capitalist class (bourgeoisie) consists of those who own the means of production—the land and capital necessary for factories and mines, for example. The working class (proletariat) consists of those who must sell their labor to the owners in order to earn enough money to survive
In 2010 Arizona passed the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, a stringent law that gave police officers greatly enhanced powers to check people’s immigration status. The marchers in this Phoenix demonstration took to the streets to make known their opposition to the new law.
According to Marx, class relationships involve inequality and exploitation. The workers are exploited as capitalists maximize their profits by paying workers less than the resale value of what they produce but do not own. This exploitation results in workers’ alienation—a feeling of powerlessness and estrangement from other people and from oneself. In Marx’s view alienation develops as workers manufacture goods that embody their creative talents but do not own the goods. Workers are also alienated from the work itself because they are forced to perform it in order to live. Because the workers’ activities are not their own, they feel self-estrangement. Moreover, workers are separated from others in the factory because they individually sell their labor power to the capitalists as a commodity.
alienation
a feeling of powerlessness and estrangement from other people and from oneself.
In Marx’s view the capitalist class maintains its position at the top of the class structure by control of the society’s superstructure, which is composed of the government, schools, churches, and other social institutions that produce and disseminate ideas perpetuating the existing system of exploitation. Marx predicted that the exploitation of workers by the capitalist class would ultimately lead to class conflict—the struggle between the capitalist class and the working class. According to Marx, when the workers realized that capitalists were the source of their oppression, they would overthrow the capitalists and their agents of social control, leading to the end of capitalism. The workers would then take over the government and create a more egalitarian society.
class conflict
Karl Marx’s term for the struggle between the capitalist class and the working class.
Although unions have lost some of their importance over the last fifty years, this 2009 United Auto Workers rally in support of the Employee Free Choice Act—legislation that would make it easier for employees to join a union—shows that many workers still believe in a collective response to workplace issues.
Why has no workers’ revolution occurred? According to the sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf (1959), capitalism may have persisted because it has changed significantly since Marx’s time. Individual capitalists no longer own and control factories and other means of production; today, ownership and control have largely been separated. For example, contemporary transnational corporations are owned by a multitude of stockholders but run by paid officers and managers. Similarly, many (but by no means all) workers have experienced a rising standard of living, which may have contributed to a feeling of complacency. During the twentieth century, workers pressed for salary increases and improvements in the workplace through their activism and labor union membership. They also gained more legal protection in the form of workers’ rights and benefits such as workers’ compensation insurance for job-related injuries and disabilities (Dahrendorf, 1959). For these reasons, and because of a myriad of other complex factors, the workers’ revolution predicted by Marx never came to pass. However, the failure of his prediction does not mean that his analysis of capitalism and his theoretical contributions to sociology are without validity.
Marx had a number of important insights into capitalist societies. First, he recognized the economic basis of class systems (Gilbert, 2010). Second, he noted the relationship between people’s social location in the class structure and their values, beliefs, and behavior. Finally, he acknowledged that classes may have opposing (rather than complementary) interests. For example, capitalists’ best interests are served by a decrease in labor costs and other expenses and a corresponding increase in profits; workers’ best interests are served by well-paid jobs, safe working conditions, and job security.
Max Weber: Wealth, Prestige, and Power
Max Weber’s analysis of class builds upon earlier theories of capitalism (particularly those by Marx) and of money (particularly those by Georg Simmel, as discussed in Chapter 1). Living in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Weber was in a unique position to see the transformation that occurred as individual, competitive, entrepreneurial capitalism went through the process of shifting to bureaucratic, industrial, corporate capitalism. As a result, Weber had more opportunity than Marx to see how capitalism changed over time.
