Chapter 18 Notes: Social Stratification

VARIATION IN DEGREE OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY

• Social stratification: existence of social groups with unequal access to important advantages (economic resources, power, prestige).
• Three core types of advantages studied:
  • wealth/economic resources,
  • power (ability to make others do what they do not want to do; influence via threat of force),
  • prestige (respect or honor accorded).
• Three conventional types of societies by degree of inequality:
  • Egalitarian societies: no social groups with greater access to economic resources, power, or prestige.
  • Rank societies: unequal access to prestige, but not to wealth or power.
  • Class (or caste) societies: unequal access to all three (economic resources, power, prestige).
• Some ethnographic cases do not fit neatly; classifications are simplifications (some straddle categories).
• Core idea: variation in degree of social inequality is tied to how economic resources are allocated and transformed into goods/services through labor, along with prestige and power distributions.

EGALITARIAN SOCIETIES

• Egalitarian does not mean identical individuals; rather,:
  • there are as many prestige positions as there are capable individuals to fill them (Morton Fried quoted): "there are as many positions of prestige in any given age/sex grade as there are persons capable of filling them".
  • prestige is not transferable or inheritable; wealth tends to be communally shared; tools/weapons may be passed but prestige positions are fluid based on ability and opportunities.
• Examples of egalitarian groups: !Kung, Mbuti, Australian Aborigines, Inuit, Aché (foragers); Yanomamö (horticulturalists); Lapps (pastoralists); some sharing economies seen in foragers and certain pastoral contexts.
• Mechanisms limiting domination in egalitarian societies:
  • criticism and ridicule of overassertive leaders (e.g., Mbuti, Hadza cases).
  • disobedience and ignoring commands; potential removal via social action; in extreme cases, killing by community agreement (as reported among the !Kung and Hadza).
  • mobility: groups may simply move away from disagreeable leaders.
  • Boehm’s interpretation: dominance tendency in humans present; egalitarian cultures actively counteract it.
• Economic/resource sharing is central: food sharing, tools, and other resources are distributed to minimize inequality.
• Variability within egalitarianism: differences in ability (hunter skill, artistry) exist, but access to status positions for same ability is equal; status is not inherited.
• Important caveat: even in egalitarian societies, some prestige differences exist (e.g., high-status hunters or artisans), but they do not translate into long-term economic advantage or structural power differences.
• Foraging vs. pastoral distinctions: foragers with extensive sharing tend to be more clearly egalitarian; pastoral groups may have varying degrees of wealth differences (e.g., livestock ownership) that can become a source of prestige or power if differences persist over time.
• Transition from egalitarian to stratified forms can occur if wealth/power differences become sustained or inherited.

RANK SOCIETIES

• Rank societies: limited inequality in wealth/resources and in power, but clear prestige differentiation.
• Chief system: chief position (often hereditary or genealogically defined) is a marker of prestige, not necessarily of wealth or coercive power.
• Examples and evidence:
  • 19th-century Northwestern and Southwestern Native American Kwakiutl (Nimpkish) organized around large potlatches where chiefs gave away wealth to demonstrate status, not to accumulate lasting wealth for themselves.
  • In Polynesian contexts, chief status often tied to genealogical distance from chiefly line; deference shown to chiefs (e.g., Trobriand Islanders where commoners must bend when a chief stands; chiefs may rise if they sit and commoners crawl).
• Economic status of chiefs: contentious; some scholars (Marshall Sahlins) argued that chiefs’ stores were for redistribution and not permanent ownership; others (Laura Betzig on Ifaluk) show that chiefly status can be inherited through female line, with chiefs receiving extra fish and redistributing to close relatives more than to the broader population; chiefs did not appear markedly wealthier or more powerful in everyday life.
• Key takeaway: rank societies are partly stratified; prestige is unequally distributed, but economic resources and power may be more evenly distributed than prestige.
• Power and leadership in rank societies often constrained by social norms and rituals; chiefs’ authority may be limited by the need to mobilize production rather than coercively extract wealth.
• Ifaluk example illustrates nuanced inequality: chiefs may control resources (fishing areas) and receive larger shares, but not necessarily have superior access to overall wealth or power; gifts may not balance the net inflows from others.

