The division of society into classes or strata, which form a hierarchy of prestige and power, is an almost universal feature of social structure which has, throughout history, attracted the attention of philosophers and social theorists. But it is only with the growth of the modern social sciences that it has been subjected to critical study and analysis. Sociologists have commonly distinguished four main types of social stratification; slavery,1 estates, caste, and social class and status. We shall briefly examine the first two types, then consider at greater length the phenomena of caste and of social class, which have particular importance in modern India, and finally discuss some general theories of social stratification.
L.T.Hobhouse defined a slave as ‘a man whom law and custom regard as the property of another. In extreme cases he is wholly without rights, a pure chattel; in other cases he may be protected in certain respects, but so may an ox or an ass’. He continued, ‘…if (the slave) has by his position certain countervailing rights, e.g. to inherited property, from which he cannot (except for some default) be dislodged, he becomes…no longer a slave but a serf’.2 Slavery thus represents an extreme form of inequality, in which certain groups of individuals are entirely or almost entirely without rights.
1Many sociologists now prefer to treat slavery as an ‘industrial system’ rather than a system of stratification. There is some justification for this. Slavery divides a community into two distinct sections, and within the group of those who are not slaves there may be, and usually is, a system of ranks. Thus slavery does not, by itself, constitute a system of stratification. But this view is not entirely convincing, for several reasons. In feudal society, also, it may be argued, there is a fundamental distinction between serfs and free men, together with a system of ranks within the latter group. Secondly, every system of stratification may be regarded also as an industrial system; as it is, for example, in Marxist theory, where slaves, serfs and wage earners are all categorised as the ‘direct producers’ upon whose labour the whole social edifice rests. Finally, if we examine social stratification in terms of social inequalities we can legitimately compare and contrast slavery, serfdom, caste, and class.
2L.T.Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Ch. VII.
It has existed sporadically at many times and places,1 but there are two major examples of a system of slavery; the societies of the ancient world based upon slavery (especially Greece and Rome), and the Southern States of the USA in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. H.J.Nieboer gave an excellent account of the social condition of the slave in such a system. ‘First, every slave has his master to whom he is subjected. And this subjection is of a peculiar kind. Unlike the authority one freeman sometimes has over another, the master’s power over his slave is unlimited, at least in principle; any restriction put upon the master’s free exercise of his power is a mitigation of slavery, not belonging to its nature, just as in Roman law the proprietor may do with his property whatever he is not by special laws forbidden to do. The relation between master and slave is therefore properly expressed by the slave being called the master’s “possession” or “property”, expressions we frequently meet with. Secondly, slaves are in a lower condition as compared with freemen. The slave has no political rights; he does not choose his government, he does not attend the public councils. Socially he is despised. In the third place, we always connect with slavery the idea of compulsory labour. The slave is compelled to work; the free labourer may leave off working if he likes, be it at the cost of starving. All compulsory labour, however, is not slave labour; the latter requires that peculiar kind of compulsion, that is expressed by the word “possession” or “property” as has been said before.’2
The basis of slavery is always economic; it is as Nieboer argued. an industrial system. Along with the emergence of slavery there also appears an aristocracy of some kind, which lives upon slave labour. But it is, also, in the opinion of most writers, the inefficiency of slave labour which is responsible for the decline of slavery.
Along with this, however, there is another influence tending to the decline of slavery, which can best be traced in the ancient world. There is always a certain conflict between the conception of the slave as an object of property rights, and the conception of him as a human being possessing rights. We find, in both Greece and Rome, that with the development of debt-slavery a distinction is made between foreign slaves and slaves originating within the group. In Athens debt-slavery was prohibited by Solon, and ultimately it was abolished in Rome under the influence of the Stoics. Hobhouse pointed out that ‘the formation of debtor-slaves has a certain soften
1Article ‘Slavery’ in the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences which distinguishes between primitive, ancient, medieval and modern slavery.
2H.J.Nieboer, Slavery as an Industrial System.
ing influence upon the institution of slavery itself, for while the captive slave remains an enemy in the sight of law and morals and is therefore rightless, the debtor or the criminal was originally a member of the community and in relation to him there is apt to arise some limitation of the power of the master’. In the ancient world, slavery was gradually modified by progressive limitation of the master’s right of punishment, the securing of personal rights to the slave (marriage, acquisition and inheritance of property) and the provision for manumission. The latter was supported and encouraged by the Christian church in the Roman Empire and later in feudal Europe, at least so far as Christians were involved.
The feudal estates of medieval Europe had three important characteristics. In the first place, they were legally defined; each estate had a status, in the precise sense of a legal complex of rights and duties, of privileges and obligations. Thus, as has been said, ‘to know a person’s real position it was first of all necessary to know “the law by which he lived”.’ In the twelfth century, when serfdom was increasing and a legal theory of the feudal state was emerging, the English lawyer, Glanville, listed the disabilities of serfs as being: inability to appeal to the king for justice, absence of rights over their chattels and holdings, liability to pay the fines of merchet and heriot. The differences between estates can be seen also in the different penalties imposed for similar offences.
Secondly, the estates represented a broad division of labour, and were regarded in the contemporary literature as having definite functions. The nobility were ordained to defend all, the clergy to pray for all, and the commons to provide food for all.’
Thirdly, the feudal estates were political groups. Stubbs, in his Constitutional History of England, wrote: ‘An assembly of estates is an organized collection…of the several orders, estates or conditions of men who are recognized as possessing political power.’ In this sense the serfs did not constitute an estate. Classical feudalism knew only two estates, the nobility and the clergy. The decline of European feudalism after the twelfth century is associated with the rise of a third estate, not of the serfs or villeins, but of the burghers, who behaved for a long period as a distinctive group within the feudal system before they transformed or overthrew it.1
The system of feudal estates was more complex and varied, as well as less rigid, than this summary account can show. The
distinctions within estates, and the political aspect of feudalism, are excellently portrayed in Marc Bloch, La société féodale (Vol. II ‘Les classes et le gouvernement des hommes’). The opportunities for individuals to change their position in society, are considered in R.W.Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (Ch. II) and in A.Lane Poole, Obligations of Society in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.
Some modern historians and sociologists have been much concerned with the similarities between the European feudal societies and other societies which might be considered as belonging to the same type. The social system of Japan from the twelfth century has often been described as feudal, for instance by Marc Bloch (op. cit.) and in R.Coulborn, Feudalism in History. The existence of feudalism in India is more controversial. It must be recognized, first, that even if feudal relationships existed during some periods of Indian history they certainly existed alongside, and were interwoven with, caste relationships, and this implies that the social system cannot be described, without important qualifications, as feudal. Secondly, the ‘feudalism’ of the Maurya, Gupta and Mogul empires, and of their periods of decline, obviously lacked some characteristics of European feudalism. All scholars agree that Indian ‘feudalism’ had as its basis independent village agriculture, not the manorial system: in the words of K.S.Shelvankar, ‘Indian feudalism remained fiscal and military in character. It was not manorial’.1 Many scholars hold also that the conception of royal power in India was so different from that in the West that it could not establish a feudal system. ‘In India, the king did not, in theory, create subordinate owners of land, because he himself was not, in theory, the supreme owner of land. What he delegated to his intermediaries was only the specific and individual right of zamin, i.e. the revenue-collecting power.’2 This view is not universally accepted,3 but there is, at least, agreement on the fact that feudal relationships often developed more strongly when the empires were in decline, since in such periods revenue-collectors could more easily establish proprietary rights in land and usurp political and judicial functions.
