Page 33 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes practice of egalitarianism. True equality would not be antithetical to personal liberty and
cultural individuality.
• Rawls explains equality as an egalitarian conception of justice. The principle of difference,
being an inevitable phenomenon, is related to redressal of disadvantages of the deserving
members of society. Inequalities are there because the distribution of natural talents and
contingencies of social circumstance are unjust.
• The ideas of absolute equality, justice and fairness are simply utopia. However, human
history shows that efforts have always been made to eradicate, remove or weaken social and
economic inequalities with a view to have equality among men to the maximum extent
possible in a given society.
• 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.”
• 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.
• Inequalities are both distributive and non-distributive. Wealth and prestige belong to the
area of stratification, hence distributive. Property and charisma are non-distributive. The
“distributive” and the “non-distributive” could also be termed as “intransitive” and
“transitive” inequalities. Aristotle was also concerned like Rousseau with the origin of social
stratification (inequality).
• According to Dahrendorf, social stratification is a very real element of our everyday lives. It
is a system of distributive system, i.e., a system of differential distribution of desired and
scarce things. Besides honour and wealth, prestige and income, legitimate power, patronage
or the distribution of power as a reward for certain deeds or virtues could be considered as
criteria of differential ranks.
• The term ‘hierarchy’ is used for ordering of social units as superior and inferior or higher
and lower. Race and caste are considered as natural hierarchies as both imply an ordering of
endogamous groups having unchanging hereditary membership. On the basis of endogamy
caste and race have some similarities, but the two are based on distinct and different principles,
and the actual functioning of the two is also not similar.
• Caste hierarchy has mutually entailed “principles” along with the principle of opposition
between the pure and the impure. But, then, the problem arises when Dumont calls it (the
pure and the impure divide) as “a single true principle”.
• A “triadism” or a third or a mediating element may be required to link the hierarchically
arranged groups/units. The “radial” model of caste refers to a multiple set of context -
specific centre-periphery relations or sacred-profane dichotomy.
• “A hierarchical relation is a relation between larger and smaller, or more precisely between
that which encompasses and that which is encompassed.” This is what Smaje calls “concentric
hierarchies”.
• “A continuous hierarchy, on the other hand, is made up on the basis of a quantitative
variation of a single attribute across levels or strata.”
• There is no unilinear hierarchy of castes. Multiple hierarchies characterize today’s Indian
society. Intercaste and intracaste relations are no more the bedrock of organic ties between
the castes and within the castes. Family and individual matter in attaining honour and social

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