CLASS SOCIETIES

• Class societies: inequality across three domains (economic resources, power, prestige) is more pronounced and formalized.
• Open class systems: some mobility between classes is possible; not fully closed.
• Closed class systems (caste-like): strong barriers to mobility; birth determines class membership; marriage and social ties reinforced within class; examples include caste structures in India and burakumin in Japan.
• Features of class systems:
  • In open systems, there are multiple classes (degree of openness varies by society); mobility is influenced by education, occupation, wealth, and social networks.
  • In closed systems, membership is fixed by birth; intermarriage across strata is restricted or prohibited; social reproduction through inheritance of wealth and status is strong.
• North American and European examples of open class systems: long-standing analyses of Yankee City, Middletown, Paradise, Ontario; status tends to be linked to head-of-household occupation, wealth, and education; openness varies by country and era.
• Mechanisms sustaining class: laws and institutions that protect property, restrict access to opportunities for lower classes, and reinforce disparities (e.g., zoning laws preventing multi-family housing; exclusive private schools; clubs; charitable networks).
• Mobility and education: higher education increasingly linked to upward mobility; correlation between degree attainment and income:
  • Bachelor’s degree vs high school diploma: $rac{Income<em>{BA}}{Income</em>{HS}} = 1.75,$ i.e., 75% higher for BA holders.
  • Professional degrees vs BA: $rac{Income<em>{Prof}}{Income</em>{BA}} = 1.19.$
  • Combined effect: rac{Income{Prof}}{Income{HS}} = 1.75 imes 1.19 = 2.0825 ext{ (approximately } 208 ext{% of HS income)}.
• Mobility and openness by country/time:
  • Canada, Finland, Sweden show higher mobility than the United States and Britain; Mexico, Peru show lower mobility than the US and Brazil; Colombia considerably lower mobility.
  • Paradise, Ontario (1950s) vs 1980s: move from elite-dominated leadership to leaders from middle/working classes, showing increased openness.
• Degree of inequality:
  • Inequality and mobility are not perfectly aligned; some countries with low mobility have lower inequality, others with high mobility have high inequality.
  • Historical fluctuations in the United States: top 1% share of wealth peaked at 42.6% just before the 1929 crash; in the mid-1970s the top 1% held about 17.6%; by 2006 inequality was more concentrated at the top than since 1929; the Great Recession (2007–2009) reduced some of that concentration.
  • Current US gap: top 20% holds 8.5 times the income of the bottom 20% (ratio ~ $rac{W<em>{ ext{top 20}}}{W</em>{ ext{bottom 20}}} = 8.5$).
  • Cross-country comparisons: Norway ~4 to 1; Germany ~4.3 to 1; India ~4.7 to 1; Brazil up to ~32 to 1; these ratios illustrate wide global inequality differences.
• Recognition of class in society:
  • The United States often denies the existence of classes, promoting a meritocratic ideal that hard work and character can bring success, despite objective evidence of stratification.
  • Mobility belief can coexist with denial of class structure, creating a paradox where mobility is perceived as possible even as class lines persist.

CASTE SYSTEMS

• Caste: a ranked, largely closed system where membership is determined at birth and marriage is restricted within the caste; status is inherited and ascribed.
• India: thousands of hereditary castes; four broad levels of hierarchy; caste often tied to traditional occupations but actual economic roles vary; higher castes gain advantages in economics, prestige, and sexuality (e.g., access to inter-caste marriage options, deference from lower castes).
• Mechanisms sustaining caste:
  • economic gains: cheap labor and services supplied by lower castes; sanctions (house sites, wells, grazing rights) can be withdrawn to enforce status; the upper castes benefit financially.
  • prestige gains: social deference; ritual purity norms reinforce hierarchy; high-caste individuals avoid physical contact with lower castes; ritual cleanliness is asserted through social boundaries.
  • sexual gains: higher-caste men have access to women both within and outside their caste, while lower-caste men are restricted; avoidance of contamination maintains hierarchy.
• Japan: burakumin (eta) as a caste group within a broader class society; occupations considered unclean (e.g., farm labor, leatherwork, basket weaving); long-standing endogamy and social segregation; post-1871 formal abolition but persisted informal segregation and discrimination into the late 20th century.
• Other regions: various sub-Saharan African societies feature caste-like divisions with specialized crafts or social roles; these castes often practiced endogamy and inheritance of roles; modernization has weakened some caste distinctions, though social stratification persists.
• Rwanda case: prior to Hutu–Tutsi conflict, Twa (a small minority) faced discrimination; ethnicity in colonial context was rigidified via identity cards; post-conflict reconciliation efforts underway.
• United States: historical parallels to caste via race; intermarriage restrictions and legal segregation; racial classifications shift over time but have produced persistent social inequalities.
• Latin America and the Caribbean: racial classifications lie along a continuum (not a strict binary); lighter pigmentation can confer social advantage in some contexts; wealth differences and social status intersect with racial/ethnic categorization.
• Global pattern: caste-like distinctions exist in many societies; some are interwoven with ethnicity and class; persistent social sanctions and economic controls reinforce inequality.

