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Unit 2: Basic Concepts Relating to Stratification

of equality. The three cardinal principles, namely, equality, justice and fairness, remain the same Notes
in most human societies.
Inequality
Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote an essay on “What is the origin of inequality among men and
whether it is authorized by natural law”? Rousseau, a maladjusted rebel, thought that the question
of inequality was a basic one. He seriously pondered over the twin problems of man’s “original
nature” and the origin of society. He believed in the cause of the corrupting influence of civilization.
“The social structure itself perverted human nature, our way of life, our search for happiness.”
“To ask how inequality came to be is to inquire how society came to be, since inequality is a social
relationship.” According to Rousseau, society “came to be”, as an act of human will, and that it is
possible to conceive of a “natural man” living in isolation (at least theoretically). However,
Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality tells us : “Historical or social man, because of the very conditions
of social living, is inevitably evil - that is, he is impelled to selfish actions that will hurt others. The
more civilized, the society, the more evil he will be.” Further, Rousseau’s “natural man” is happy
and unchanged. “The imposition of society on this natural man created a situation of conflict,
inequality, distorted values, and misery.”
Such an origin seems to be logically sound, philosophically convincing, but unrealistic in actual
social life.
Income, wealth, occupation, education, power, style of life, etc., determine the nature and process
of distributive justice or injustice, as the case may be. Based on differentiation emanating from
these considerations, social relations are shaped among people in a society. Thus, there could be
several modes of status determination, including birth, ethnicity, race, and the above mentioned
criteria. A given pattern of stratification would determine the nature and functioning of a society.

Social inequality is generally considered a matter of distributive justice and social
relations among people of higher and lower strata.

Why Inequality ?
Some quite pertinent questions are put by R. Dahrendorf, Why is there inequality among men ?
Where do its causes lie ? Can it be reduced, or even abolished altogether ? Or do we have to accept
it as a necessary element in the structure of human society ?
Dahrendorf, while tracing the history of inequality, says that in the 18th century the origin of
inequality was the focal point, and in the 19th century the formation of classes was debated, and
today (20th and 21st centuries) we are talking of the theory of social-stratification. The original
problem persists, however, a new explanation may be offered. The following statement by
Dahrendorf is noteworthy :
The lathe operator and pipe fetter, the general and the sergeant, the aristocratically
gifted child and the mechanically gifted child, the talented and the untalented, are all
pairs of unequals. Yet these inequalities are evidently themselves rather unequal, and
have to be distinguished from one another in at least two respects. First, we must
distinguish between inequalities of natural capability and those of social position; and
second, we must distinguish between inequalities that do not involve any evaluative
rank order and those that do.
Based on the combination of these two approaches, Dahrendorf refers to four types of inequality.
In relation to the individual, there are : (a) natural differences of kind in features, character and

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