Weber agreed with Marx’s assertion that economic factors are important in understanding individual and group behavior. However, Weber emphasized that no single factor (such as economic divisions between capitalists and workers) was sufficient for defining the location of categories of people within the class structure. According to Weber, the access that people have to important societal resources (such as economic, social, and political power) is crucial in determining people’s life chances. To highlight the importance of life chances for categories of people, Weber developed a multidimensional approach to social stratification that reflects the interplay among wealth, prestige, and power. In his analysis of these dimensions of class structure, Weber viewed the concept of “class” as an ideal type (that can be used to compare and contrast various societies) rather than as a specific social category of “real” people (Bourdieu, 1984).
Wealth is the value of all of a person’s or family’s economic assets, including income, personal property, and income-producing property. Weber placed categories of people who have a similar level of wealth and income in the same class. For example, he identified a privileged commercial class of entrepreneurs—wealthy bankers, ship owners, professionals, and merchants who possess similar financial resources. He also described a class of rentiers—wealthy individuals who live off their investments and do not have to work. According to Weber, entrepreneurs and rentiers have much in common. Both are able to purchase expensive consumer goods, control other people’s opportunities to acquire wealth and property, and monopolize costly status privileges (such as education) that provide contacts and skills for their children.
wealth
the value of all of a person’s or family’s economic assets, including income, personal property, and income-producing property.
Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (and its other “real housewives” series) follows the lives of affluent women who seemingly have nothing to do but shop, drink, and argue. Do you think that these women have a high level of prestige, as defined by Max Weber? Why or why not?
Weber divided those who work for wages into two classes: the middle class and the working class. The middle class consists of white-collar workers, public officials, managers, and professionals. The working class consists of skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled workers.
The second dimension of Weber’s system of stratification is prestige—the respect or regard with which a person or status position is regarded by others. Fame, respect, honor, and esteem are the most common forms of prestige. A person who has a high level of prestige is assumed to receive deferential and respectful treatment from others. Weber suggested that individuals who share a common level of social prestige belong to the same status group regardless of their level of wealth. They tend to socialize with one another, marry within their own group of social equals, spend their leisure time together, and safeguard their status by restricting outsiders’ opportunities to join their ranks.
prestige
the respect or regard with which a person or status position is regarded by others.
The other dimension of Weber’s system is power—the ability of people or groups to achieve their goals despite opposition from others. The powerful can shape society in accordance with their own interests and direct the actions of others. According to Weber, bureaucracies hold social power in modern societies; individual power depends on a person’s position within the bureaucracy. Weber suggested that the power of modern bureaucracies was so strong that even a workers’ revolution (as predicted by Marx) would not lessen social inequality.
power
the ability of people or groups to achieve their goals despite opposition from others.
Weber stated that wealth, prestige, and power are separate continuums on which people can be ranked from high to low, as shown in Figure 8.2. Individuals may be high on one dimension while being low on another. For example, people may be very wealthy but have little political power (for example, a recluse who has inherited a large sum of money). They may also have prestige but not wealth (for instance, a college professor who receives teaching excellence awards but lives on a relatively low income). In Weber’s multidimensional approach, people are ranked on all three dimensions. Sociologists often use the term socioeconomic status (SES) to refer to a combined measure that, in order to determine class location, attempts to classify individuals, families, or households in terms of factors such as income, occupation, and education.
socioeconomic status (SES)
a combined measure that, in order to determine class location, attempts to classify individuals, families, or households in terms of factors such as income, occupation, and education.
FIGURE 8.2: WEBER’S MULTIDIMENSIONAL APPROACH TO SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
According to Max Weber, wealth, power, and prestige are separate continuums. Individuals may rank high in one dimension and low in another, or they may rank high or low in more than one dimension. Also, individuals may use their high rank in one dimension to achieve a comparable rank in another. How does Weber’s model compare with Marx’s approach as shown in Figure 8.1?
What important contribution does Weber make to our understanding of social stratification and class? Weber’s analysis of social stratification contributes to our understanding by emphasizing that people behave according to both their economic interests and their values. He also added to Marx’s insights by developing a multidimensional explanation of the class structure and by identifying additional classes. Both Marx and Weber emphasized that capitalists and workers are the primary players in a class society, and both noted the importance of class to people’s life chances. However, they saw different futures for capitalism and the social system. Marx saw these structures being overthrown; Weber saw the increasing bureaucratization of life even without capitalism.