SLAVERY

• Slavery: a class (and in some contexts a caste) of people who do not own their labor and are thus at the bottom of the social ladder.
• Forms of slavery:
  • direct capture or tribute (e.g., ancient Greece); slaves may lack rights but can be freed and assimilated; freeing may occur through manumission or purchase; freed slaves can sometimes achieve higher status.
  • Nupe (central Nigeria): slaves can own property, manage land, earn wages, and even own slaves; manumission possible; status still expected to be linked to master; some slaves served as royal officers; ultimate ownership of their labor and belongings goes to the master.
  • United States: slavery originated as cheap labor but justified by racial ideology; slaves could not marry, own property, enter contracts; children born to slave mothers were slaves; sexual exploitation by masters; after abolition, caste-like remnants persisted in some places; slavery was practiced in both slave-holding and non-slave-holding areas; in some places, slavery persisted in various forms after abolition (e.g., Jim Crow-era segregation in the U.S.).
• Not an inevitable stage in economic development; slavery occurred in diverse contexts and is not tied exclusively to a single economic system (not restricted to intensive agriculture or preindustrial societies).
• Slavery across cultures shows the variability in legal rights and social status, from relatively flexible to highly coercive, and from temporary to hereditary in some societies.

RACISM AND INEQUALITY

• Racism: belief that some so-called races are inferior to others; in societies with visible physical differences, racism often links to social stratification.
• Biology of race: genetic diversity within Africa is greater than between Africa and other continents; there is no clear boundary for racial traits; continuous variation; concept of discrete races is scientifically unsupported for humans.
• Race as a social category: classifications reflect social processes, ethnocentrism, and power; used to justify discrimination, exploitation, or genocide (e.g., Holocaust targeting Jews defined as a race, though Indo-European language group crosses what many think of as race).
• The social reality of race persists: racial classifications influence access to housing, education, employment, criminal justice, and health care; even when individuals may be equally skilled, racial bias can influence treatment.
• Health disparities (Unequal in Death box): higher mortality from major diseases among African Americans after controlling for age/gender; disparities persist after accounting for obesity and lifestyle; possible explanations include discrimination in medical care, differences in access to care, and chronic stress from racism (Dressler’s stress hypothesis).
• Key mechanisms reinforcing racism:
  • differential medical treatment (e.g., angiography and bypass surgery less likely for African Americans in some contexts);
  • differential exposure to risk factors due to SES and environment;
  • genetic arguments used historically to justify inequality (now rejected by genetics).
• Race in the United States vs Latin America:
  • US uses a binary white/black framework with historical legal segregation; African ancestry and color line persist in health and socioeconomic inequality.
  • Latin American contexts show a continuum of racial categories with fluid boundaries; wealth can alter racial classifications (wealthy, dark-skinned individuals may be perceived as whiter than their daylight indicates).
• Overall: race is a social construct with profound real-world consequences; biological concept of race is not scientifically valid, but racial classifications matter in social and political life.

ETHNICITY AND INEQUALITY

• Ethnicity: self-identified and socially defined categories based on common origins, language, culture, history, and sometimes religious affiliation.
• Ethnicity is contextual and manipulable by insiders and outsiders; ethnicity can be used to mobilize political action (e.g., civil rights movements) or to consolidate state power (nationalism, assimilation policies).
• Ethnicity in multiethnic societies is often associated with wealth, power, and prestige disparities; but ethnic identities can provide social belonging and cultural solidarity.
• Ethnic stereotypes and discrimination can be self-reinforcing (self-fulfilling prophecies) when discrimination in schools and jobs reduces skill development or opportunities.
• Ethnicity and state power: regimes may suppress ethnic identity through nationalism, or promote it to consolidate control; democratic regimes may allow more expression of ethnic difference.
• Examples and implications:
  • Rwanda: historical Hutu–Tutsi tensions; colonial identity policies reinforced ethnic divisions; post-conflict reconciliation and integration efforts underway.
  • African American civil rights movement: ethnic identity as a political tool that helped dismantle legal barriers to equality; continued underrepresentation of African Americans in wealthier segments of society; experiences of discrimination in employment and housing persist even with formal rights.
• Ethnicity can be a source of pride and belonging, but it is often linked to wealth and political power disparities; ethnic identity is a dynamic, political resource in multiethnic societies.

