Page 286 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 13: Changing Dimensions of Social Stratification

2. The shift in the mode of production in agriculture from family-based subsistence farming to Notes
market-oriented hired worker-based agriculture.
3. The increasing diversification of economic and social life in the village.
These are new parameters of status and social mobility in the countryside replacing the traditional
criteria related to sanskritization, westernization and the dominant caste.
It is also reported that based on the production-exchange relations rural society can be divided
into: (a) semi-proletariat, (b) small holders, (c) farmers, and (d) rentiers. In most studies today the
concepts of class and mode of production are used to explain agrarian stratification and its
transformation. However, some hardcore Marxists believe that there are only two classes :
(a) class of big landowners (including rich peasants); and (b) class of agricultural labourers
(including landless labourers). It is undeniable that the middle peasants as a class category have
acquired considerable significance. Class-based power relations and dominant castes too influence
rural stratification system. Rural class structure and class relations can also be seen in terms of
production, indebtedness and asset structure. As such, there are : (a) big, (b) medium, (c) petty, (d)
landless peasants, and (e) landlords. Distribution of assets corroborates class stratification.
Stratification of peasants is understood mainly in terms of the mode of production in agriculture.
Based on the landholding and resources, the agrarian hierarchy comprises : (a) landless agricultural
labourers, (b) small peasants, (c) middle peasants, (d) rich peasants, and (e) landlords (mainly
absentee). Thus, both landholdings and resources are considered as the main criteria for using
attributes and interaction in the understanding of agrarian hierarchy. In agrarian stratification,
there are old issues and new explanation and new issues and old explanation. Leader-landlord
nexus is also seen because the local leaders are landlords as well. The leaders are also employers
of labour, and they come from a high social stratum, because the beneficiaries of the land reforms
are mainly rich peasants. The historicity of a given region/sub-region and effective implementation
of land reforms also determine the nature of agrarian hierarchy.
Analytically speaking, in contrast to the rural society, the urban society is divided into : (a)
industrial bourgeoisie, (b) the middle class or petty bourgeoisie, further divided into upper, middle
and lower middle classes, (c) the industrial proletariat, (d) semi-proletariat, and (e) lumpen
proletariat. Thus, rural and urban phenomena are two distinct patterns of life. Country-town
nexus has always been there, and therefore, despite distinctions between rural and urban settings,
the rich and the poor are basically similar in both. Caste, class and power are common to the two
settings. However, the two differ in terms of the contexts and extents of operation of a particular
principle or a set of criteria/attributes. The structural and cultural differences make the two
different phenomena.
Urban industrial social stratification is characterized by the professional and the working classes
to a large extent. Professional classes reflect social and cultural differentiation or changes from
tradition to modernity in the fields of occupation, industry and economy. Emergence of professional
classes becomes a measure of social mobility. Urban industrial social stratification consists of the
following classes :
(a) Upper class
(b) Upper-middle class
(c) Lower-middle class
(d) Working class
These classes are generally framed on the basis of income and occupation. Conceptually, an
industrial society can be characterized, based on income and occupation, having a very open view
of status, role and power allocation. Open relationships, competition, radicalism, innovation and
utilitarianism-rationalism are the main features of an industrial society. Urban industrial

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