Pitirim
Sorokin
Social
Stratification
κοινωνική διαστρωμάτωση
ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ
Concepts
and Definitions
Social
stratification means the differentiation of a given population into
hierarchically superposed classes. It is manifested in the existence of upper
and lower layers. Its basis and very essence consist in an unequal distribution
of rights and privileges, duties and responsibilities, social values and
privations, social power and influences among the members of a society.
Concrete
forms of social stratification are different and numerous. If the economic
status of the members of a society is unequal, if among them there are both
wealthy and poor, the society is economically stratified, regardless of whether
its organization is communistic or capitalistic, whether in its constitution it
is styled "the society of equal individuals" or not. Labels, signboards
and "speech reactions" cannot change nor obliterate the real fact of
the economic inequality manifested in the differences of incomes, economic
standards, and in the existence of the rich and the poor strata.
If the social
ranks within a group are hierarchically superposed with respect to their
authority and prestige, their honors and titles; if there are the rulers and
the ruled, then whatever are their names (monarchs, executives, masters,
bosses), these things mean that the group is politically stratified, regardless
of what is written in its constitution or proclaimed in its declarations.
If the
members of a society are differentiated into various occupational groups, and
some of the occupations are regarded as more honorable than others, if the
members of an occupational group are divided into bosses of different authority
and into members who are subordinated to the bosses, the group is
occupationally stratified, independently of the fact whether the bosses are
elected or appointed, whether their position is acquired by social inheritance
or personal achievement.
PRINCIPAL
FORMS
OF
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
Concrete
forms of social stratification are numerous. The majority of them may, however,
be reduced to three principal classes: the economic, the political, and the
occupational stratification.
As a general
rule, these forms are closely intercorrelated with each other. Usually, those
who occupy the upper strata in one respect happen to be in the upper strata
also in other respects, and vice versa. The men who dwell in the upper economic
layers happen also to be in the upper political and occupational strata. The
poor, as a rule, are politically disfranchised and dwell in the lowest strata
of the occupational hierarchy.
Such is the
general rule, though there are, however, many exceptions to it. Not always are
the wealthiest men at the apex of the political or occupational pyramid; and
not always are the poor men the lowest in the political or the occupational
gradations. This means that the intercorrelation among the three forms of
stratification is far from being perfect; the strata of each form do not
coincide completely with one another.
There is
always a certain degree of overlapping among them. This fact does not permit us
to analyze in a summary way all three fundamental forms of social
stratification.
For the sake
of a greater accuracy each form has to be studied separately. A real picture of
social stratification in any society is very complex. In order to make its
analysis easier, only the most fundamental traits must be taken. Many details
must be omitted, and the situation simplified, without, however, disfiguring
it. This is done in any science and has to be done especially here where the
problem is so complex and so little studied. In such cases the Roman minima non curat praetor is completely
justified.
SOCIAL
STRATIFICATION
IS
A PERMANENT CHARACTERISTIC
OF
ANY ORGANIZED SOCIAL GROUP
Any organized
social group is always a stratified social body. There has not been and does
not exist any permanent social group which is "flat," and in which
all members are equal.
Unstratified
society, with a real equality of its members, is a myth which has never been
realized in the history of mankind. This statement may sound somewhat
paradoxical and yet it is accurate.
The forms and
proportions of stratification vary, but its essence is permanent, as far as any
more or less permanent and organized social group is concerned. This is true
not only in human society, but even in plant and animal communities. Let us
consider the principal corroborations.
Plant and Animal Societies.
Pre-literate Human Tribes.
— Except, perhaps, the few cases where the members of
a population are leading an isolated life, where no permanent social life and
interaction exist, where, therefore, we do not have a social organization in
the proper sense of the word, as soon as organization begins primitive social
groups exhibit the trait of stratification.
It is
manifested in various forms.
First, in the existence of
the sex and age groups with quite different privileges and duties.
Second, in the
existence of a privileged and influential group of the tribe's leaders.
Third, in the existence of
the most influential chieftain or headman.
Fourth, in the
existence of outcasts and outlawed men.
Fifth, in the
existence of inter- and intratribal division of labor.
Sixth, in the existence of
different economic standards, and in that of economic inequality generally.
Traditional
opinion about primitive groups as communistic societies which do not have any
commerce or private property, or economic inequality, or inheritance of
fortune, are far from being correct.
"The
primitive economy" (Urwirtschaft)
is neither an economy of isolated individuals searching for food (as K. Bucher
thinks), nor the economy of communism or collective production. What we really
have is the economic composed of mutually dependent and economical active
individuals and of the smaller parts of the group which have a system of
commerce and barter with each other.
"If in
many tribes economic differentiation is very slight, and customs of mutual aid
approach communism, this is due only to the general poverty of the group. These
facts support the contention that primitive groups also are stratified bodies.
More
Advanced Societies and Groups.