THE EMERGENCE OF STRATIFICATION

• Anthropologists debate why and when stratification emerged; consensus that it is relatively recent in human history.
• Archaeological evidence indicates little inequality before roughly 8,000 years ago; substantial inequality arises with the Near East’s agricultural intensification and centralized political structures around 2,000 years after agriculture emerged there.
• Burial data and grave goods: unequal child burials and statuary/ornaments in some children's tombs suggest inherited status; implies social ranking rather than purely individual achievement.
• Cultural features associated with stratification emerged relatively recently: fixed settlements, political integration beyond the local community, the use of money, and specialization of labor.
• Theories of the emergence of stratification:
  • Sahlins’ surplus theory (Polynesian economies): production of surplus boosts prestige of the redistributor (chief) and increases chief’s control over resources; surplus may lead to broader social differentiation as a function of redistribution and political authority. He later suggested leaders may encourage surpluses to enhance their prestige via feasts and potlatches.
  • Lenski’s surplus and power theory: surplus production stimulates stratification; distribution of surplus is determined by power and leads to inequalities in wealth, privilege, and prestige.
• Interplay and critiques:
  • The surplus lead-to-chief theory and the power-led surplus theory are not mutually exclusive; surpluses can generate leaders, and leaders can promote surplus production.
  • Mobility and population pressures can influence the emergence and maintenance of stratification; as population pressure increases, access to land and resources can become more restricted and wealth concentrates in certain families.
• The chapter emphasizes that future cross-cultural and archaeological work is needed to fully understand the emergence and variability of stratification across civilizations.

SUMMARY

• Key takeaways:
  • All modern industrial and postindustrial societies are stratified; egalitarianism was more common historically, but has declined with market exchange and centralized political systems.
  • Stratification types: egalitarian, rank, and class; open vs closed class systems; caste-level rigidity.
  • Slavery has existed in many forms and contexts; it is not an inevitable stage of economic development and can be a separate social system from race.
  • Race as a biological category is not scientifically valid, but racism is real as a social and political force; health and social outcomes are influenced by racism.
  • Ethnicity is a social and political construct; it can both unite and stratify groups, and can be manipulated by regimes for political ends.
  • The emergence of stratification is a relatively recent development; theories emphasize surplus production, political control, and population pressures as drivers.
  • Mobility and inequality are interrelated but not perfectly correlated; modern economies show both high mobility in some contexts and high inequality in others.
• Some numerical highlights:
  • Top 1% wealth share in the United States before the 1929 stock market crash: about $42.6 ext{ extpercent}$; by the mid-1970s: about $17.6 ext{ extpercent}$; by 2006: inequality more concentrated at the top than since the 1929 crash.
  • Current US gap: top 20% income vs bottom 20% income ratio: $rac{W<em>{ ext{top 20}}}{W</em>{ ext{bottom 20}}} = 8.5$.
  • Cross-country wealth inequality ratios (top 20% vs bottom 20%): Norway $rac{W<em>{ ext{top 20}}}{W</em>{ ext{bottom 20}}} ext{ around } 4:1,$ Germany $ext{about } 4.3:1,$ Brazil up to $32:1.$
  • Mobility/economic advantage examples: Bachelor’s degree yields $rac{Income<em>{BA}}{Income</em>{HS}} = 1.75,$ professional degrees yield $rac{Income<em>{Prof}}{Income</em>{BA}} = 1.19.$
  • United Nations Development Programme (HDI) 1990–2005: many countries improved; Bangladesh, China, Uganda up about 20% in ranking.

CRITICAL QUESTIONS (from summary section)

• What might be some social consequences of large differences in wealth? Explain.
• Is an industrial or developed economy incompatible with a more egalitarian distribution of resources? Why/why not?
• In a multiethnic society, does ethnic identity help or hinder social equality? Explain.
• Why might inequality have decreased in some countries in recent years?

GLOSSARY NOTES (selected terms to review)

• caste, class, class societies, economic resources, egalitarian societies, ethnicity, manumission, power, prestige, rank societies, slaves

IMPORTANT CONTEXTUAL BOXES AND EXAMPLES

• Unequal in Death: African Americans compared with European Americans: health disparities persist after statistical controls; possible explanations include differential treatment in healthcare and long-standing stress from racism.
• Race as a social category: historical and contemporary examples illustrate how racial classifications influence social outcomes and policy.
• Ethnicity and identity dynamics: how ethnic labels shift with political power, migration, and social change.