The historical materials available at present are inadequate to determine the relative influence of the caste system, the central administration of irrigation, and the periodic emergence of feudal
1K.S.Shelvankar, Problem of India (London 1940), p. 79.
2A.K.Nazmul Karim, Changing Society in India and Pakistan, Ch. II.
3See D.D.Kosambi, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History (Bombay 1956) Chapters 9 and 10, for some qualifications.
type relationships. This is so even in the case of the Mogul period, and still more in respect of ancient India. For the early period, the necessary historical records will perhaps never be available, but much could be done by social historians to elucidate the nature of social stratification in its connection with property and political authority from the establishment of Mogul rule up to the advent of the British.
The Indian caste system is unique among systems of social stratification. This is not to say either that it is wholly incomparable with other types of stratification, or that no elements of caste are to be found elsewhere. In the first place, caste possesses the common characteristic of being evidently connected with economic differentiation. This is apparent whether we consider the effective caste groups (jatis) or the four traditional varnas of Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas and Sudras. The varnas, as Senart observed in a classical study, originally resembled feudal estates in certain respects.1 They were like estates both in the character, and to a great extent, in the hierarchical ordering of the groups (priests, warriors and nobles, traders, serfs), and also in the fact that they were not totally closed groups; individuals could move from one varna to another and intermarriage was possible.
The jatis, which developed later and which continued to grow in number through the extending division of labour, the incorporation of tribes, and to a lesser extent, the operation of factors such as religious innovation, are the basic units of the traditional caste system. In modern India there are perhaps some 2,500 jatis in each major region. The jati is the endogamous group, and the principal reference group of the individual, embodying a distinctive way of life and maintaining it by the exercise of customary and, in earlier times, juridical sanctions. The economic significance of the jatis is plain; they are for the most part occupational groups and in the traditional village economy the caste system largely provides the machinery for the exchange of goods and services.2
On the other hand, elements of caste can be observed in other societies where more or less strict segregation of particular groups occurs; for instance, segregation of those engaged in ‘unclean’ occupations, or of those belonging to a particular ethnic group.
1E.Senart, Caste in India (1894; English trans. London 1930).
2The Jajmani system; see H.Wiser, The Hindu Jajmani System; A Socio-Economic System (Lucknow, 1936).
But such individual features do not constitute a caste system. The only cases in which a caste system has been established outside Hindu India are those of non-Hindu groups in India (e.g. Muslims) or of Hindu settlement outside India, notably in Ceylon.
The sociological problem of caste is, therefore, to account for the existence and persistence of this unique type of social stratification. An explanation may be sought in two ways, either in terms of historical events or in terms of some factor or factors which are present in Indian society and not elsewhere. Any historical explanation is bound to be speculative in the present state of knowledge, and its value would consist chiefly in its incitement to fresh historical research.1 One of the most plausible accounts so far offered seems to be that given by J.H.Hutton,2 who suggests that the original Aryan invaders of India, with their distinct ranks, introduced the principle of social stratification into a society already divided into exclusive tribal groups by taboos connected with food, and that they took over and consolidated these taboos as a means of maintaining social distance between themselves and the subject population, In this manner the principle of stratified exclusive groups was reinforced, and provided with a powerful sanction in the shape of a religious and magical doctrine of pollution through food, and later, pollution through contact.
The second way of explaining caste, in terms of some other. specific feature of Indian society, involves a brief consideration of the relationship between jati and varna. Modern students of caste have emphasized the role of the magical and religious ideas of the varna system, as expounded in the ancient religious literature. M.N. Srinivas observes that the notions of karma, which ‘teaches a Hindu that he is born in a particular sub-caste because he deserved to be born there’, and dharma, the code of duties (or rules of the caste), ‘have contributed very greatly to the strengthening of the idea of hierarchy which is inherent in the caste system’.3 The concept of pollution. he says, is ‘fundamental to the caste system’ and every type of caste relation is governed by it.’ K.M.Panikkar,4 however,
1It should be observed also that a historical explanation would involve a reference to some generalizations or laws, whether psychological or sociological.
2J.H.Hutton, Caste in India, Ch. XI. The resemblance between jati and tribe has been emphasised by P.Rosas (‘Caste and Class in India’, Science and Society, VIII (2), 1943) who also cites historical examples of the easy transition from tribe to caste.
3M.N.Srinivas, Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India, Ch. II.
4K.M.Panikkar, Hindu Society at Crossroads (1955).
has argued from the distinction between jati and varna that the caste system has no basis in Hindu religion, and is rather the product of Hindu traditional law and of the weakness of the central political authority during much of India’s history. But although this draws attention to other factors which may be important in sustaining caste, it is in the main a plea for a re-interpretation of Hinduism. In fact, the castes and sub-castes are directly related to the varnasystem which, as Srinivas notes, provides an All-India frame of reference into which the myriad sub-castes of any region can be fitted, and at the same time, embodies a generally accepted scale of values and prestige. The distinction which Panikkar makes between the influence of religion and that of law is hardly tenable, for Hindu traditional law is dominated by religious ideas. The notions of karma, dharma, and pollution have figured prominently in both religious and legal thought, and together they constitute a doctrine which is undoubtedly one of the principal sustaining forces of the caste system.
We may conclude, then, that an explanation of the caste system would involve reference to some general theory of social stratification, to the specific features of the Hindu religion, and possibly, to other factors such as the fragmentation of Indian society and the maintenance of a traditional economy. Such an explanation might be tested. albeit with difficulty, by studies of the effects upon the caste system of the far-reaching economic and political changes in recent times. In fact, studies in this field have hardly begun. The empirical studies of the past decade or so have mainly contributed a more precise knowledge of the traditional caste system.1 Almost all of them have been carried out in rural areas, where the impact of economic and political changes is weakest; even so, a number of studies reveal significant changes. Wealth and education have become accessible to members of lower as well as higher castes— although not perhaps on equal terms. S.C.Dube has shown how this affects a village community;2 wealth, education, or personal qualities may bring an individual prestige and power despite membership of a low caste. But the changes have been brought about by external forces, and they do not yet seriously challenge the old order. Dube notes that ‘…the grip of the traditional system is still firm, and people from lower castes or others with humble origins must behave
1This is made clear in the excellent survey of recent studies by M.N. Srinivas, Y.B.Damle, S.Shahani and A.Beteille: ‘Caste’, Current Sociology, VIII (3) 1959.
