power
• Defined in chapter one: capability of groups
or individuals to make their own interests
count, even if others resist (16).
• Supported by ideology: ideas which justify
power
• Many dimensions: certainly gender, class,
and race
Class
• Systems of stratification
• Class in the modern societies
• Stratification theories
stratification
Geological stratification
Social stratification
Structured inequality in terms of
access to material or symbolic
rewards
Systems of stratification
Stratification system Primarily maintained by:
Slavery Coercion
Caste Tradition, religion, ideology
Class Economic power
Class
Giddens has an agenda
• “A social class is a large group of people
who occupy a similar economic position in
the wider society.” (p. 162) Okay, broad
enough definition…but:
• “The concept of life chances, introduced by
Max Weber, is the best way to understand
what class means.” (ibid; my emphasis)
Weber: class
• Class situation:
– Possession of goods (wealth)
– Opportunities for income
• This has to do with amount of power “to dispose
of goods or skills for the sake of income”
• Class is a group of people in the same class
situation (311-312)
• “Class situation is…ultimately market situation.”
(313)
Weber: life chances and status
• Weber adds dimensions to Marx’s notion of
class, like skills and status
• Wealth (and its benefits) contribute to a
person’s life chances – access to
opportunities, goods, and services in
markets (commodity and labor)
Weber: life chances and status
• Status is the amount of prestige or social
honor accorded to the members of a group
• Note that this is a subjective evaluation by
others
• Most commonly associated with occupation
in modern societies
Weber: life chances and status
• Status can also be applied in negative way
• Pariah groups subject to discrimination
based on their negative status
• Examples?
Giddens’ agenda:
• Class boundaries are “fluid”
• Class is “achieved” status (at least partly)
• Class is economically based
• Class is a macro structure (“large scale and
impersonal”)
Giddens agenda allows him to:
• See class at least partly as a matter of
“cultural factors such as lifestyle and
consumption patterns”
• This results in categories that are indeed
“fluid” and largely subjective and arbitrary
What class?
What class?
What class?
So, what is class?
• “cultural factors such as lifestyle and
consumption patterns” somewhat subjective
and arbitrary; can someone change their
class status by “living beyond their means”?
• But Giddens (and Weber) say class is an
economic category, based on ability to
acquire things in markets
• How do we measure that ability?
Class as economic category:
income
• wages or salaries from occupations
• and/or payments on wealth (interest, dividends,
profits, etc.)
Trends in shares of aggregate income by quintile:
•http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/img/incpov03/fig11.jpg
•http://www.faireconomy.org/research/income_charts.html
•http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/img/incpov03/fig12.jpg
Figure 8.1 Kuznets Curve
Income used to rank
• Classes:
– Upper (>$145,099)
– Middle (UM: $83,500-$154,498; LM: $33,314-
$83,499)
– Working? ($17,970-$33,300)
– Lower (<$17,000)
– Underclass? (“new urban poor”)
• Income boundaries (e.g., those defined by
Giddens: 167-172) are necessarily arbitrary
A middle class society?
• “When Americans are asked to identify
their social class, the large majority claim to
be middle class.” (Giddens, et. al., 168)
What would a “middle class”
society look like?
households
200 or more
150-199999
100-149999
75-99999
50-74999
households
35-49999
25-34999
15-24999
10 to 14999
less than 10
0 5,000,000 10,000,000 15,000,000 20,000,000 25,000,000
Note varied ranges in each category. (source: Census Bureau 2000 income report)
Where is the “middle class?”
Census Bureau estimate 2000; categories compiled by Shafer
$200,000 or more
$150,000-$199,999
$75,000-$149,000 estimate
$35,000-74,999
less than 35,000
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000 40,000 45,000 50,000
num ber of households, in thousands
Categories reformatted toward more equivalent ranges by Shafer.
Class as economic category:
wealth
• Wealth: all the material assets owned by an
individual; net worth (assets minus debts)
• Wealth even more unequally distributed than
income: Richest get most of their income from
wealth: top 10% own 90% stocks, 95% bonds
• http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html
• http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm
Wealth inequality
• Wealth also unequally distributed by race
and ethnicity:
• Linked to discrimination in home ownership
• Recent study: this gap has increased for
both Black and Hispanic households
Other theories of stratification
• Marx: relations of production
• Davis and Moore: functions of meritocracy
• Erik Olin Wright: contradictory class
locations
• Frank Parkin: social closure
Marx: relations of production
• A mode of production (type of society) has
as its base the forces (means) of production
and the relations of production
• Relations of production are based on
ownership and control of the means of
production
Marx: relations of production
• Capitalism: means of production are capital,
owned by capitalists
• But labor (working class) is the source of all
wealth (“value”)
• The wage (tends toward mere subsistence) is less
than the value produced
• The difference is surplus value, source of profits
• See http://www.walterjensen.net/HO-Surplus_value.pdf
Marx: relations of production
• Therefore, capitalist relations of production
are exploitation
• Capitalist societies maintain a level of
poverty and unemployment to keep wages
low (reserve army of unemployed)
Marx: relations of production
• What about the fact that First World
workers are better off?
– Marx notes that class struggle results in unions,
some demands of workers are met
– Leninists say that First World (imperialist)
workers benefit from superexploitation of
developing world workers
Davis and Moore: functions of
meritocracy
• Some positions more important than others
• Rewards are offered to attract most
qualified people to those positions
• People therefore tend to land in those
positions for which they are best qualified:
meritocracy
• Therefore, stratification is functional for
modern societies
Davis and Moore: Tumin’s
critique
• Tumin found significant flaws in the
argument:
– Rewards don’t match importance
– Stratification interferes with opportunity,
therefore limits meritocratic selection
Erik Olin Wright: contradictory
class locations
• Synthesis of Marx and Weber
• Domination can occur without exploitation
• Capitalists exploit workers (dominate and
profit)
• Supervisors dominate (boss) but don’t
exploit
• This is a contradictory class location
Globalization and inequality
• According to Giddens, et. al., industrial and
information revolutions break down caste
systems, replace with class
• But development is uneven:
– Capital is freer to move, labor is not; profits up,
wages down
– Internal inequality increases
• Among classes of developed nations
• Among classes/castes in developing nations