SOC101Y1 Lecture Notes - Social Stratification, Underconsumption, Forego
Document Summary
Seemingly something about the structure of society that leads to inequality. Under some circumstances, class differences can be insignificant. Social stratification: layering of society into different classes of people. To motivate people to sacrifice a lot to become judges, etc. , you offer them more. Social stratification has beneficial consequences; w/o it the most talented people. There is a virus that kills all the doctors, & the farmers survive. The society is thus less well off w/o doctors to treat them (can"t become doctors. On the other hand, if the virus kills off all of the farmers, & the doctors don"t. Attack of the class-specific killer virus overnight) become farmers then they will starve w/o doctors but not in such an elevated state (not the doctors) were done by the less important classes. Suggests that the society cannot survive w/o farmers, however they can survive. One class is more important than the other, but it"s not the class that you think.