2S.C.Dube, Indian Village (1955).
with considerable tact and discretion if they seek to enhance their influence and importance in the community’. Similarly, F.G.Bailey, in a study of a village in Orissa,1 shows how the ‘extending frontiers’ of the economy and the polity bring about changes. With the development of trade, and of a money economy, land ceases to be the main source of wealth; the lower castes enrich themselves through trade and then use their wealth to buy land and so acquire prestige and power. The extension of government and administration also changes the balance of power; the lower castes in the village are no longer defenceless, for they can appeal, outside the village, to public officials and administrative bodies. But Bailey also concludes that caste in the village remains powerful, for it is still effective in hampering social mobility and in its ritual aspect it maintains the traditional hierarchy.
We should expect changes in caste to be greater in urban areas than in the villages, for economic change is greater there, the anonymity of town life facilitates social mobility, and the intellectual life of the town is more favourable to change. As yet, however, the paucity of studies of caste in an urban and industrial setting makes it impossible to determine how far new activities, associations and ideas—trade union, professional or political organizations and ideologies—have weakened the allegiance to caste. Some information about the prevalence of caste sentiment is provided by K.M. Kapadia in a study of graduate teachers in Bombay State.2 He shows that while a high proportion of teachers express themselves in favour of intercaste marriages, even for their own children, there are in fact many agencies tending to maintain caste sentiment and caste endogamy. Thus, caste foundations and charities are common, and many castes publish journals and organize social functions. One-third of the teachers subscribe to their caste journal and would like to participate in caste social activities. Kapadia concludes that 42% of the group display fairly intense caste feeling.
The lack of urban studies accounts in part for the uncertainties and disagreements about whether caste is being strengthened or weakened, in Indian society as a whole. Many sociologists have observed that caste associations have developed rapidly, especially in the towns. M.N.Srinivas writes: There is a good case for arguing that caste-consciousness and organization have increased in modern India. Witness for instance the proliferation of caste banks, hostels, cooperative societies, charities, marriage halls, conferences and
1F.G.Bailey, Caste and the Economic Frontier (1957).
2K.M.Kapadia, ‘Changing patterns of Hindu marriage and family’, Sociological Bulletin (Bombay), III (1), March 1954.
journals in Indian towns’.1 The influence of caste in politics is disputed, and it certainly varies from one region to another; there is no doubt that castes play an important part as electoral organizations and as vote collecting agencies, but empirical studies show that local castes are frequently divided on political issues, and that many other considerations influence political allegiance.2 In the sphere of education and opportunities for occupational mobility it is clear that caste retains its importance; higher education is still mainly open to the higher castes.3
On the other side, there are general arguments about the effects of legislation, political democracy, and industrialisation, all of which are held to be inimical to caste. Overt caste discrimination has certainly diminished, and the position of untouchables has improved, but it is doubtful whether the factors mentioned have weakened caste consciousness and allegiance. It may be claimed that they have not yet had time to do so; and industrialization, in particular, is not yet far enough advanced to have a decisive influence. But the effects of industrialization cannot be predicted with certainty, and comparisons with the Western countries may be misleading. In the European countries which became industrialized during the 19th century, the new industrial workers were not involved in any such close traditional bonds as those of caste and joint family, and they were not hampered in this respect in the formation of economic and political associations of a modern type. Moreover, neither workers nor industrialists were influenced by a traditional other-worldly religion. The actual connections between industrialization and changes in caste (and joint family) have therefore to be studied directly in India, and this calls for a new kind of research, which would be focussed upon urban areas rather than villages, and upon the crucial occupational groups of a modern industrial society rather than the traditional caste occupations. M.N.Srinivas, in the survey mentioned earlier,4 specifies a number of topics which need to be investigated; the interrelation between caste and class, the relation of caste, class and rural-urban residence to utilization of educational facilities, the role of caste and class in bureaucracy, the part played by caste in trade unions and in political life at different levels, urbanization of selected castes in different parts of the country, the relation between caste
1M.N.Srinivas, ‘The Indian Road to Equality’, Economic Weekly, August 20, 1960.
2See above, p. 159.
3See B.V.Shah, ‘Inequality of Educational Opportunities’, Economic Weekly, August 20, 1960.
4M.N.Srinivas, ‘Caste’, Current Sociology VIII(3).
and economic development, dominant castes in different parts of the country, hypergamous castes, and the role of purity-pollution ideas in the caste systems of North and South India. It is only necessary to add that the religious ideas which support caste deserve to be systematically studied. There has been little empirical study of religion in modern India, and this is a most important and promising field of research.
We have seen that the strength of caste, and the tendencies to change, have been variously estimated, while the evidence is neither abundant nor clear. But whatever may be said about the strength of castes themselves, and of the individual’s attachment to his own caste, it may be claimed that the traditional caste system has been profoundly altered.1 In that system each individual caste had its ascribed place and co-operated with other castes in a traditional economy and in ritual. No doubt, there was always some competition between castes and there were changes of position in the hierarchy of prestige; but there was no generalized competition. It is quite otherwise with the modern caste associations, which exist in order to compete for wealth, educational opportunities, and social prestige in a much more open society. These associations are, in fact, interest groups of a modern type; in Tönnies’ sense, they are ‘associations’, while the traditional caste groups were ‘communities’. It is easy to understand that they should have grown up on the basis of traditional castes, but equally that they contradict the caste system and may well give rise to, or be absorbed into, the secular groups of a modern society—trade unions, professional associations, and social classes.
A social class system differs radically from those systems which we have so far considered. Social classes are de facto (not legally or religiously defined and sanctioned) groups; they are relatively open, not closed. Their basis is indisputably economic, but they are more than economic groups. They are characteristic groups of the industrial societies which have developed since the 17th century. Considerable difficulties arise when the attempt is made to specify the number of social classes, or to define their membership precisely. However, most sociologists would probably agree in recognizing the existence of an upper class (comprising the owners of the major part of the economic resources of a society), a working class (chiefly the industrial wage-earners), and a middle class, or middle classes, (a
more amorphous group, often treated as a residual category, but including most white collar workers and most members of the liberal professions). In some societies the existence of a fourth class, the peasantry, would be recognised.
