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Stratification
structured social inequality or, more specifically, systematic inequalities between groups of people that arise as intended or unintended consequences of social processes and relationship
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Social equality
A condition whereby no differences in wealth, power, prestige, or status based on nonnatural conventions exist
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What was Jean-Jacques Rousseau arguement on private property?
Private property creates social inequality and that this inequality ultimately leads to social conflict
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What was Adam Ferguson and John Millar argument on private property?
- Agrees that it creates inequality
- But it is good because some people prosper and create assets, which provide incentive to work hard and be productive to inprove society and civilization
- However, surpluses creates inequality!
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What is asset?
A form of wealth that can be stored for the future
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What was Thomas Malthus's view on inequality?
- Favor inequality
- It is a mean to control population growth
- Equal distribution of resources = increase world's population to unsustainable levels and bring about mass starvation and conflict
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Describe Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's master-slave dialectic
- Most social relationships were based on master-slave model
- Master depends on slave, slave depends on master
- Over time, more free people, master-slave model would die out
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Define ontological equality
is the notion that everyone is created equal in the eyes of God
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Define Equality of opportunity
- the idea that inequality of condition is acceptable so long as everyone has the same opportunities for advancement and is judged by the same standards.
- closely associated with civil rights activists in US 1960s
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Define Equality of condition
- the idea that everyone should have equal starting point from which to pursue his or her goals
- this belief led to policies, such as affirmative action, which try to compensate social actors for differences in their conditions or starting points
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Define Equality of outcome
- the notion everyone in a society should end up with the same "rewards" regardless of his or her starting point, opportunities, or contributions
- closely associated with Communist idealogoy
- Critics: without greater incentives to work hard and be productve, people will slack off and social progress will be stymied
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What is an estate system of stratification?
- politically based system of stratification characterized by limited social mobility
- best exemplified in the social organization of feudal Europe and pre-Civil War American South
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What is the caste system of stratification?
- system of stratification based on hereditary notions of religous and theological purity, generally offers no prospects for social mobility
- ex: varna system in India
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What is the class system of stratification?
economically based system of stratification characterized by somewhat loose social mobility and categories based on roles in the production process rather than individual characteristics
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What two classes did Karl Marx feel society was divided?
- the proletariet (working class)
- bourgeoisie (employing class)
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What concept did Erik Olin Wright developed?
Contradictory Class locations
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What is contradictory class locations?
the idea that people can occupy locations in the class struture that fall between two "pure" classes defined by Marx
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What is the status hierarchy system?
a system of stratification based on social prestige, which can be linked to different things: occupation, lifestyle, membership in certain org
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What is the elite-mass dichotomy system?
a system of stratification that has a governing elite - a few leaders who broadly hold the power of society
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What did Vilfredo Pareto think about the elite-mass dichotomy system?
the masses were better off in such a system because most skilled and talented people would reach the governing elite
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What did C. Wright Mills think of the elite-mass dichotomy system?
it is dangerous and detrimental as it consolidates power in the hands of the few who will act according to their intersts as opposed to the intersts of the masses
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What is meant by socioeconimc status?
refers to an individual's position in a stratified social order
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In the US, what is the upper class associated with?
- is the economic elite
- Income, wealth, power, and prestige
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Why is it difficult to separate middle class from working class?
the rise of the low-wage service sector composed of ostensibly white-collar jobs that earn working-class wages
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What happens to the income gap between high-income and low-income over the last 30 years?
increased dramatically
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What is social mobility?
the movement between different positions within a system of social stratification in any given society
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What's structural mobility?
mobility that is ineviable from changes in the economy such as the expansion of high-tech jobs in the past 20 years
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When does exchange mobility occurs?
when people essentially trade positions-the number of overall jobs stays the same, with some people moving up into better jobs and others moving down into worse ones
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What's the mobility table for?
examine the process of individual mobility by comparing changes in occupational status between generations
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What's a status-attainment model?
- looks at changes in occupational status between generations
- includes factors such as educational attainment, income, and the prestige of a person's fisrt job
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What's dialectic?
a two-directional relationship, one that goes both ways
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What's a bourgeois society?
a society of commerce (modern capitalist society, for example) in which the maximization of profit is the primary business incentive
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Define meritocracy
a society where status and mobility are based on individual attributes, ability, and achievement
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What is wealth?
individual's net worth (total assets - total debts)
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