Class and Economic Stratification

Essay discussion

Introduce social divisions and the importance of class for sociology

Discuss Marx’s analysis of class struggle and capitalism

Examine Weber’s critique of these ideas

Assignments are due at 3pm on November 5th – the question can be found on Blackboard

It is 1500 words and worth 40% of your overall grade

Essay need to be submitted to the MJ Centre and on Blackboard

Please email me or come see me in my office hour if you have any concerns

Explain and critically discuss the distinction between agency and structure in modern social life by reference to an event or debate discussed in the news media during October 2012.

Display an understanding of the concepts of structure and agency

Demonstrate an ability to critically analyse different perspectives on agency and structure

Use this analysis to reflect on a contemporary event

The event/debate should be recent, but I am not strict on the timing

Find a discussion of an issue that is relevant to the debate between structure and agency

Use this discussion as an example to demonstrate your understanding

Provide a link to the event and a very brief introduction

Introduction (10%)

◦ Context: Why is this debate important, what is your issue

◦ Preview: What will you discuss and what is your argument

Structure (500 words)

◦ 3 perspectives, each using your event as an example to illustrate the point you are making

Agency (500 words)

◦ 3 perspectives, each using your event as an example to illustrate the point you are making

A combination –synthesis (200 words)

Conclusion (10%)

◦ What have you argued?

◦ Why does this matter

Remember, the assignment is about displaying a critical understanding of structure and agency

Give basic definitions, but try to demonstrate your knowledge of a range of views

Try to avoid only using the textbook and large quotes.

You are encouraged to use knowledge from other parts of the course e.g. This lecture on class

This is a three (four) year degree

We are dealing with complex issues (and Giddens is tough)

Don’t worry if this all feels like a struggle

Thus far we have focused on the distinction between the capacity to act and the structural influences that pattern that capacity

Last week we positioned this debate as a reflection of modernity and the capacity for individuals to act freely

We also discussed the significant structural divides created within modernity that impacted upon our power to act on our intentions

Over the next four weeks we will discuss structural influences upon modern life, in particular those that influence our agency through the production and maintenance of social divisions

This Week: Class and economic stratification (class as structure)

2nd Nov: Class and cultural identification (class as agency?)

9th Nov: Gender and sexuality 23rd Nov: Race and ethnicity

Essay option: Critically discuss the relevance of social class as a way of explaining the production of poverty in 21st century Britain.

Lectures

- Week 4

- Week 5

Readings

• Textbook chapters

• Marx

Seminar

- Week 6

Class is a foundational concept for sociology and a core of

sociological explanations of social stratification

Before gender and sexuality became significant political issues, class was regarded as the mechanism that divides individuals within society

Class is regarded as a structure that produces social patterns and influences human behaviour

However, there is considerable debate around class, primarily - Is class an economic category, or a matter of cultural differences?

Moreover, is class still relevant in contemporary life?

Social differences: Characteristics that distinguish and separate some people from other people

Social Division: Social differences with some permanence that result in some groupings being disadvantaged in relation to others

The questions of social divisions (next year!): Why do differences become divisions, and how can we resist this process

In discussing class we are attempting to understand stratification and inequality, for which there are numerous explanations ◦ Gender, ethnicity, culture ◦ Marx, Weber, Bourdieu

In particular we focus on poverty and exclusion

We ask: How are class structures created?

How much influence do class structures have over our lives (how much does structure determine our agency)?

The standard academic definition of class is as a form of stratification

As a consequence of this stratification, class has a sense of inequality and perhaps injustice

Class is a political issue ◦ Depending on our framework of explanation

However, the common sense notion is that of a

cultural identity e.g. This is a really classy pub

Employment Education

Health Exploitation?

Structure

Fashion Food

Language Work Ethic?

Consumption

Agency

If class structures are created by the economy and determine our social positions and life chances, then inequality is unjust

If class is actively created through culture, this shows a capacity for action and individuals become responsible for their circumstances

Our response to these questions greatly influences our response to stratification

To what degree are the unemployed in 21st

century Britain responsible for their

circumstances?

Is this the same across the world and at different

stages of history?

Our responses to these questions depend on how the concept of class is understood

The two most influential classical approaches arise from Karl Marx and Max Weber

In the communist manifesto Marx argued that: “The history of all hitherto existing human society is the history of class struggles”

He positioned class as the central dynamic of historical developments

This dynamic is an antagonism, a contradiction within capitalism that drives social and political practices

Human societies have always featured unequal structures and hierarchies

These were often thought to be natural or god-given ◦ Slavery, caste systems, feudalism

With the industrial revolution, the enlightenment and capitalism (modernity) came a new sense of individual freedom ◦ Inequality was something that could be overcome through

hard work and risk taking

Marx argued that class is determined by the economic structures established in capitalism

These categories are objectively determined by the mode of production within capitalism ◦ Mode of production= Forces and

relations of production

The raw materials, tools and technology used to produce commodities and materially reproduce our lives

The social relationships constructed in order to materially reproduce our lives, structured according to the political needs of the economy

Marx argued that the economy reflects the objective state of society

That objective state is mediated through a super-structural apparatus that includes culture, ideology and state institutions

There is considerable debate within Marxism around the feasibility of this model

In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness

1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

27951 and your message to +447624806527

Economic Structure (Capitalist Mode of Production)

Human Behaviour (Agency)

