Anthropology 112 Social Stratification Jodi Perin (adapted from Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Southwest Texas State)

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Anthropology 112Social StratificationJodi
Perin (adapted from Introduction to Cultural
Anthropology Southwest Texas State)
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Social Stratification, review

• Domestic scale societies?
• Political scale societies?

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Social Stratification

• As you already know, commercial scale societies
  are highly stratified -- people have very
  different access to resources, status, and power.

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Pros/cons of social stratification

• What are the pros/cons of inequality?
• Total equality in any large society is probably
  not possible
• An established social order may help maintain
  stability, BUT . . .
• Too much inequality leads to instability and
  possibly collapse (e.g. Bolshevik Revolution,
  Angola under colonialism, etc.)
• Also, those at the top benefit from social
  equality, and those at the bottom do not.

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How do societies explain inequality?

• Ideology stories or explanations of how the
  world works. These stories often give
  explanations of why there is inequality. These
  stories may be religious or not.
• The Inka?
• The Hawaii kingdom?
• Of course, rebellious groups can always come up
  with their own stories (ideologies) that
  contradict existing ones, and ideologies can
  change over time (e.g. Bolshevik Russia).

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Example 1 Caste in Hindu India
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Example 1, cont. Dharmas and Caste

• A Dharma is a teaching.
• Dharmas are different for each caste.
• Reincarnation rewards and punishes success at
  following dharma
• If you follow it well, you might hope to be
  reincarnated as something better than you
  currently are.
• If you follow it poorly, you are likely to be
  punished by being reincarnated as something worse
  than you currently are.
• Like all religious beliefs, these ideas are based
  on faith and cannot be proved or disproved.

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Example 2 Race in the Americas

• Traditionally, race in the Americas in general,
  and the US in particular is very much like caste.

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Example 2 Race and Caste

• Race has traditionally divided people into groups
  with differential access to wealth and power.
• Like caste, different racial groups have
  traditionally been subject to different rules and
  laws (or differential enforcement of them.)
• Like caste, there is a pervasive belief that
  racial classification is in some way
  inextricable. 

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Example 3 Class in commercial scale societies

• Examples Great Britain, United States
• Theoretically, status in a class system in
  achieved.
• Classes are understood as more-or-less temporary
  social ranks that are changeable. So, at least in
  theory, one can be born into one class, spend
  one's life in another, and die in a third.
• Of course, the vast majority of people do not do
  this.  Most people in a class based society
  remain in the class to which they are born.
• Many aspects of a class based society may
  resemble caste and vice versa.

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Degrees of Inequality
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Wealth Distribution in the US 1998
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Is inequality beneficial?

• Many people would argue that inequality is a
  benefit to society as a whole because the promise
  of greater rewards, motivates people to take
  risks, pursue difficult goals, challenge existing
  ideas, innovate, and explore. Well call this the
  functionalist theory.

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Is the playing field level? 

• The functionalist theory predicts that the best
  people will be drawn to the most useful
  positions, but does everyone start with an equal
  chance?

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Are their limits to the motivating power of
inequality?

• The functionalist theory says that inequality
  motivates good for society, but is this always
  the case? How does extreme inequality affect a
  society?

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Are useful jobs highly rewarded?

• The functionalist theory predicts that society
  will reward those whose services or innovations
  are most useful to it. 
• But this is a mis-representation of commercial
  scale societies, which focus on investing money
  to make money, not to create a better society per
  se.
• Are the most useful jobs the best rewarded?  It's
  anybody's guess.

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Coming up . . .

• Bodley on commercial scale societies (Chapters
  11, 12, 13, and 14)
• While youre reading, think about
• Pros/cons of these societies?
• Whos benefiting, whos not benefiting?