• MARX

Stratification refers to the division of society into layers. These layers are distinguished by unequal rewards and life chances. Most sociologists see stratification as involving a classification not only of the groups, but also of the relationships which exist between them.

Class is the kind of stratification found in industrial (capitalist) societies. Other forms of stratification found in pre-industrial societies include caste and the feudal system.

The issue of social inequality is immensely important to sociologists and crops up throughout sociology. It is, of course, often seen as a social problem as well as a sociological one. This note is called Social class rather than Social inequality in order to restrict our discussion to this particular form of inequality. Other forms of inequality, such as gender, ethnicity and age, are discussed elsewhere.

Since ‘inequality’ as a concept is at the heart of much of our discussion, it is worth nothing that it can be used in at least three contexts:

Class is a major variable in considering topics such as health and education. Topics such as poverty, the distribution of power, work, professions and development are frequently analysed as forms of inequality, and of course Marxists reduce the key explanation of all social phenomena to a discussion of economic inequality.

The main themes of questions set on this topic are:

There are a number of major theories which seek to explain society inequality.

Economic production is the foundation upon which other social institutions and ideas are built. Classes, which exist in all pre-communist societies, are defined in terms of their relationship to the means of production. The Ruling Class own the means of production and dominate and exploit the subject class. The Subject Class, who do not own the means of production, are forced to sell their labour to the employers in order to live. They are not paid the full value of their work. This ‘Surplus Value’ provides profit and rent, and allows the accumulation of capital. In capitalist society the two classes are:

The Bourgeoisie who own the means of production, such as factories and railways. This ownership can either be directly, as sole proprietors, partners or shareholders, or indirectly, e.g. as bankers.

The Proletariat who are the class of wage labourers working in factories and generally living in towns.

Theoretical criticism comes from Weber and his followers and from his functionalists (see below). In addition, some modern Marxists now question certain aspects of his work in the light of subsequent developments. Empirical criticism comes from analysing the class structure of modern industrial societies (see below).

Critics challenge the following aspects of Marx’s analysis and predictions:

1 Class is based on ownership of the means of production.

2 There are only two significant classes.

3 The relationship between classes is based on exploitation and oppression.

• Monopolisation of capital
• Homogenisation of the working class.
• Pauperisation of the working class.
• Polarisation of the two classes.

Social inequality is based on differences in power held by groups, not just on differences in class.

The Sources of power are:

• Class.
• Status.
• Party.

This is an objective economic category, so people are in a class whether they are conscious of it or not. A class is a group who share the same economic causes as determinants of their life chances, i.e. the opportunities to acquire goods and services. There are three kinds of classes.

• Property classes who own more or less wealth (compare this with Marx).
• Commercial classes whose market situation varies. This ‘market situation’

• Social classes are groups within which mobility is typical and easy.

This is a subjective category based on honour or prestige, which could be influenced by occupation or birth. Status groups share the same lifestyle, they consume the same goods and may have a common education. They may or may not be conscious of their group identity.

This refers to a group who are organised with the objective of gaining power. A party may represent all, or part, of a class or status group. Examples include Trade Unions, Professional Association, Bureaucratic Organisations and Political parties.

The value of Weber’s work, according to A. Giddens, is that it ‘provides what is missing in Marx’. Thus both negative and position criticisms are to be found in the debate with Marx and with modern Marxists. We might consider the following points on the class structure of modern industrial societies:

1 class does not depend solely on ownership.

2 There are more than two classes.

4. Social change is not necessarily economically determined.
5. Class consciousness may or may not develop.

The dominant writers here are Parsons and Davis and Moore. These theories offer a critical view of the conflict explanations of inequality provided by followers of both Marx and Weber. Inequality is explained in terms of its functions and is, in effect, justified. Parsons claims that stratification systems are based on common values and thus integrate rather than divide societies. The ranking of individuals is based on a consensual view of the importance of positions. Thus winners, as well as losers, see inequality as legitimate, since the rules of the game are "fair". Power is granted to those in important positions in order to help them organise others, and this interdependence of workers is seen as a further encouragement to social integration. Because goals are shared, and because inequality helps to achieve these goals, everyone benefits (compare with Marx). Davis and Moore identify the functions of stratification as role allocation and performance rather than integration. Here inequality ensures that the most important positions in society are conscientiously filled by the most able individuals.

Conflict theories reject the whole idea that inequality can be based on consensual values and thereby benefits all members of society. Specific criticisms of Davis and Moore come from both Tumin and Buckley. Tumin questions the following propositions which are made by the functionalists (this also serves as a useful checklist of Davis and Moore’s work).