Disagreement among sociologists begins generally on the issues of the cohesiveness of the different classes, their role in society, and their future. These problems will be discussed later in considering some theories of social stratification. The different classes, and especially the middle class, have been extensively studied. On the working class, the classical work is G.Briefs, The Proletariat, which begins from a Marxist definition and expands it to differentiate more clearly between the working class and the white collar middle class. General studies of the middle class include C.Wright Mills, White Collar, and Lewis and Maude, The English Middle Classes; but there have been many accounts of specific groups within the middle classes, and especially of the liberal professions. In the nature of things it has been less easy to study the upper class, and sociological writing here extends from theoretical and historical studies of elites to studies based upon statistical information about property ownership, income, educational privilege, etc.1
The picture of social stratification in industrial societies is complicated by the existence of status groups as well as social classes. Max Weber was the first to distinguish rigorously between the two, and to examine their interrelation. ‘With some over-simplification one might thus say that “classes” are stratified according to their relation to the production and acquisition of goods; whereas “status groups” are stratified according to the principles of their consumption of goods as represented by special “styles of life”.’2 The notion of social status has been analysed by a number of recent writers, especially by T.H.Marshall. In one essay on this subject3 Marshall examines the factors which produce differences in status, as well as different types of status—personal, positional, etc. More recently, he has discussed the changes in social stratification in capitalist socieites, and has argued that there has been a shift from class organization to status organization. or as he terms it, from multibonded but unidimensional groups to multidimensional and unibonded groups.4
1Of recent studies see especially C.Wright Mills, The Power Elite.
2Max Weber, ‘Class, Status, Party’, in From Max Weber (ed. H.Gerth and C.W.Mills).
3‘The Nature and Determinants of Social Status’, Year Book of Education, London 1953.
4‘Genera1 Survey of Changes in Social Stratification in the Twentieth Century’, Transactions of the Third World Congress of Sociology. Vol. III, pp. 1–17.
There have been many empirical studies of status groups, especially in terms of occupational differentiation; indeed recent investigations of social stratification and social mobility have been carried out largely in terms of occupational prestige scales.1 The emphasis, in much recent sociology, upon studies of social status and mobility, reflects a variety of influences. The needs of research have favoured the use of occupational scales, since these facilitate the design and implementation of research projects. The predominance of American sociology has been an important influence; in the USA, which is unique among Western industrial societies in having no strong tradition of class organization or ideological conflict, sociologists have naturally been concerned with social stratification in those aspects which do characterise American society—status and mobility. But the singularity of American society has not always been recognized, so that some writers have simply confused status with class,2 while others have attempted to analyse social stratification in all societies in terms of the American model.3
A third influence has been the actual changes in Western societies, resulting in a real abatement of class differences and class conflicts. This process of change can only be clearly grasped, however, if the phenomena of class and status are first carefully distinguished and their interrelations then examined. I have discussed this problem briefly elsewhere, and have argued that in Western societies, ‘the social hierarchy is now constituted less by social classes and more by status groups. The difference, broadly is between a hierarchy of a small number of organized or partly organized economic groups whose relations to each other are antagonistic, and a hierarchy of numerous groups, more correctly described as aggregates of individuals of equal social prestige, based on similarities which are not exclusively economic, and whose relations to each other are not primarily antagonistic but are partly competitive and partly emulative. Thus in place of classes pursuing their economic interests at the expense of the community, the democratic societies are moving towards a system of groups which are less exclusive, less clearly defined, less widely separated in social level, and not pursuing with
1A pioneer study is D.V.Glass (ed.), Social Mobility in Britain (London 1954). This investigation has given rise to similar studies in other societies; for example, Modern Japanese Society: Its Class Structure, by the Research Committee, Japan Sociological Society (Tokyo, 1958) (In Japanese, with an English summary).
2E.g. W.Lloyd Warner and P.S.Lunt, The Social Life of a Modern Community and The Status System of a Modern Community (New Haven 1942).
3See below, p. 196.
the same tenacity their narrow group interests’.1 These changes have been brought about by the steady increase in national income, the development of administrative and white collar occupations, social mobility, redistribution of wealth and income, greater equality of educational opportunity and other factors.
The analysis of social stratification in the contemporary Western capitalist societies is complex and difficult. Equal, and perhaps greater, difficulties appear in the study of the second type of modern industrial society, represented by the USSR and some of the People’s Democracies. An initial obstacle is the absence of data concerning income distribution, educational opportunities, attitudes and group sentiments, in these societies, owing to the lack of any systematic sociological research.2 Moreover, the social realities are here obscured by the fury of ideological warfare. Orthodox Marxists claim that in the Soviet type countries social classes, or at least a hierarchical system of classes, has been abolished with the abolition of private ownership of the means of production. Critics point to the existence of great economic inequalities, educational privileges, the monopolisation of political power by a small elite, and other characteristics which together amount to a system of social stratification. Much of the theoretical controversy turns upon the relationship between class structure and political power, which was briefly mentioned in an earlier chapter,3 and will be discussed again below. From this controversy it emerges clearly that the classical notion of social class, in Marxist and non-Marxist writing, is closely connected with the notion of political power and especially with the concept of a ‘ruling class’. This connection, however, may give rise to two different lines of thought: one, the Marxist which makes political power dependent upon economic power, and the other which treats the economy and the polity as interrelated systems each of which may at different times be either ‘basis’ or ‘superstructure’.
These problems indicate the need for renewed study of social stratification. A useful starting point is to be found in the phenomena of political conflict. The social groups involved in such conflict may be either elites or classes. In Pareto’s sociology, at least in its major concern with the ‘governing elite’, the terms ‘class’ and ‘elite’ were practically synonymous; and it was in the context of his own theory of the ‘circulation of elites’ that Pareto regarded the notion
1T.B.Bottomore, Classes in Modern Society (London 1955).
2In only two communist countries, Poland and Yugoslavia, has serious sociological research begun to develop.
3See pp. 153–7.
of class conflict as the most important of Marx’s contributions to sociology. More recently, sociologists have used the term ‘elite’ to refer to smaller and more cohesive groups, which may be more or less closely connected with social classes as traditionally conceived.1 Raymond Aron has provided one of the best studies of the relationship between elites and social classes.2 He formulates the problem as one of the relation between social differentiation and political hierarchy in modern societies, and sets out to show that the ‘abolition of classes’ (in the classical sense of abolishing private ownership of the means of production) will not resolve the problems of social differentiation, formation of elites, and inequalities of political power. There are, indeed, some advantages in the conflicts of elites and classes in capitalist societies, since these restrict the power of the rulers at any particular time.
We may summarize this brief study by saying that the nineteenth century concern with problems of social class was closely associated with a concern about democracy and political power, but that the answers provided confused the two sets of problems and were misleading. In the twentieth century sociologists, guided by Max Weber, but more strongly influenced by events themselves, have attempted to study political power directly, and to examine the ways in which elite groups recruit support, conduct political struggles, and attain or fail to attain power, as well as the conditions in which a power elite is either controlled or uncontrolled. For such studies, social class is only one element in the situation, though an important one. At the same time, the study of social differentiation and social stratification has been broadened to take account of the phenomena of social status and social mobility which are for the most part only indirectly related to political power, but which are important in other ways.
1Cf. G.D.H.Cole, Studies in Class Structure (London 1955), p. 106: ‘Not all elites rest on a class basis, or are to be regarded as class representatives; but some do and are, and a special importance attaches, in modern societies and especially in the older societies which have been developing from aristocracy towards some form of democracy, to the relations between classes and elites and to the differences that emerge with the increasing complexities of class structure’.