A substantial advantage of Weber’s theory is that it has made empirical investigation of the U.S. class structure possible. Through his distinctions among wealth, power, and prestige, Weber makes it possible for researchers to examine the different dimensions of social stratification. Weber’s enlarged conceptual formulation of stratification is the theoretical foundation for mobility research by sociologists such as Peter Blau and Otis Duncan (1967), who measured the three dimensions from Weber’s theory through a study of the occupational positions that individuals hold. According to Blau and Duncan, a person’s occupational position is not identical to either economic class or prestige, but is closely related to both. As you might expect, different occupations have significantly different levels of status or prestige (see . For many years, occupational ratings by prestige have remained remarkably consistent in the United States (Gilbert, 2010).
A significant limitation of occupational prestige rankings is that the level of prestige accorded to a position may not actually be based on the importance of the position to society. The highest ratings may be given to professionals—such as physicians and lawyers—because they have many years of training in their fields and some control their own work, not necessarily because these positions contribute the most to society.
Contemporary Sociological Models of the U.S. Class Structure
How many social classes exist in the United States? What criteria are used for determining class membership? No broad consensus exists about how to characterize the class structure in this country. In fact, many people deny that class distinctions exist. Most people like to think of themselves as middle class; it puts them in a comfortable middle position—neither rich nor poor. Sociologists have developed two models of the class structure: One is based on a Weberian approach, the other on a Marxian approach. We will examine both models briefly.
The Weberian Model of the U.S. Class Structure
Expanding on Weber’s analysis of class structure, sociologist Dennis Gilbert (2010) uses a model of social classes based on three elements: (1) education, (2) occupation of family head, and (3) family income
The Upper (Capitalist) Class
The upper class is the wealthiest and most powerful class in the United States. About 1 percent of the population is included in this class, whose members own substantial i ncome-producing assets and operate on both the national and international levels. According to Gilbert (2010), people in this class have an influence on the economy and society far beyond their numbers.
Some models further divide the upper class into upper-upper (“old money”) and lower-upper (“new money”) categories (Warner and Lunt, 1941; Coleman and Rainwater, 1978; Kendall, 2002). Members of the upper-upper class come from prominent families which possess great wealth that they have held for several generations. Family names—such as Rockefeller, Mellon, Du Pont, and Kennedy—are well-known and often held in high esteem. Persons in the upper-upper class tend to have strong feelings of in-group solidarity. They belong to the same exclusive clubs and support high culture (such as the opera, symphony orchestras, ballet, and art museums). Children are educated in prestigious private schools and Ivy League universities; many acquire strong feelings of privilege from birth, as upper-class author Lewis H. Lapham (1988: 14) states:
table 8.1: Prestige Ratings for Selected Occupations in the United States
Respondents were asked to evaluate a list of occupations according to their prestige; the individual rankings were averaged and then converted into scores, with 1 the lowest possible score and 99 the highest possible score. How would you rate the prestige level of these various jobs?
Occupation Score
Physician 86
Attorney 75
College professor 74
Architect 73
Aerospace engineer 72
Dentist 72
Clergy 69
Pharmacist 68
Petroleum engineer 66
Registered nurse 66
Accountant 65
Grade school teacher 64
Airplane pilot 61
Police officer 60
Electrician 51
Funeral director 49
Mail carrier 47
Secretary 46
Butcher 35
Baker 35
Garbage collector 28
Bill collector 24
Janitor 22
Maid 20
Source: Davis, Smith, and Marsden, 2007.
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Social stratification is a notion that is used to describe classification of citizens into groups based on their social-economic situation. Similar to other societies, the United States of America is stratified. The stratification in America is generally based on an individual’s socioeconomic position. In America, stratification of an individual is determined by Education, occupation, and income……………………………….
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