1 Some positions are functionally more important than others.

Buckley offers some important logical criticisms. He claims that Davis and Moore try (and probably fail) to explain differentiation rather than stratification. Differentiation refers to the attaching of unequal rewards to particular positions at one moment in time. Stratification refers to the unequal opportunities individuals and groups have to reach the highly rewarded positions, and is seen as more or less permanent. Class, race and gender inequality prevent the most able from achieving the most important positions. Thus stratification may be seen as dysfunctional, as it wastes talent, reduces motivation and causes conflict.

This has been used since 1911 for official statistics and is frequently used by sociologists, as it is generally accepted despite the criticisms below. It was updated for the 1991 census.

The grading was based on the status of the job; now it is based on skills and qualifications.

The Department of Employment uses the new Standard Occupational Classification, which has nine categories of jobs and deals more effectively with women’s jobs.

Alternative schemes have been devised because some sociologists find them more useful. A popular one was used in the Oxford mobility studies. It is based on differences in pay and working conditions.

The numbers in each group have changed because of changes in occupational structure. Generally there has been a consistent increase in non-manual compared with manual jobs, and in particular a growth in professional occupations.

Sociologists have pointed out problems with using occupation as a measure of class. Some of these problems apply to particular classifications and some to the who idea of jobs indicating class.

The validity and reliability of sociological studies and government statistics are threatened if the occupational groupings are unsuitable.

Social mobility studies measure movement up and down the classifications; therefore we must be confident which occupations are higher-status.

Social mobility refers to the movement up or down the class structure by individuals or groups. Sociologists are most interested in cross-class mobility. Intra-generational mobility describes the movement within an individual’s working life. Inter-generational mobility compares the occupations of fathers and sons. Stratum mobility is the movement of a whole occupational group within the occupational ranking.

The main sociological issues include:

The following issues need examination. Consider whether changes have occurred and, if so, their causes and consequences.

1 Embourgeoisement.

2 A fragmented working class.

3 The underclass.

4 Proletarianisation.

5 A fragmented middle-class.

6 A classless society.

Marx anticipated an impoverished and increasingly homogenised working class who would become class conscious and ultimately revolutionary. The studies below, including those by most of the modern Marxists, accept the decline of the traditional working class.

In a study of working-class conservative voting, Rose found that only 25% of manual workers had all five characteristics of his ‘ideal type’. These characteristics of the ‘ideal’ working-class type included being a manual worker, a trade-union member, a tenant, having a minimum education, and being a self-assigned member of the working class.

Lockwood identified three groups within the working class, their differing values being based on residential and occupational communities. He identified: Proletarian Traditionalism, e.g. miners; Deferential Traditionalism, e.g. farm workers, and the Privatised working class, e.g. car workers. Many subsequent studies have reinforced this division between the traditional and the ‘new’ working class.

In one of three books based on a study of both manual and non-manual factory workers in Luton in the early 1960s, the authors tested and refuted the then fashionably. Embourgeoisement thesis, which suggested that affluent workers had become middle class They argued for the continued existence of a gap between manual and non-manual workers. Nevertheless, they did suggest the emergence of a new working class, with instrumental attitudes to work derived from a privatised family life.

Supports the Goldthopre et al study by seeing a continued divide between manual and non-manual workers, and thereby a divided working class. However, rather than a ‘new’ working class he identifies a privileged group of skilled craft workers whose rare skills and organisation maintain high rewards. (The fate of print workers after the Wapping more perhaps challenges this view.)

Hill found that the allegedly new instrumental attitudes to work existed in a traditional working-class community of dockers.

Parkin identified three value systems in modern Britain: a dominant value system supporting middle-and upper-class interest influencing increasing numbers of the working class through education and the media. A subordinate value system found in sheltered working-class communities. A radical value system found among left-inclined middle-class workers.

Rex used a Weberian approach to identify an ethnically differentiated ‘underclass’, one which was separate from the white proletariat. He also sees the possibility of an ethnic consciousness cutting across class boundaries

Women are seen as particularly disadvantaged in the labour market. Whether or not this demonstrates a division within the working class depends on the extent to which the writer is influenced by orthodox Marxist views. The same applies to studies of racial disadvantage. The concept of a reserve army of labour as applied to women, immigrants and minorities accepts their disadvantage but still locates them within a unitary working class.

These studies are concerned first with establishing the existence of a distinct middle class separated from manual workers by rewards and consciousness, and second with identifying differences within the middle classes.

This study distinguished five groups within the middle classes based on the image the group had of the place of the middle class in society. Roberts called these images of society:

• The middle mass.
• The compressed middle class.
• The finely graded occupational ladder.
• The proletarian middle-class.
• The new radicals.

Goldthorpe suggested that the British middle class was becoming increasingly large and fragmented, and that beneath it there remained the remnants of a traditional working class. By examining the origins of parents, and the likely life chances of children, he identified four major groups within the middle class.