2Raymond Aron, ‘Social structure and the ruling class’. British Journal of Sociology I(1 and 2) March, June 1950; pp. 1–15, 126–143. See also his ‘Classe sociale, classe politique, classe dirigeante’, European Journal of Sociology I(2) 1960.
There have been two major attempts to formulate a general theory of social stratification, that of Marx and that of the functionalists. The main outlines of the Marxist theory are well known, although neither Marx himself nor any later Marxist thinker formulated it in a systematic way.1 In this theory social classes are defined by their relation to the means of production (ownership or non-ownership); and this becomes the basis of the view that there are in every society two principal contending classes.2 The nature of the classes depends upon the mode of production, and this in turn upon the level of technology, in different societies. Marx, as Schumpeter observed, was primarily interested in the development of classes, and we may add, in their role in bringing about social and political changes. His own empirical studies were concerned with the origins of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of capitalism, and still more with the formation and growth of the proletariat as a class within capitalist society. Marx first distinguishes the proletariat as a ‘class in itself’, an aggregate of individuals who are in the same economic situation, and then tries to show how it becomes a ‘class for itself’, i.e. how its members become aware of their common interests. In the Poverty of Philosophy and in Capital, Marx describes the circumstances favourable to this growth of class consciousness; the concentration of industry, the development of communications, the increasing economic and social distance between the bourgeoisie and the working class, the increasing homogeneity of the latter as a result of the decline of skilled trades, etc.
1The theory has always retained a certain metaphysical vagueness. This is the case even in the chapter on social classes in N.Bukharin’s Historical Materialism (English trans. London 1926) which comes closest to a systematic exposition; and it is, of course, a very prominent feature in one of the major works of later Marxist thought, G.Lukács, Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein (Vienna 1923).
2In most of his scientific writings Marx analyses the class system in terms of two classes; but he also has a model of a three-class system, which he uses occasionally, and notably in the final unfinished chapter of Capital Vol. III, where he began a formal analysis of class. In fact, there are two different models of a three-class system; one (for example in the chapter just mentioned) where Marx refers to capitalists, landowners and wage-earners as the three great classes of modern society (a conception taken directly from political economy, with its ‘three factors of production’) and another in which Marx distinguishes the capitalists who own means of production and employ wage labour, the middle class (or petty bourgeoisie) who own means of production but also contribute their own labour power, and the wage earners. There is an excellent study of these different conceptions in S.Ossowski, ‘Les différents aspects de la classe sociale chez Marx’, Cahiers internationaux de sociologie, XXIV, 1958, pp. 65–79.
Marx was well aware that social differentiation produced many other groups with conflicting interests in addition to the two principal classes,1 but he did not seriously examine the difficulties which this presented for his theory. His neglect of the problem may be accounted for in various ways: that he regarded the relationship of the individual to property as a crucial determinant of social action, and was confirmed in this view by the actual character of contemporary social and political conflicts; that he was unduly influenced by a philosophical conception (derived from Hegel) of development through the contradictions and antagonisms of two opposed entities; or that his analysis of the existing class system was distorted by his political commitment to the ideal of a classless society. Probably all these factors had some effect, but the first seems most important. For Marx’s theory of class had, and still has, great explanatory value in dealing with social and political conflicts. His conception of social classes should not be regarded as describing the given economic characteristics of particular aggregates of individuals. It is rather that the situation of individuals with regard to property provides a basis for statements about the probability of certain types of social, especially political, action. Max Weber was interpreting Marx in this sense and also indicating a line of criticism of the Marxist theory, when he argued that ‘a class does not in itself constitute a community’, but that class situations are brought about by communal action. The extent to which a class does in fact become a community, will be affected by whatever integrates or divides its members, by the general character of the inclusive society, and by its relations with other social groups and classes. Marx made a number of specific predictions about the future development of capitalist society, and in terms of these he expected an increasing community of the working class. Some of the predictions were wrong, and the working class in advanced industrial societies has failed to develop in the way that Marx expected. Marx and the
1This is especially obvious in his political writings, e.g. The Class Struggles in France (1850), The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), where he distinguishes as many as ten major groups involved in the political struggle. Elsewhere, he recognises the growing importance of the middle classes (including the ‘new’ middle classes); for example, in the manuscript of Theories of Surplus Value, ‘What (Ricardo) forgets to mention is the continual increase in numbers of the middle classes…situated midway between the workers on one side and the capitalists and landowners on the other. These middle classes rest with all their weight upon the working class and at the same time increase the social security and power of the upper class’.
Marxists assumed too readily that the transition from potential to actual community will in fact be made in the case of social classes, and in that case alone.
A more general criticism of the Marxian theory is that while it seems highly relevant and useful in analyzing social and political conflicts in capitalist societies during a particular period, its utility and relevance elsewhere are much less clear. Yet the theory is supposed to be universally valid. It encounters many difficulties when applied to particular forms of social stratification such as the Indian caste system, and in many other cases its explanatory power is diminished by its insistence upon social class as the sole basis of political action.1
The functionalist theory of social stratification begins from the general presuppositions of functionalism which we discussed earlier. It has been succinctly and clearly stated in an article by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E.Moore,2 who present it as follows: ‘Starting from the proposition that no society is “classless”, or unstratified, an effort is made to explain, in functional terms, the universal necessity which calls forth stratification in any social system…the main functional necessity explaining the universal presence of stratification is…the requirement faced by any society of placing and motivating individuals in the social structure… Social inequality is thus an unconsciously evolved device by which societies ensure that the most important positions are conscientiously filled by the most qualified persons.’
We may disregard here the difficulties of functionalist explanation as such.3 The theory is open to many specific criticisms. In the first place it assumes that stratification is universal, and this, so far as it implies the existence of a definite system of ranks in every society, is untrue. It also assumes that the ‘most important positions’ and ‘most qualified persons’ are unambiguously defined, independently of the influence of interested groups, in all societies. Next, it will be observed that the theory is conceived in terms of the ranking of individuals, and that it does not explain the existence of well-defined social groups; status groups, elites, and classes. Moreover, the theory does not account for, but merely recognizes, the existence
1See above, pp. 153–7.
2Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E.Moore, ‘Some principles of stratification’, American Sociological Review, April 1945 (Reprinted in Wilson and Kolb, Sociological Analysis).
3See above, pp. 38–40.
of different types of social stratification and processes of change from one type to another. Finally, it entirely neglects the role of force in establishing and maintaining systems of stratification, and thus has little to say about the relationship between social stratification and political conflict.
Whereas the Marxist theory unmistakably reflects the character of social and political conflicts in nineteenth century Europe, the functionalist theory reflects equally clearly the social situation in the USA, where neither a working class political movement nor a working class ideology has ever become established, and where the social hierarchy has been conceived very largely as a system of loosely organized status groups, membership of which is related to individual abilities. The Marxist theory emphasizes conflict between large and stable groups, with strong community sentiments, while the functionalist theory emphasizes the integrating function of social stratification based upon individual merit and reward. The latter theory has many points of resemblance with Durkheim’s theory of the division of labour, without the qualifications which Durkheim suggested in his discussion of the abnormal forms of the division of labour.
