Class & Social stratification

Class & Social Stratification

When we look at the whole world, there are some people who are less privileged and there are some people who benefit from the resources to a great extent. One of the most important problem of sociology is to explain why is there such an inequality among people? We are aware of the fact that there is a stratification at the global level. At the global level there are some inequalities that we have to look at and the gap between the rich and the poor in the world is widening day by day so the question is: can we eliminate those inequalities or is it normal to see such inequalities? For instance, from the Ancient Greeks, Aristotle thought that inequalities among people was a normal fact that you would not have to talk about it that much because he thought that if in a society there are some people who are much more smarter than the others, inequality would be normal. Because inequalities are being caused by personal differences but sociologically speaking we cannot attach such an institution as the normal because there are many differences between people.

Social stratification comes from social differentiation among people. In other words, there are differences between us in terms of our ages, education, occupation... but what makes us such differences a social stratification system. In other words, what causes such differences in a situation of vertical hierarchy. Why some jobs have more prestige, why some people are more privileged than the others. For instance in traditional societies older people had more status but in modern societies they have started losing this status. So what causes such stratification between older people and younger people. In that sense, stratification is constructed socially, society causes it. In every society, there are different types of stratification system one of them is social class. When it comes to understanding social class, this is very important because our social classes make a big difference in terms of our lifestyles, attitudes and behavior. For example the more people have prestige, the healthier food they consume. But in Turkey, the result was in the opposite. So it shows us the relationship between social class and lifestyles. So class makes a big difference in terms of our lifestyles, thinking and even our language.

We always think that social class is equal to income level but it's wrong, to understand social class we have to look at lots of things such as occupation, property, wealth, power...etc. Most of us think that such inequalities are normal and we do not have to talk about it that much, because we learn such things during the socialization process so norms and values say that such inequalities are normal but there has to be something done. when we look at the society, there are different source of stratification system. In terms of our social class, the sociologists separate social classes into three major category:

Lower class refers to occupation such as workers. In other words, lower class people make money by selling their labor. Middle class refers to occupations such as clerks, managers...etc. The distinction between lower class and middle class is that lower class people sell their labors but middle class people usually sell their talents. Upper class consists of wealthy, industrialist and investors. In all societies, upper class people control the society. In the lower level, there are masses of individuals. In the second level comes bureaucrats, politicians, media and interest groups. Interest group refers to class, political party, all types of associations to which people belong. At the top, there is the power elite who control the resources. Power elite consists of three major groups: big corporations, high level bureaucrats (prime-minister, minister..) and army. These three elite groups have common interests, that's why they cooperate with one another. These three groups control the rest of the society and they serve for the upper-class people. The least powerful group is the masses because they have least power. In many societies there are some ethnic groups who are less advantaged and there are some ethnic groups who are much more powerful. For instance in the USA, at the lower level there are Indian people, after that people come from China and then comes black people. There is a stratification between men and women. This system is called patriarchy. It is the name of the social system whereby men dominant women. Why is there patriarchy? Sociologists say that because if there are more and more men who are earning money than women. (1$ male= 0.67 $ female) So patriarchy is a relative system. There are degrees of patriarchy so in that sense it is not hard to understand feminists.

wealth refers to cash, savings, checking accounts, investments in stocks but income refers to wages and salaries.

In slavery and caste system, mobility is very difficult. The Caste system in India, we are seeing a very close stratify system, in feudalism in the middle ages classes are clearly defined. Mobility is very difficult but not impossible. Knighthood is an another system which allows people to move up in the stratification system but the most open system in the social class is open system because moving from one class to another is not impossible, it is possible. When we talk about vertical mobility, we are talking about moving from one class to another (from the middle class to upper class or the opposite) Horizontal mobility is change in our position but we still remain in the same class. Intragenerational mobility refers to a change in social position occurring within a person's lifetime. Intergenerational mobility, upward or downward social mobility of children in relation to their parents. In class system, person's positions are achieved. Education is the most important tool for us to move up. When we look at the whole society, there are sources of inequalities. Someone's wealth and and income are the most important things that cause inequality. In other words, the differences between someone's wealth and income causes inequality. When we try to understand the inequalities among people, we have to look at occupations, educational level , wealth and income. Wealth refers to something different than income: our savings in the bank, checking accounts...etc.

There are two major theories that explains the inequalities among people, they are put different emphasis on inequality problem:

Order model blames the person. It says that if someone is poor or not powerful enough, it is his/her own fault. Because if we work hard enough, we can earn money but we all know that society is so complicated that we cannot blame the persons when we try to analyze structural problems. According to order model, such inequalities are normal and functional Functional, because by looking at other people, we can be motivated and work harder. So they are saying that division of labor is necessary. They think that if you work hard enough, you can be whatever you want and you would be positioned on the basis of meritocracy.. So they believe in meritocracy and they think that it is very functional and it works properly and efficiently. But the conflict model is very different than the order model. They are saying that inequalities are not normal , they are dysfunctional and they have to be eliminated because, there are so many people affected by inequalities. According to conflict model, inequalities, among people are abnormal, we can eliminate those problems, in order for us to explain the causes of this problem, we have to look at who is more powerful and who is least powerful. Who gets,earns,has the most powerful resources. We have to look at distribution of resources. According to conflict model, the structure of society is much more important than individuals.