Family Culture Politics

Capitalism is a system for the material reproduction of our lives in which private owners of the forces of production establish relations of production that allow commodities to be sold for more than they cost to make

Marx argued that these relations are exploitative because of unequal access to productive resources

Marx argued that the relations of production were objectively divided into two ‘great classes’

The bourgeoisie are those who control of production and thus have the ability to reproduce themselves outside of their own labour

By contrast, the proletariat are those with nothing to sell but their labour (and bodies)

Image: '-8' http://www.flickr.com/photos/11043981@N00/2910149650

For Marx owners were able to exploit workers because they have the power to pay less than the value that the worker produces

They are able to do so because of the vulnerability of labour

Workers are often born without the land or technology to reproduce their lives, and are thus forced the sell their bodies to work for those who are able to control these resources

Workers can also be dispossessed through what Marx called ‘primitive accumulation’

Primitive accumulation is vital to establishing class stratification

Feudal societies were often categorised by extreme inequality of land ownership that continue today

Imperial adventures often produced ‘accumulation by dispossession’ as local land and resources came under the control of empires

Neo-liberal restructuring in the West and globally has produced wide scale transfer of assets from the public to private sector

Thinking about some part-time work you have done, do you feel that you were

exploited?

Capitalism and modern societies rely on the idea of individual reward for working hard

Marxists’ argue that economic wealth is more accurately predicted by starting position

This starting position is historically determined

As a consequence of this ‘injustice’, it is in workers interests to rise up against the system that exploits them

This is a question of structure: The operation of capitalism creates a dynamic (class struggle) in which the wealthiest exploit the poorest

This exploitation is not isolated, but is reproduced through structural institutions (the base) and cultural practices (the superstructure)

Consequently, individuals have little capacity to resist

“[People] make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.”

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852)

Marx argued that the goals of the classes are in direct conflict: profit vs. wages.

As a consequence capitalism is structured around the contradiction between these goals

Thus capitalism is not totally determining, but allows a certain group – the proletariat – the capacity to ‘truly’ resist capitalism

However, workers may not be aware of their capacity to act in this way

Marx argued that the working classes must become conscious of their position as a class

Once they became aware of this position they could overthrow their masters and live in a classless society

Class is always class struggle, a point of resistance to power

Capitalism presents itself as providing opportunities for action and choice

Capitalism and liberal democracy are based around the right to choose, suggesting that we have equal capacity for action

Marxist’s suggests that this overt capacity for small choices masks the structural determinism of capitalism

Marx had predicted that capitalism would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions as the working classes became conscious of their position

Why has this not occurred? The rise of the middle classes Progressive social reforms Complexity of class structures The loss of identity of the working class Marx was wrong about capitalism?

There have been numerous attempts to supplement Marx’s work

These often rejected ‘historical materialism’ and ‘economic determinism’ to focus more on agency than structure

They have responded to the increasing complexity of capitalism and class positions

Focused on the functional appeals of capitalism

How convinced are you about the value

of Marxist explanations of class

and inequality?

Max Weber, writing after Marx, argued for a more multi-dimensional understanding of class than allowed for greater cultural construction and agency

Weber posited a three-way interactive structure of class ◦ Economic inequality ◦ Power or authority ◦ Status

This has resonated strongly with governments, inspiring the concept of socio-economic status (SES)

Power is the ability of an individual to express their will, particularly against others – an expression of agency ◦ Do you have the capacity to act on your intentions and

influence the capacity of others to do so?

The ability to command resources is a vital element of power - power can be an economic factor

This power includes charisma and domination

Possession of property and resources – structurally determined

Income and labour skills – an expression of ‘effort’ and agency

Weber challenged the idea that classes possess a single consciousness and thus rejected Marx’s revolutionary theory

Economic position is important, but it interacts with other factors

By contrast to class groups, status is relative to communities

Status is derived from relative prestige within a community and shifting structural value

What is valued as status may change depending on community

Status is not always an economic concept

Class is still defined by work, this time by the notion of occupation

Occupation takes into account income, ability to command authority and social conceptions of status

The Weberian model of Socio-Economic Status (SES) has become popular because it is able to reflect increased stratification and changing work patterns in the West

1. Higher managerial and professional occupations 2. Lower managerial and professional occupations 3. Intermediate occupations (clerical, sales, service) 4. Small employers and own account workers 5. Lower supervisory and technical occupations 6. Semi-routine occupations 7. Routine occupations 8. Never worked and long-term unemployed

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/classifications/current-standard

classifications/soc2010/soc2010-volume-3-ns-sec--rebased-on-soc2010--user-manual/index.html

Class is becoming harder to represent as traditional categories merge

Class is becoming less important as a form of identity

Does this mean that we live in a classless society? ◦ What is the motivation for this kind of statement?

Why would governments seek to map class in this way?

How would you describe your class position?

Is it an important part of how you think about yourself?

How much do you think class will influence your future life chances?

Class is one of the primary modes of social stratification and division

Marxist notions of class struggle are some of the most influential…

…but have come under strong critique

Weberian ideas around status and authority have more official appeal

The way we conceptualise class very important for directing responses to poverty and inequality

Class as culture

Read ◦ Fulcher and Scott (2011) Sociology, Chapter 20.

◦ Giddens (2009) Sociology, Chapter 12.

◦ Macionis, & Plummer (2012) Sociology, Chapter 8.

Email me or attend office hours (Monday, 3pm GB152) if you have any concerns about your essay ◦ chris.mcmillan@brunel.ac.uk