DEBATING INEQUALITY
" Man was born free and is everywhere in chains." - Rousseau
The reading introduces the beginning of the understanding and analysis of a supposed societal class. The important early point that was made is that the existence and acceptance of inequality in traditional societies has also been seen as divinely preordained. This allows that the best should get the majority of the rewards of the society. In traditional societies rigid stratification systems were in place as in the caste system of India, and the hierarchal, feudal system of Europe dominated by the secular and ecclesiastical lords. The 19th century though has seen the birth and growth of the industrial revolution and the eventual coming to modernity. An emphasis on humanity was put forward as a major argument and it claims that all human beings are created equal. This is the beginning of a sociological approach to the explanation of inequality. 16th century thinker, Hobbes said that the push and pull between equality and inequality is a natural condition, and that the majority rule should be adhered to, else there will be chaos. This was corroborated by a later thinker, Locke, who said that the interest of the minority, right to life, property and liberty, is best protected by the ruling state. The concept of direct democracy says that the general will would best afford the greatest protection of the individual.
The Industrial Revolution was characterized by the expansion of markets and the transformation of the processes of production. This brought the serfs out into the centers of production and became landless laborers. People became a commodity. The socialist theory puts forward the idealism of the state and that its strength is tantamount to economic power. The Capitalist mode of production would have as a precondition to development the sovereign individualism of capitalism. On the other hand, political equality is said to co-exist with material inequality and the landless laborer created as a consequence of political and economic change constituted a new class ( proletariat) which was emerging as a result of the development of industrial capitalism which in turn was the major element in the transition to modernity.
The foundations of the capitalist order are traced back to the ideologies of religion, traditions of the society, rules relating to individual behavior such as truth, trust and social obligations. These are powerful justifications for the unequal distribution of resources. Late 20th century capitalism showed a decay of the status order, erosion of customary assumptions which had provided for differential distribution of rewards. Moral legacy is diminished and the corrosive control of the active capitalist values came to the fore.
Class is defined as a characteristic of modern stratification systems of industrial societies. It also drives contemporary stratification systems as a major organizing concept. Class-based organizations represent classes and their interests. These are said to be the dynamic source of the many changes and transformation of the modern era.
THEORIES OF SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION
“ Inequality is a feature of all complex societies” -Rosseau
It is argued that material inequality is not necessarily a bad thing. Modern arguments have come to cite that the preoccupation with the disadvantaged would treat the advantaged as less than equal. It is also thought of as positively beneficial in modern societies. Self interest encourages innovation and technological advances in capitalist societies. Capitalism is said to be dynamic precisely because it is unequal. The neo-liberals claim that if one wants to intervene politically to bring about greater material equality, one may eventually disrupt the economic engine of plenty and endanger the material living standards of the society.
These are the main types:
The functionalist theory of Davis and Moore ( 1945 ) on social inequality said that it is an unconsciously evolved device by which societies insure that the most important positions are conscientiously filled by the most qualified persons. In industrialist societies, individuals must be induced to train for positions requiring a high level of skills and compensated for having to take risks. The strata, instead of classes, is proposed as the main categorization structure.
The Parsonian (1945) structural –functionalism ushered in the functionalist theories of modernism with specific considerations for stratification. The same are also reflected in Durkheim’s analysis of the ultimate social consequence of the division of labor in an industrial society despite its negative offshoots it would still lead to the development of an organic solidarity.
Stratification theory poses that inequality is legitimate through the values of societal importance relating to particular functions of moral justification. Liberalism suggests that the best get to the top and have greater access to resources and reap the rewards. However, there is always the presumption that there is an equality of opportunity although this has never been achieved, it is used as a powerful justification for inequality. Not to discredit the states, specially in the west, there has been an attempt to level the opportunities by expanding services in health, education and welfare. In spite this, sociologists would suggest a return to the traditional structures. Functionalists explain the role of material Inequality in a legal, political equal environment in two main points;
1. unequal rewards provide a structure of incentives which gives individual with talents the faith that they will work hard and innovate to contribute to material resource
2. a broad consensus exists as to the legitimacy of their superior rewards, as such innovators are functionally more important than others
Conflict theory emphasizes the importance and significance of power and coercion in any explanation of inequality and that order will be achieved through self regulation as is the practiced in capitalist market societies. However the double movement straddles between self regulation and reform movements even as the 20th century seeks to offer compromise by increasing government supported programs in protection and welfare as embodied in the social order known as Fordism.
CLASS: A MULTIFACETED CONCEPT
Class is often understood in ordinary language as lifestyle, prestige or rank of a person as pared with another. Others as a structures social and economic inequality, or the actual or potential social and political actors. But there later emerged a redundancy of the term since many aristocrats wanted to enjoy social privileges and low-paid laborers who strove to access the facilities of the other. This seems to end the arguments on class since particular kinds of consumption are no longer tied to just one specific status group. The popular concept of the flattening of the world becomes even more evident.
Another concept of class is seen in the general description of structures of material inequality as manifest in the different levels of access to economic and power resources. These however are not categorized using formal ad legal distinctions but rather by material terms in a competitive capitalist environment. Occupation is one of the major basis for categorization and its perceived importance hierarchy in society.
Class is also seen from the perspective political overtones based on the capability of social actors to potentially transform society. The masses are seen as a possible threat to established social order. In spite this distinction, problems with the understanding of the concept persists precisely because of the varied uses and causes it effects. The continuing debates in social theory and the rapid economic changes within which these theories seek to explain contribute to the misunderstanding of the concept.
SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
" You have never had it so good. " - Macmillan, 1957
As mentioned above, the continued debates on the issue of inequality are affected by the rapid change in society and further complicated by the issues on methodology. Positivism was criticized by humanists as being radically different from the methods that should be involved in the social and natural sciences by virtue of the difference of their subject matter. But since human beings are capable of independent decision making, generalizations may not be applicable as to the methods involved in classification.
Giddens ( 1982 ) identified as an orthodox consensus the class analysis that emerged after the second world war which had three elements: 1) it was influenced by the framework of positivism and investigations were closely modeled to the natural sciences and eventual facts labeled as "things"; 2) the predominance of a predominantly functionalist approach; 3) the influence of a conception of " industrial society" where technology is the driving force.
And while this consensus is also criticized, developments in occupational stratification systems were believed to converge in the direction of more open structures where the middle class predominates. The industrial society encompassed dialogues relating to class and stratification at a time of a seeming social stability. Challenges however continue as overlapping, resurgent, and extension theories are discussed. Marxist appropriation by writers fitted with positivist modes of social investigation.
The classical class theory was paralleled by developments in sociological methods wherein class analysis was possible. This is the employment- aggregate approach to class analysis. These methods appeared to link two major aspects of the classical class, 1) class as a source of structured social inequality, 2) class as a source of social and political identity, consciousness and action.
As classes were conceived to be empirically investigable within the class structure, the methods of investigation was complemented by a wide increase in scope and capacity for data processing. Programs for class analysis were then made in which developments in class theory and survey were combined. However the different class schemes constructed for different purposes, there are many similarities between location and status. Later Studies in class analysis was dominated by the employment aggregate approach. But he rapid social, economic and political change undermined what were assumptions and concerns.
It is thus identified that the leading empirical method in sociological class analysis does not really offer solutions as far as contemporary issues are concerned. It is said that the failure of systematic class-based action is a major challenge to class analysis in itself. Class and class analysis are considered outdated concepts and therefore the methods of research used to further understand these are rendered irrelevant in the contemporary societies it sought to explain.
THE WIDER CRITIQUE OF CLASS ANALYSIS
It is said that significant societal shifts rendered the class redundant and may signify a main shift in the development of capitalist industrialism. The break-up older mass production industries, growth of new computer-based production and flexible specialization characterize the situation. Postmodern theorizing rendered the theories of the past useless. Global changes in humanity's ways and methods sought to change the traditional social sciences and required a rethinking of the basic concepts of modernity such as class. Individualism has become important again even in institutions such as politics. Collective identities ( Beck, 2002 ) are also rendered irrelevant and society is fragmented into individuals. " Individualization is the structural, sociological transformation of the institutions and of the individual's relationship to society and removes him from status-based classes and the detraditionalization affects extra and intra familial relationships.
New social movements which are concerned with environmental issues and the rights of marginalized groups veered away from the distributional issues of old politics. This however does not mean that possible conflict is done away but must be still considered. Postmodern culture erased traditionalism and is eroding the power of the state itself. Some believe that the decline of the state and employment-based institutions is leading to the emergence of systems of stratification that are cultural in origin, as on the basis of their personal qualities, individuals select preferred lifestyles. In contemporary societies, class basis of stratification is no longer existing. The preferences of individuals are increasingly expressed in terms of consumption rather than production as it was in the past. The emphasis on consumption is tied up with the cultural turn in the social sciences. But this does not represent a distinct paradigm shift in terms of methodological investigation centered on interpretive understanding.
The question of whether the classes should be regarded as actual or potential significant social force at the end of the last century and the beginning of this century. Even as capitalist societies are still considered highly unequal, and employment has declined as a significant source of identity, it is still provides for the material well being of the individual. Therefore, class and inequality is still persisting in societies. The ruling class is also predominantly the economically dominant and has the capacity to influence political and social life. Changes in societal organization and the commentaries that accompany these changes also provide more opportunities for stratification analysis.
ACTION AND STRUCTURE, ECONOMY AND CULTURE
" There is a real danger of winning the cultural battles but losing the class war…"
The positivism of the 60's and the 70's asserted that neither subject nor object ( structure nor action) should have primacy in societal significance as these have problems of causal explanation at the core. Thus we ask if human behavior is to be looked at as reactive to the pressures in the social and economic environments within which humans are located? Or is to be understood as an outcome of the actions of purposive agents? The duality of social life is manifest in the push and pull of individual action and collective effect in society. And class, as encompassing this duality, is the mergence of structure and action with structure as the ultimate determinant of action. Similarly, it is said that economic life is embedded in the social and cultural relations of a society. Pre-modern societies combined status and class in their forms of stratification while modern societies tend to differentiate class relations from the usual cultural and traditional status.
Cultural turn theoretically rejects however the separation of structure and action as well as the economic and social as this is associated with the declining significance of the class concept as far as analysis is concerned. To seriously consider culture as a factor in classification negates the established structures of stratification research. Some assumptions in methods must be put forward to anchor future discussions of stratification research; the de facto duality of social life means that primacy to either agency or structure is problematic and an analytical separation must be assumed. The same will be assumed with regards to the economic and the cultural, and thus the cultural is really embedded in the economic and vice versa.
The cultural turn theorists emphasize the agent and therefore refrain from explanations as to the causes of action within a society. This stance will not be able to provide solutions to problems of inequality. Similarly, discussions separating the cultural from the economic tend to exclude material inequality. Still, separation of the individual and collective action rings of neo-liberalism and promotes only the rights of the individual which messes the perceived acceptable social situation. In the end this paper stresses that identity politics have serious repercussions on the politics of equality. Empirical research and theoretical debates in class and stratification are influenced by the overarching sociological contexts in theory and methodology. To progress our understanding of analytical dualism, we need to dissect the whole into related parts. However, a recognition of this dichotomy should be made to make a coherent analysis of the subject with inequality at the core.