SOCY1050 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Symbolic Power, Essentialism, Class Consciousness
Lecture 2A
Class and Stratification
WHY STUDY CLASS/STRATIFICATION?
Health
Age
Families
Employment
Place
Mobility
Belonging
Identity
History
Gender
POVERTY and CLASS
Main reasons for poverty
1. Some people are just not intelligent enough to compete in the modern world.
2. Many poor people simply do not want to work.
3. Lack of education and job opportunities for the poor.
4. Economy is based on private ownership and profits
5. Poverty is bad government policies
Types of Poverty
Nature of the Explanation
Unfortunate By-
product
Inherent feature
Site of Explanation Individual Attributes Culture of Poverty Genetic/Racial
inferiority
Social Systems Ravages of social
change (liberal
reformist)
Class exploitation
(Marxist class analysis)
Social Stratification
What is Social Class?
oStructural inequalities between different people
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
oAn economic stratification
oOutcome of modernity
oDetermined by wealth and occupation
oMore mobile or fluid compared with other stratification systems
oImpersonal: inequalities are in relation to structures or systems, rather than each
other
oDurability to those inequalities, e.g. differences according to race, gender, economic
status, occupation
oLocation in the strata largely beyond individual choice or agency
oCategories continue to exist even when individuals move out of them
Social Stratification: the ranking of people and the rewards they receive based on
objective criteria, often including wealth, power and/or prestige
HISTORICAL SYSTEMS OF STRATIFICATION
As human society become more complex and richer, inequality increases, then slowly
declines
Development and inequality
oForaging societies
oHorticultural and pastoral societies
oAgrarian societies
oIndustrial societies
oPost-industrial societies
SOCIAL MOBILITY
What is social mobility?
oThe ability to change social classes
Theories of Social Mobility:
oAchievement (Blau and Duncan)
oInheritance (Sewell et al.)
Social mobility can be on a macro-level, and can be explained by structural mobility, for
example, agriculture manufacturing service economy
Social mobility is usually used to explain the movement of individuals who have a group
identity in society between different social strata. For example, the social mobility of a
person from a working-class background, to a semi-middle class social status.
KEY CONCEPTS
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Social Stratification relates to the ranking of people and the rewards they receive based on
objective criteria, often including wealth, power and prestige.
oIncome refers to the money received for work or through investments
oWealth refers to all your material possessions, including income.
oPower refers to the ability to carry your will and impose it on others
oPrestige refers to the level of esteem associated with our status and social
standing.
Social Class refers to structural inequalities between people
Social Mobility is the ability to change social classes
CLASSICAL THEORIES OF CLASS: KARL MARX
Newly industrialised societies rooted in capitalistic economic relations (means of production)
Relations of productive activity: capitalism was the latest evolutionary stage in economic
relations
The working class (proletariat) being exploited by capitalists (bourgeoisie). The problem of
surplus value.
Working class exploited materially, but also spiritually (alienation)
This system explained inequality and its resolution, in the time and place Marx was working
A moral and empirical observation
KARL MARX
Marx’s prediction for capitalism (historical materialism):
oClass consciousness
oCollective organisation
oClass struggle
oRevolution
Criticisms of Marx:
oIndustrial societies did not polarise
oMiddle class emerged
oTechnology benefitted workers as well as capitalists
oWorkers organised/improved their conditions, no revolution
oState interventions to address imbalances
oWelfare states and redistribution
oWhere Marxism was adapted, new ruling elites emerged
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