• The old middle classes, which were recruited from the higher-class parents.
• The new middle classes, which were recruited from the lower-class parents.
• The established middle classes, which have children whose future is secure.
• The marginal middle classes, which have children whose future is insecure.

Thus clerks could be described as new and marginal, the service class as new and established small proprietors as old and marginal, and professionals as old and established.

Although Lockwood’s Blackcoated worker’ is the earliest study mentioned here, it has been left to the end, as it provides the best link with the modern Marxist studies which follows Lockwood tested the Marxist hypothesis that clerks were in fact ‘falsely conscious’ proletarians. He used the Weberian distinction between class and status to show that the clerk remained a superior worker in terms of market situation, work situation and status. He did, however, predict a diminishing of these advantages and he accepted the clerks were not part of a traditional middle class but, rather, part of a new instrumentally collectivist one. (This idea should remind you of the Luton Studies.)

These writers attempt to deal with the various criticisms already mentioned and with the changes in modern industrial societies, such as rising incomes for all classes, the growth of non-manual work at the expense of manufacturing, the institutionalisation of class conflict and its diminishing effects.

Although his work contains both Marxist and Weberian influences, it extended the concept of alienation from the factory to the office and suggested the increasingly popular hypothesis of ‘proletarianisation’ of the middle classes. His work is not restricted to routine office workers but also covers managers, professionals and salesmen.

Carchedi adds the feminisation of office work to the usual list of factors encouraging proletarianisation of clerical workers.

Braverman offers a variation from traditional Marxism by accepting that changes take place in the composition of classes as the methods of production change. His writing emphasises the effects of routinisation, bureaucratisation, fragmentation, and the deskilling of work on the composition of classes.

Those two authors conducted an empirical study of class in modern Britain which used a Marxist perspective. They argued that too many discussions of class ignore the overwhelming importance of wealth. Thus they deal only with division within the working class and fail to consider the crucial division between the bourgeoisie and the rest.

These studies explain the lack of class consciousness among the working class by discussing the development of ideological controls. Both studies identify the importance of schooling in this process. Althusser adds the media to the list of ideological state apparatuses which substitute for overt oppression.

Marcuse attempted to deal with the problems which affluence presents to those Marxists who predict impoverishment. He saw the rich working class enslaved by ‘chains of gold’. He thought that they were forced to work in order to pursue ‘false needs’ created by advertising.

Wright produced classification of occupations influenced by:

• Marx – note the significance of ownership.
• Weber – note the significance of differences in power.

OWNER-EMPLOYER Employer

Petty-Bourgeois

MIDDLE CLASS Expert Manager

Non-Expert Manager

Non-Manager Expert

WORKING CLASS Skilled Worker

Routine Worker

Power is assessed by the degree of control the occupation has in the workplace. Wright measures power by looking at control over:

• Investment decisions, e.g. can open or close a factory.
• Machinery used in production, e.g. can speed up the assembly line.
• Labour, e.g. can manage, hire and fire workers.

As in other Marxist accounts, the differences within the working class between manual and non-manual workers is not seen as being as significant as the division between capitalists and workers.

However, the power held by managers means that they have contradictory class locations sharing the characteristics of both workers and owners. They differ from the working class in terms of

• Wealth (they may have shares in companies).
• Working conditions.
• Life chances, e.g. health, education and social mobility.

In a study of Britain in the 1940s and 1950s, Miller showed high rates of upward mobility for manual workers and high rates of downward mobility for non-manual workers.

His 1960 comparative study suggested similar rates of mobility in modern industrial societies, including communist ones. Lipsett and Bendix suggested something similar in the 1940s, although subsequent studies have questioned this view.

In a major study conducted in 1949, Glass found high levels of short-range mobility. He suggested the existence of a buffer zone preventing access to the top positions, but a strong possibility of movement up or down for both skilled manual workers and non-manual workers.

The Oxford mobility study was interested in the effects of post-war economic growth and education reform on mobility. It found a more open society than Glass, e.g. only 25% of the top class had fathers from this class. However, the life chances of those at the top remained much better than they were for those at the bottom. The major cause of increased mobility was identified as being the expansion of the service class, owing to technological change, rather than to any increased open competition in order to get to the top.

This update on the earlier study found that the previous trends had continued, except that the opportunities for manual workers’ sons had improved. Downward movement was also reduced, but the arrival of high levels of unemployment had increased the risk of moving down for manual workers themselves.

Evaluation of the major studies is a popular question. Some criticisms are specific to a particular study, others are move general, involving methodological or even ideological concerns.

The positive value of the mobility studies is that they allow us to test hypotheses, such as Embourgeoisement, Proletarianisation, Structuration, Elite theories and the success or otherwise of educational reforms.

Problems of measurement of mobility include: