3. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION and System Change -Starting point of Modernity (from ideological point of view): French Revolution’s Slogans: Liberty (Freedom), Egal it (Equality), Fraternity (Brotherhood) 1. freedom of the individuals; main institution: the MARKET (economics) 2. equality of LIFE CHANCES, or more skeptical interpretation: – aim: to decrease the inequalities of life chances 3. tolerance and acceptance between different cultures, nations, ethnicities – SOCIAL (and Economic) INEQUALITIES in the center of STRATIFICATION approaches – Social Stratification: the division of a population into UNEQUAL LAYERS or STRATA based on income, wealth, gender, ethnicity, power, status, religion, age or some other characteristics.
-SLAVERY system: the individuals, who are considered as SLAVES do not possess a personal physical freedom – e. g. : Antic Rome – subjugation of “inferior” barbara tribes, blacks in the United States, (first half of the 19 th century) -CASTE SYSTEM: ascribed social statuses (social status at BIRTH) provide the principal bases of unequal distribution of social resources e. g. India: Brahmin (fathers: priests, 2%), Kshatriya (warriors, 1%), Vaisya (traders, 7%), Sudra (artisans, 70%) and Untouchables (20%) – it is a CLOSED system: people have great difficulty in changing status -CLASS SYSTEM: an open system, where people can change status, in which ACHIEVED status provide the principal basis for the unequal distribution of social resources -Social CLASSES (based on ECONOMIC characteristics, such as wealth and income) 1. MARXist approach: CONFLICT between two classes, e.
g. in the capitalist “mode of production”: BOURGEOISIE (capitalists, owners of productive wealth) against PROLETARIAT (landless wage workers) 2. WEBER ian approach: in capitalist societies inequalities can be associated wit the MARKET; market capacity determines LIFE CHANCES – class+ STATUS (the relative PRESTIGE of a person’s social standing) + power – aim: EMPIRICAL description of a society (MERTON vs. Parsons) Merton: middle-range theories; link theories to empirical testing Parsons: “grand theory”; purely theoretical construct of A GIL-scheme – empirical examples for stratification in contemporary societies 1. the poor 2.
working class (unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled manual workers) 3. middle class (e. g. white collars) 4. upper class (ELITE: who can influence the most important DECISIONS in a field) – STATUS: a composite index of several social characteristics (e. g.
: income, occupation, education, place of living, life style, ethnicity, gender etc. ) which create social layers (strata) – STATUS INCONSISTENCY: different characteristics seem to contradict (e. g. : a top manager of a MNCs, living in a small village, having only a primary etc. ) – Incongruence: your occupational POSITION does not fit to your level of education (e. g.
ELITE in early stage of State Socialism) – a contemporary theory of social stratification: theory of capitals BOURDIEU 1. economic (material): wealth, income 2. cultural (human): embodied (education) and symbolic (life style, cultural patterns) 3. social (friends, kinship networks e. g to get INFORMATION, getting a JOB, to have material or emotional SUPPORT in case of problems) – Examples for MEASUREMENT – Meritocracy: your position based on your KNOWLEDGE (often identified by your level of education), your WORK PERFORMANCE – Reproduction of inequalities In contemporary societies by the institutions of the EDUCATION (a possible conversion of the different forms of capitals: e. g.
if you pay more, you can get into better schools) – MOBILITY: change in socio-economic status (e. g from an unskilled worker to a top manager at an MNCs) – intra generational (inside one life history, e. g. as a 20-years-old unskilled worker vs. a 45-years-old top manager) and intergenerational (from one generation to the other; compared to your father and / or mother) mobility -upward and downward mobility – Relative deprivation: your relative position has become worth compared to other social strata (e. g.
Roma people in Hungary during state socialism: their absolute position improved, but the distance between them and the other part of the society grew) – Example: SYSTEM CHANGE and Stratification in Hungary after 1989 – transition or transformation (a long theoretical debate) – Bartha’s interpretation (personal view): TRANSITION: in the level of the AIMS/goals: e. g. from state-socialism to a free-market capitalism TRANSFORMATION: in the level of TECHNICS, the choosen economic policies (PATH-dependence); e. g.
PRIVATISATION: how in Hungary: centralized tendering vs. Czech Republic: voucher-privatisation – the INNER STRATIFICATION of the ECONOMIC ELITE during the transformation (transition) period – ELITE: those people who are able to inleunce the most important DECISION-MAKING processes in the economic, cultural or political sphere (respectively: economic, cultural or political elite); the members of the elite are NOT necessarily neither the “richest” ones, nore the “most famous” ones – empirical description of the elite: 1. reputation al sample (e. g. : different “ART schools”) 2. institutional (positional) sample – e.
g. economic elite in Hungary during the 90’s segments: large industrial corporations (among them: MNCs), banks+ other financial institutions (insurance and broker companies), economic ministries, Parliament’s economic committees – positions: at least a “head of department” – the privilegised segment: financial segment + MNCs – younger people, more women, predominance of economic education (vs. engineering /industrial corp. / or law /Parliament/), more refined life style (higher cultural consumption; close to that of that cultural elite! ) – the level of ELITE REPRODUCTION is relatively high (the change of the elite members is relatively low) compared to the other post-communist elites (Poland, Czech Republic) WHY – 1. power conversion theory (Hankins): successful conversion of the former nomenklatura’s /party leaders/ political power to economic power MEASUREMENT: – indicator 1: leading HSW P- (MSZP-) party position in the 80’s – indicator 2: new economic elite position -2.
technocratic continuity theory (Sz alai): in Hungary the elite change has started in the 80’s – most of the former elite’s members had still an appropriate level of education before 1989, they could conserve their position thanks to their expertism, “technocratic” professional knowledge MEASUREMENT: – indicator 1: level of incongruence before 1989 – indicator 2: level of incongruence in the 90’s Result of the empirical testing: rather the hypothesis of technocratic continuity can be maintained.