Neither of these two theories has the universality which it claims. An adequate theory would have to take more serious account of the variety of stratification systems, would regard social stratification as a derivative institution most closely linked with property and the division of labour, but also with war and religion, and would deal systematically with the connections between social stratification political institutions and cultural phenomena.
I. SOCIAL STRUCTURE
1. The concept of social structure
C.Lévi-Strauss, ‘Social structure’ in A.L.Kroeber (ed.) Anthropology Today (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1953) pp. 524–553.
S.F.Nadel, The Theory of Social Structure (London, Cohen & West, 1957).
The most thorough and systematic attempt to clarify the notion of social structure.
A.R.Radcliffe-Brown, ‘On social structure’, in Structure and Function in Primitive Society (London, Cohen & West, 1952) pp. 188–204.
2. Types of society
In the work of the earlier sociologists the classification of societies had an important place, and the student should be familiar with such classifications as those of Spencer, Marx, Durkheim, Tönnies, Maine, and Hobhouse, which are discussed in the text. In recent work there has been less interest in the problems of morphology, but some important contributions are referred to in the text. For a general review of attempts to classify societies the reader should consult:
J.Rumney, Herbert Spencer’s Sociology (London, 1934), Ch. III, ‘Types of society’.
S.R.Steinmetz, ‘Classification des types sociaux et catalogue des peuples’, L’Année Sociologique III (1898–1899) pp. 43–147.
A very thorough and comprehensive survey of the schemes of classification proposed up to that time, with a critical discussion of the uses and principles of classification.
As examples of studies of particular types of society from a broadly sociological point of view, the reader may consult:
L.T.Hobhouse, G.C.Wheeler and M.Ginsberg, The Material Culture and Social Institutions of the Simpler Peoples (London, 1915).
C.D.Forde, Habitat, Economy and Society (London, 1934).
N.D.Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City (New English edn., New York, Doubleday, 1956).
Marc Bloch, La société féodale (2 vols., Paris, Albin Michel, 1939– 40).
K.A.Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven, 1957).
W.Sombart, ‘Capitalism’. in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences.
There has been little sociological study of Indian society as a whole. An interesting preliminary analysis of Indian social structure is to be found in A.K.Nazmul Karim, Changing Society in India and Pakistan (Dacca, Oxford University Press, 1956), Part I. Some particular features of the social structure are examined in K.A.Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism. There is a useful survey of modern Indian society in L.S.S.O’Malley, Modern India and the West (London Oxford University Press, 1941), especially Ch. X The social system’ and Ch. XVI ‘General Survey’.
3. Culture and Civilization
For a discussion of the concept of culture see:
A.L.Kroeber and C.Kluckhohn, Culture (Papers of the Peabody Museum of Harvard, XLVII(1), 1952).
B.Malinowski, ‘Culture’, in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. __________, A Scientific Theory of Culture (Chapel Hill, 1944).
The use of the concept is exemplified in such works as:
Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (London, 1935).
On the notion of civilization, see:
E.Durkheim and M.Mauss, ‘Note sur la notion de civilisation’, L’Année Sociologique XII, 1913.
Centre international de Synthèse, Civilisation: le mot et l’idée (Paris, 1930).
Arnold J.Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol. I (London, Oxford University Press, 1934) Introduction, C. The comparative study of civilizations’.
II. ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS
1. General works
Max Weber, Wirtschaft and Gesellschaft (Tübingen, 1921–22) (English trans. of part, with an introduction by Talcott Parsons, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, New York, 1947).
D.M.Goodfellow, Principles of Economic Sociology (London, 1939).
M.J. Herskovits, Economic Anthropology (New York, 1952).
These two books provide good general accounts of economic institutions in primitive societies; they also discuss briefly the relation between economic and sociological/anthropological analysis.
For studies of capitalist economic systems from a sociological viewpoint, see:
J.A.Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (London, Allen & Unwin, 1943) Part II.
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of Business Enterprise (New York, 1904).
John Strachey, Contemporary Capitalism (London, Gollancz, 1956).
J.K.Galbraith, American Capitalism (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1952).
The economic structure of India can be studied in:
V.Anstey, The Economic Development of India (4th rev. edn., London, Longmans, 1952).
D.R.Gadgil, Industrial Evolution of India (London, Oxford University Press, 1944).
2. The division of labour
E.Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society (English trans. Glencoe, The Free Press, 1947).
Georges Friedmann, Industrial Society (English trans. Glencoe, The Free Press, 1955).
A general study of the problems of industrial work. ________________, The Anatomy of Work (English trans. London, Heinemann, 1961).
A more detailed study of the division of labour in modern industrial societies. Chapter V examines Durkheim’s theory in the light of recent trends. A long statistical appendix presents data on the division of labour in a number of advanced industrial societies.
Theodore Caplow, The Sociology of Work (Minneapolis, University of Minneapolis Press, 1954).
A good introduction to the sociological study of division of labour, occupations and technology.
3. Property
A general view of property and theories of property can be obtained from:
Charles Gore (Bishop of Oxford) (ed.), Property: Its Duties and Rights (London, Macmillan, 1913).
R.H.Lowie, Social Organization (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950) Chapter 6, ‘Property’.
On the distribution of property in modern industrial societies, see, for example:
R.H.Tawney, Equality (4th rev. edn. London, Allen & Unwin, 1952).
C.Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York, Oxford University Press, 1956).
There has been much study of industrial property in capitalist societies. A classical Marxist study is Karl Renner, The Institutions of Private Law and their Social Functions (English trans. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949). The English translation has a valuable introduction and notes by O.Kahn-Freund, who discusses the changes in property and property law since Renner’s work was first published (1904, revised 1928). The pioneer study of the modern business corporation is A.A.Berle and G.C. Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (New York, 1933). A more recent study of the ownership and control of industry will be found in P.Sargant Florence, The Logic of British and American Industry (London, 1953).
4. The industrial enterprise and industrial relations
An early, influential study is that of Elton Mayo, The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization (New York, 1933).
Wilbert E.Moore, Industrial Relations and the Social Order (rev. edn. New York, Macmillan, 1951).
A good general study dealing with the social organization of industrial enterprises and with industrial relations in a broad sense.
A.Flanders and H.Clegg (ed.) The System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain: Its History, Law and Institutions (Oxford, Blackwell, 1954).
A collection of essays which provides a general view of industrial relations in Britain.
III. POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
1. Types of political system
There are regrettably few sociological studies of political systems. On primitive societies the reader may consult I.Schapera, Government and Politics in Tribal Societies (London, Watts, 1956).