— If we cannot find a non-stratified society among the
most primitive groups, it is useless to try to find it among more advanced,
larger and compound societies. Here, without any single exception the fact of
stratification is universal. Its forms and proportions vary; its essence has
existed everywhere and at all times. Among all agricultural and, especially,
industrial societies social stratification has been conspicuous and clear. The
modern democracies also do not present any exception to the rule. Though in
their constitutions it is said that "all men are equal," only a quite
naive person may infer from this a nonexistence of social stratification within
these societies.
It is enough
to mention the gradations: from Henry Ford to a beggar; from the President of
the United States to a policeman; from a foreman to the most subordinate
worker; from the president of a university to a janitor; from an
"LL.D." or "Ph.D." to a "B.A."; from a
"leading authority" to an average man; from a commanderin-chief of an
army to a soldier; from a president of a board of directors of a corporation to
its common laborer; from an editor-in-chief of a newspaper to a simple
reporter; it is enough to mention these various ranks and social gradations to
see that the best democracies have social stratification scarcely less than the
non-democratic societies.
It is
needless to insist on these obvious facts. What should be stressed here is,
that not only large social bodies, but any organized social group whatever,
once it is organized, is inevitably stratified to some degree.
Gradations,
hierarchies, shining leaders, cumulative aspirations — all these appear
spontaneously whenever men get together, whether for play, for mutual help, for
voluntary association, or for the great compulsory association of the State.
Family,
church, sect, political party, faction, business organization, gang of
brigands, labor union, scientific society — in brief, any organized social
group is stratified at the price of its permanency and organization.
The
organization even of groups of ardent levelers, and the permanent failure of
all attempts to build a non-stratified group, testify to the imminency and
unavoidability of stratification in an organized social group.
This remark
may appear somewhat strange to many people who, under the influence of
high-sounding phraseology, may believe that, at least, the societies of the
levelers themselves are non-stratified. This belief, as many another one, is
utterly wrong. Different attempts to exterminate social feudalism have been successful,
in the best cases, only in ameliorating some of the inequalities, and in
changing the concrete forms of stratification. They have never succeeded in
annihilating stratification itself. And the regularity with which all these
efforts have failed once more witnesses the "natural" character of
stratification.
Christianity
started its history with an attempt to create an equal society; very soon,
especially after 313 a.D., it already had a complicated hierarchy, and soon
finished by the creation of a tremendous pyramid, with numerous ranks and
titles, beginning with the omnipotent pope and ending with that of a lawless
heretic.
The
institution of Fratres Minorum was organized by St. Francis of Assisi on the
principle of perfect equality. Seven years later equality disappeared.
Without any
exceptions, all attempts of the most ardent levelers in the history of all
countries have had the same fate. They could not avoid it even when the faction
of the levelers has been victorious.
If many forms
of stratification were destroyed for a moment, they regularly reappeared again
in the old or in a modified form, often being built by the hands of the
levelers themselves.
Present democracies and Socialist, Communist,
Syndicalist, and other organizations, with their slogan of "equality"
do not present any exception to the rule.
To sum up:
social stratification is a permanent characteristic of any organized society.
"Varying in form, social stratification has existed in all societies which
proclaimed the equality of men." (Fourniere, E., La Sociocratie, p. 117,
1910.)
Feudalism and
oligarchy continue to exist in science and arts, in politics and
administration, in a gang of bandits, in democracies, among the levelers,
everywhere.
This,
however, does not mean that the stratification quantitatively or qualitatively
is identical in all societies and at all times. In its concrete forms, defects
or virtues, it certainly varies.
The problem
to be discussed now is these quantitative and qualitative variations.
[ quantitative analysis ]
Begin with the
quantitative aspect of social stratification in its three forms: economic,
political and occupational. This is what is meant by the height and the profile
of social stratification, and, correspondingly, the height and the profile of a
"social building."' How high is it? How long is the distance from the
bottom to the top of a social cone? Of how many stories is it composed? Is its
profile steep, or does it slope gradually?
These are the
problems of the quantitative analysis of social stratification. It deals, so to
speak, exclusively with the exterior architecture of a social building.
[
qualitative analysis ]
Its inner
structure, in its entirety, is the object of the qualitative analysis. The
study should begin with the height and the profile of the social pyramid. After
that the pyramid should be entered and an investigation of its inner
organization made from the standpoint of stratification.
from:
Theories of Society, vol. 1.
Edited by Talcot Parsons, Edward Shils, Kaspar D.
Naegele, Jesse R. Pitts,
The Free Press of Glencoe, 1961
pp. 570-573.
Reprinted from:
Pitirim A. Sorokin, Social Mobility, in Social and
Cultural Mobility (Glencoe, III: The Free Press, 1959), chap, ii, pp. 11-17.
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Pitirim Sorokin
Social Stratification
κοινωνική διαστρωμάτωση
ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ ]
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