social class
Social class refers to categories of people who have similar life chances or access to similar resources and opportunities and is based on a combination of birth and achievement. Class systems are more open than caste systems; relatives may have different social class standings Ideologically class systems are aligned with meritocracy-the idea that achievement is based on merit, or earned. Sociologists know the meritocratic system is more a myth than an actuality because of vast inequality in our system. Inequality is the unequal distribution of resources, services, and positions. Notice how social class is intimately tied to politics for the class theorists covered in this learning page.
marx, karl
Karl Marx is known for his theory of 2 social classes, the Bourgeoisie (the owners) and the Proletariat (the workers). Conflict theory argues that people are put in conflict with one another over scarce resources based on their social class.
Marx was invested in historical materialism. He felt that to understand society, one must begin with the material conditions, or the economics of producing life-sustaining products, in context of historical progression. The prime determinant of social relations are humans relations of and to production. As a materialist, Marx felt intellect, culture, politics, and education were all a direct product of the economic system.
Marx is famous for his "Communist Manifesto." For Marx, all parties in opposition to the oppressing party are called communists.
Marx was a normative thinker, which means he was concerned with "how things ought to be." Many different sides of Marx. One side involves his theory of class struggle and exploitation. Idealism and humanism are central to his concept of alienation. Marx was also an environmentalist.
Marx and consciousness
Marx wrote that working people either understood the reality of their oppressed and exploited social class category and thus established "class consciousness" or they did not understand the reality of their oppressed and exploited social class category and thus had a "false consciousness."
Erik Olin Wright is a more current Marxist scholar. He asks: What is the principal asset that is unequally distributed in the following political economic systems?
- In capitalism: property relations in the means of production
- State bureaucratic-socialism: hierarchical control of organizational assets
- Socialism: skills (experts vs. workers)
- Communism: Nothing; distribute resources equally regardless of skill
Does this sound like the "communism" you have heard of?
weber, max
Weber's view of inequality was heavily derived from Marx. They both believed that social stratification will always be reduced to the "haves" and "have nots.“
However, Weber believed that social class is only one of several types of "houses of stratification" or formation. For Weber, the importance of class can be reinforced or undermined by status groups and parties. Class cannot be seen as equal to a community, but classes can only emerge through community.
3 class system
Many Americans and Sociologists adhere to a 3-class system, upper-, middle- and lower- that looks something like the following:
5 class system
Many Americans and Sociologists adhere to a 5-class system, upper-, upper-middle, middle-, working- and lower-class.
6 class system
Some Americans and Sociologists believe in a 6 class system.
They add the underclass, which is composed of unemployed or under-employed persons who live in poverty (discussed below) and survive off of very little; perhaps they are able to get public assistance. Many members of the underclass are unhoused.
Image source: https://slideplayer.com/slide/12226811/
working class
Zweig (2000) sees the working-class as the 60 percent of working people who have little power over their working conditions and who do not boss others. For Zweig, and sociologists who agree with him, the middle class is also the working class.
occupations as social class?
Weeden and Grusky (2005) believe we should focus on micro-level class maps instead of macro-level class maps. They explain that occupations, or structural positions at the site of production, provide the strongest possible signal of life conditions. These are called deeply institutionalized micro-class categories. These scholars would claim there are as many social classes as there are occupations.
so how many social classes are there?
Which theory of social class aligns most with your perspective? If someone asked you, how many social classes would you say we have in the U.S.?
bourdieu and the "capitals"
Bourdieu looked at class as a function of economic capital and cultural capital.
Economic capital refers to our financial assets, such as cash and property.
Cultural capital captures our particular orientations to the world, ranging from our preferences and tastes, to our knowledge, skill base, proclivities and interests. It develops alongside the social environments we access. Bourdieu believed our social class positions could be mapped based on our various capitals and vice versa; social spaces between classes can be presented as a diagram via tastes.
According to Bourdieu, tastes are the embodied form of structural position. These lifestyle differences act as strong barriers between classes. People “do class”; we reproduce our position in the social structure through our actions and beliefs Reproduction theory-everyday practices reproduce hierarchical arrangements; our tastes reproduce our position in social order.
Check out the "social class taste" map below.
Social capital refers to who people know and what those people can and will do for an individual; specifically, social capital is the capacity of individuals’ social networks to produce benefits (Coleman 1988).