A good general account of European political systems will be found in H.Sidgwick, The Development of European Polity (London, Macmillan, 1913). R.M.MacIver, The Modern State (London, Oxford University Press, 1926) is also largely concerned with European states. The Greek city state is studied from a sociological point of view in G.Glotz, The Greek City (English trans. London, 1929). On the feudal state see Marc Bloch, Feudal Society (English trans. London, 1961) Part II. Many features of the political structure of Asian societies are discussed in K.A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism.
There is a large literature on the modern democracies. The most useful works for the sociologist are probably, A.de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (English trans. London, 1835); James Bryce, Modern Democracies (2 vols. London, 1921); A.D.Lindsay, The Modern Democratic State (2 vols. London, 1943).
For an excellent study of a totalitarian society see Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism (New York, Oxford University Press, 1942).
2. Theories of the state
The Marxist theory of the development and role of the state is set out briefly in Marx and Engels, The German Ideology (English trans. of Parts I & III, London, 1938), and Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (English trans. London, 1940). A sociological theory of the state which owes much to Marxism is expounded in F.Oppenheimer, The State (English trans. New York, 1926).
Different accounts of the development of the state are given by R.H.Lowie, The Origin of the State (New York, 1927) and L.T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution (London, 1905) Chapter III, ‘Law and Justice’.
3. Political parties and pressure groups
The two classical studies of political parties are:
R.Michels, Political Parties (Glencoe, The Free Press, 1949) (English trans. of Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens in der modernen Demokratie, 2nd edn., Leipzig, 1925).
M.Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties (English trans. 2 vols. London, Macmillan, 1908).
Among the recent general studies see especially:
M.Duverger, Political Parties (English trans. London, 1954).
V.O.Key, Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups (2nd edn. New York, 1950).
R.Heberle, Social Movements: An Introduction to Political Sociology (New York, Appleton Century Crofts, 1951).
This book deals with the ideologies, structure, and functions of political groups which aim at a fundamental change in the social order. It also discusses the major problems of electoral studies, and examines methods and techniques of research.
An introductory study of parties in India will be found in M. Weiner, Party Politics in India: The Development of a Multiparty System (Princeton, 1957). See also, W.H.Morris-Jones, Parliament in India (London, 1957).
The study of pressure groups has attracted increasing attention. For a general survey see V.O.Key (op. cit. above). Two recent studies in Britain are S.K.Finer, Anonymous Empire (London, 1958) and J.D.Stewart, British Pressure Groups (London, Oxford University Press, 1958).
4. Political behaviour
There is now a considerable literature on electoral behaviour. For a general survey and bibliography up to 1954 see, G.Dupeux, ‘Le comportement electoral’, Current Sociology III (4), 1954–55. See also R.Heberle (op. cit. above), and D.E.Butler, The Study of Political Behaviour (London, 1958). For a general discussion based upon the study of a British election see M.Benney, A.P. Gray and R.H.Pear, How People Vote (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956).
There have been numerous studies of particular elections in many countries (e.g. the Nuffield College series of studies of British General Elections), and of the electoral behaviour of particular social categories (e.g. women) and social strata (especially the middle classes). For details of these see Dupeux (op cit.). There is a largely descriptive study of the Indian General Elections of 1951–52 in S.V.Kogekar and R.L.Park (eds.) Reports on the Indian General Elections 1951–52 (Bombay, Popular Book Depot, 1956).
The more general sociological and psychological study of political behaviour has languished somewhat with the proliferation of detailed electoral studies. A good introduction is still Graham Wallas, Human Nature in Politics (3rd edn. London, Constable, 1931). See also, the works mentioned above by V.O.Key, R. Heberle, D.E.Butler.
5. Political ideologies
The sociological conception of ‘ideology’ was first clearly formulated by Marx, and it has had a prominent place in later Marxist theory. For Marx’s exposition see K.Marx and F.Engels, The German Ideology. The notion was later re-examined in a critical manner in Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (London, Kegan Paul, 1936), which provides the best general survey of the problem.
Two outstanding sociological studies of political ideologies are Mannheim’s ‘Conservative Thought’ (Tranlated in Karl Mannheim, Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953); and C.Bouglé, Les idées égalitaires (Paris, Alcan, 1899).
There are many expositions and critical studies of modern political doctrines, but few recent sociological writings on the subject. Political ideologies, and especially the relation between class membership and political beliefs, are discussed in the works by R. Heberle and M.Benney et. al. (see above). The role of intellectuals in politics is examined in Raymond Aron, The Opium of the Intellectuals (English trans. London, 1957).
Modern nationalism has received some attention; e.g. by F.Znaniecki, Modern Nationalities: A Sociological Study (Urbana, 1952). There is a sociological account of Indian nationalism in A.R.Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism (2nd ed., Bombay, 1954).
For a recent review of the literature see N.Birnbaum, ‘The Sociological Study of Ideology (1940–60)’, Current Sociology IX (2) 1960.
6. Bureaucracy
The origin of modern studies of bureaucracy is Max Weber’s work; see the essay on bureaucracy in H.H.Gerth and C.Wright Mills (eds.), From Max Weber (New York, Oxford University Press, 1946).
Peter M.Blau, Bureaucracy in Modern Society (New York, Random House, 1956) is a clear and illuminating introduction to the subject. For a general survey of recent writing and a classified bibliography see S.N.Eisenstadt, ‘Bureaucracy and Bureaucratization’, Current Sociology VII(2) 1958.
IV. THE FAMILY AND KINSHIP
1. Kinship
G.P.Murdock, Social Structure (New York, Macmillan, 1949).
A comparative study, based upon the files of the Yale CrossCultural Survey, which discusses the major problems of kinship analysis. Also has chapters on the types of family and on the social regulation of sexual behaviour.
A.R.Radcliffe-Brown, ‘Introduction’ to A.R.Radcliffe-Brown and Daryll Forde, African Systems of Kinship and Marriage (London, Oxford University Press, 1950), pp. 1–85.
An outstanding short survey of kinship and marriage. The rest of the volume contains valuable studies of the kinship systems and marriage customs of particular African tribes, by leading social anthropologists.
See also Chapter 4, ‘Kinship’ in R.H.Lowie, Social Organization for an excellent short analysis.
The most useful general work on kinship in India is K.M. Kapadia, Hindu Kinship (Bombay, 1947).
2. Marriage and the Family
On the history of marriage and the family see:
W.Goodsell, A History of Marriage and the Family (London, 1934).
E.Westermarck, Short History of Marriage (London, 1926).
These two books give some account of the different types of family structure. On this subject, see also G.P.Murdock, Social Structure, Chapters I and II, and R.H.Lowie, Social Organization, Chapters 5 and 10. There is a large literature on particular types of family structure; the following books and articles may be consulted for a general view:
The ancient world. N.D.Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City (English trans. New York, Doubleday, 1956) Book II.
China. Olga Lang, Chinese Family and Society (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1946).
India. K.M.Kapadia, Marriage and Family in India (2nd edn. Bombay, Oxford University Press, 1958).
A.B.Keith, ‘Marriage (Hindu)’ in Hastings, Encylopaedia of Religion and Ethics.
Modern European and American Family. E.W.Burgess and H.J.Locke, The Family: From Institution to Companionship (New York, American Book, 1953).
M.Sorre (ed) Sociologie comparée de la famille contemporaine (Paris, 1955).
A collection of papers, mainly on the French family, but with some contributions on other European countries.
W.F.Ogburn and M.F.Nimkoff, Technology and the Changing Family (Boston, Houghton Hiffln, 1955).
Much recent sociological study of marriage and the family has been concerned with specific modern problems; marriage stability and divorce, child development, ‘problem families’, etc. There is a vast literature on these matters, some of which has been surveyed by Reuben Hill in ‘Sociology of Marriage and Family Behaviour 1945–56’, Current Sociology VII(1) 1958.
V. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
1. General
Two short introductory studies are:
T.B.Bottomore, Classes in Modern Society (London, Ampersand, 1955).
Includes a discussion of Marx’s theory of class and a brief account of social stratification in Britain, the USA and USSR.
K.B.Mayer, Class and Society (New York, Doubleday, 1955). Examines the principal types of social stratification and then studies in some detail the different aspects of social stratification in the USA.
An interesting general study of types of social differentiation and stratification is O.C.Cox, Caste, Class and Race (New York. 1948).
There is a useful collection of readings in R.Bendix and S.M. Lipset, Class, Status and Power (Glencoe, The Free Press, 1953). A wide-ranging survey of the literature up to 1952, concentrating however on modern societies, will be found in D.G.Macrae, ‘Social Stratification’, Current Sociology II (1) 1953–54. Recent research is well represented by the contributions to the Second and Third World Congresses of Sociology; see Transactions of the Second World Congress of Sociology (London, I.S.A. 1954, Vol. II. National and regional studies, occupations, social mobility, characteristics of different social strata, theoretical and methodological studies), and Transactions of the Third World Congress of Sociology (London, I.S.A. 1956, Vol. III, Changes in social stratification, social mobility and class structure, dynamics of social class).
The theoretical writing on social stratification is for the most part disappointing, except for some writing on social class and status (see below).
The Marxist theory has not been expounded anywhere in a coherent or satisfactory manner. It is best to read Marx and Engels, The German Ideology (English trans. London, 1938), and the Communist Manifesto (remembering that this is a manifesto, not a scientific essay). Among the more useful commentaries on Marx’s theory are J.A.Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Chapter II, and R.Schlesinger, Marx: His Time and Ours (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950) Chapters X and XI.
In recent years there have been attempts to construct a functionalist theory of social stratification, although functionalism as such is under critical attack (see Chapter 2 above). See especially, K.Davis and W.E.Moore, ‘Some principles of stratification’, American Sociological Review X(2) April 1945 (reprinted in L.Wilson and W.L.Kolb, Sociological Analysis: An Introductory Case Book, New York, 1949), and B.Barber, Social Stratification (New York, 1957).
2. Slavery
Article on ‘Slavery’ in Encylopaedia of the Social Sciences.
H.J.Nieboer, Slavery as an Industrial System (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1900).
Recent contributions to knowledge about slavery in the ancient world are conveniently brought together in the collection of essays edited by M.L.Finley, Slavery in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, Heffer & Sons, 1960).
3. Feudal estates
See especially Marc Bloch, La société féodale Vol. II, ‘Les classes et le gouvernement des hommes’. Also idem. ‘Feudalism’ in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. A more specialised study dealing with the situation in England is A.Lane Poole, Obligations of Society in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Oxford, 1946).
4. Caste
There are several general studies of the caste system and numerous studies of caste in particular regions or contexts. Of the general studies the following are most useful:
G.S.Ghurye, Caste and Class in India (2nd rev. edn., Bombay, Popular Book Depot, 1957).
A good general study of caste, its origin, basis and effects. It is only to be regretted that the chapter on social class added to the second edition discusses the phenomenon in very general terms, largely on the basis of American writing, and has little to say about social classes in India.
J.H.Hutton, Caste in India (2nd edn., Bombay, Oxford University Press, 1951).
The most systematic account of the caste system. In Part III there is a most useful discussion of theories of the origins of caste. Has a good bibliography.
E.M.Senart, Caste in India (English trans. London, Methuen, 1930).
An interesting study, first published in 1896, which emphasizes the resemblances between the original Aryan varnas and estates.
M.N.Srinivas, et. al. ‘Caste’, Current Sociology, VIII(3), 1959. An excellent review and evaluation of recent studies of caste, with an annotated bibliography. The introduction brings out very clearly the complexity of the caste system.
For a detailed study of changes in the caste system in an Orissa village see F.G.Bailey, Caste and the Economic Frontier (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1957).
5. Class and Status
There is a vast literature on social class and social status.
Of the general studies, the following will be found useful:
Ralf Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict in an Industrial Society (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959).
T.H.Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1950).
T.H.Marshall (ed.) Class Conflict and Social Stratification (London, Le Play House, 1938).
J.A.Schumpeter, ‘Social classes in an ethnically homogeneous environment’, in idem. Imperialism and Social Classes (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1951).
Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899; new edn., New York, Mentor Books, 1953).
Max Weber, ‘Class, Status, Party’ in H.H.Gerth and C.W.Mills (eds.) From Max Weber; Essays in Sociology (London, Kegan Paul, 1947).
Among the studies of stratification in particular societies see:
G.D.H.Cole, Studies in Class Structure (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1955).
C.Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York, Oxford University Press, 1956).
There are also some useful short studies in the Transactions of the Second and Third World Congresses of Sociology mentioned above.
There have been many studies of particular classes and occupational groups in modern societies, especially of the middle classes and professional groups. A classical study of the working class is G.Briefs, The Proletariat (New York, McGraw Hill, 1938). On the middle classes see Inventaires III. Classes Moyennes (Paris, Alcan, 1939); G.D.H.Cole, Studies in Class Structure, Chapters III and IV; R.Lewis and A.Maude, The English Middle Classes (London, Penguin Books, 1953); C.Wright Mills, White Collar: The American Middle Classes (New York, Oxford University Press, 1951); and D.Lockwood, The Blackcoated Worker (London, Allen & Unwin, 1958).
The psychological aspects of social class are discussed in a perceptive way, using historical and contemporary data, in M.Halbwachs, The Psychology of Social Classes (London, Heinemann, 1958. Originally published in French in 1938).
6. Social Mobility
The pioneer study by P.A.Sorokin, Social Mobility (New York, Harpers, 1927), provides a very comprehensive survey on the basis of data available at that time.
More recent data have been used for comparative purposes in S.M.Lipset and R.Bendix, Social Mobility in Industrial Society (Glencoe, The Free Press, 1959).
A pioneer empirical study of a particular society is D.V.Glass (ed.) Social Mobility in Britain (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1954).
See also the studies reported in Transactions of the Third World Congress of Sociology, Vol. III, mentioned above.