Habitus is a largely unconscious constellation of preferences, behaviors, and styles of self-presentation shaped during childhood. Habitus is also subject to change over the life course, particularly as people come into contact with new and different environments. Internalized dispositions towards culture, society and one’s future (based on external structure). Invisible, taken for granted and ingrained. Gives people varying preferences, cultural skills, social connections, educational practices, and other resources, which can translate into different forms of value (capital) in society (a major mechanism by which cultural capital functions).
bourdieu and the social classes
Working classes- prioritize or embody “being.” They do not "put on airs." They just are.
For the working class or proletariat, tastes are forced. Taste is the choice of destiny, conditions of which rule out any other possibility but the tastes of necessity. Needs can only be fulfilled more easily when people develop a taste for that which they are condemned to. The tastes of necessity are seen as vulgar because they are common and easy. The working class will focus on substance because there is little to expect from future so the immediate presence becomes important. Working class people may take liberties in domestic sphere. Their homes may be seen as disorderly or sloppy, but this is the one realm of freedom they have. Others may see working class actions as crude, but they see them as honest and unpretentious.
Middle classes- prioritize or embody “seeming."
The middle class practices can be perceived as pretentious because there is a discrepancy between their ambition and their actual possibilities. Popular culture is dominated culture, defined by lack of cultural capital, rather than an authentic version of culture.
Upper classes- prioritize or embody “form and manner”
The tastes of luxury are designated by rarity as distinguished. Because the upper classes are rich in economic and cultural capital they focus on form, life as art. They have a freedom from necessity, from their more basic or animal instincts, thus they embody deferred gratification. Their commitment to style, denies crudeness. True freedom is associated with the elective asceticism of self-imposed rule. They have a freedom of choice from nature. Nature is viewed negatively as sloppiness. The values of dominant class seen as the only legitimate values.
The classes relate to one another through opposition. Working class sees middle and upper classes as fake and pretentious. Upper class sees working class as uncouth and middle classes and reaching. Preferences of each class are expressed in opposition to other class positions.
as an example of class distinction: food
For the working class there is plain eating. Food intake is reduced to function. They take liberties, for example, by having salad, casserole and dessert on same plate. Formalities are for guests and outsiders. Their diet is focused on foods that are filling, calorie rich and cheap. They will have serving styles that are labor-saving and efficient.
For the upper classes form takes priority. Eating becomes an art; an art of in the way of living well. In doing so, there is denial of the primary needs to eat, which are “common” needs; instead dinner is a social ceremony, an affirmation of refinement and their good taste. Guests, of course, also take part in the art form.
as an example of class distinction: appearance
According to Bourdieu, because upper classes prioritize form and manner, their actual looks matter less, the money they are able to spend on improving their appearance matters (beauty as a gift of nature vs. beauty as a conquest of merit) thus they are more comfortable in their bodies compared to middle class members.
Middle class members know beauty matters, but may not be able to attain it, thus are uneasy in their body and unhappy with their image.
Working class women have little ability to turn their appearance into capital (i.e. marriage), will be less likely to invest in it.
wealth and income
Wealth is distributed a lot more unequally than income in the United States.
Income is what people earn from work, but also from dividends, interest, and any rents or royalties that are paid to them on properties they own.
Wealth is the value of everything a person or family owns, minus any debts.
A progressive tax is defined as a tax whose rate increases as the payer's income increases. That is, individuals who earn high incomes have a greater proportion of their incomes taken to pay the tax.
A regressive tax, on the other hand, is one whose rate increases as the payer's income decreases.
What type of tax was demanded by Karl Marx? (see above)
Is stratification necessary?
Some social scientists (Davis and Moore; Tumin) claim there is a functional necessity of class stratification. After all, a society must somehow distribute its members in social positions because we have a functional need for less prestigious duties to be fulfilled.
According to these theorists, certain positions in any society are functionally more important than others, and require special skills for their performance. Only a limited number of individuals in any society have the talents and motivation which can be trained into the skills appropriate to these positions. The conversion of talents into skills involves a training period during which sacrifices of one kind or another are made by those undergoing the training. In order to induce the talented persons to undergo these sacrifices and acquire the training, their future positions must carry an inducement value in the form of differential, i.e., privileged and disproportionate access to the scarce and desired rewards which the society has to offer.
what do you think of all of these social class theorists?
Credits:
Created with images by chloe s. - "untitled image" • Bruna Branco - "Oranges" • Paola Aguilar - "La mirada del hombre"