Causes of social inequality, main social groups. How and why social inequality arises
One of the central places in sociology is the problem of social inequality. The uneven distribution of sociocultural benefits and values depending on the social status of an individual or social groups is understood as social inequality. social
inequality refers to the unequal access of people to economic
resources, social goods and political power. The most common way to measure inequality is to compare the highest and lowest levels of income in a given society.
There are several approaches to assessing the problem of social inequality. Conservatives argued that the unequal distribution of social benefits serves as a tool for solving the main problems of society. Proponents of the radical approach sharply criticize the existing social order and believe that social inequality is a mechanism of exploitation and is associated with the struggle for valuable and scarce goods and services. Modern theories of inequality in a broad sense belong either to the first or to the second direction. Theories based on the conservative tradition are called functionalist; those rooted in radicalism, called conflict theories.
According to functionalist theory, social inequality is a necessary property of any normally developing social system. Wilbert Moore and Kingsley Davis argue that social stratification is necessary, society cannot do without stratification and classes. A system of stratification is required in order to give individuals incentives to perform the duties associated with their position.
Social inequality- the emerging system of relations in society, which characterizes the uneven distribution of scarce resources of society (money, power, education and prestige) between different strata or strata of the population. The main measure of inequality is money.
Supporters of the theory of conflict believe that the stratification of society exists because it is beneficial to individuals and groups that have power over others. From the point of view of conflictology, society is an arena where people fight for privileges, prestige and power, and advantageous groups consolidate it through coercion.
Conflict theory is largely based on the ideas of Karl Marx. Karl Marx believed that at the heart of the social system are economic interests and the relations of production associated with them, which constitute the basis of society. Since the fundamental interests of the main subjects of capitalist society (workers and capitalists) are diametrically opposed and irreconcilable, the conflict nature of this society is inevitable. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces, K. Marx believed, come into conflict with existing production relations, primarily with property relations. This leads to social revolution and the overthrow of capitalism.
According to Marx, ownership of the means of production is one of the sources of power. Another source is control over people, possession of the means of control. This position can be illustrated by the example of the Soviet Union. The elite was the party bureaucracy, which formally controlled both the nationalized and socialized property and the entire life of society. The role of bureaucracy in society, i.e. monopoly management of national income and national wealth, puts it in a special privileged position.
Inequality can be represented by the relation of concepts "rich", " poor". Poverty - this is the economic and socio-cultural state of people who have a minimum amount of liquid values and limited access to social benefits. Poverty is a special way and style of life, passed on from generation to generation, norms of behavior, and psychology. So sociologists talk about poverty as a special subculture. The most common and easy to calculate way to measure inequality- comparing the lowest and highest incomes in a given country. Another way - analysis of the share of family income, spent on food.
Economic inequality is that a minority of the population always owns most of the national wealth. The highest incomes are received by the smallest part of society, and the average and lowest incomes are received by the majority of the population. Accordingly, a geometric figure illustrating the stratification profile of Russian society will resemble a cone; in the United States, the figure will resemble a rhombus.
Poverty threshold – this is the amount of money officially established as the minimum income, which an individual or family only needs to buy food, clothing and pay for housing - the living wage. Each region has its own subsistence minimum and, accordingly, its own poverty line.
Sociology distinguishes between absolute and relative poverty. Under absolute poverty is understood as such a state in which an individual is not able to satisfy even basic needs for food, housing, clothing, or is able to satisfy only minimal needs with his income. Under relative poverty impossibility to maintain a decent standard of living. Relative poverty indicates how poor a particular individual or family is compared to other people. Working poor is a Russian phenomenon. Today, their low incomes are primarily due to the unjustifiably low wages and pensions.
Poverty, unemployment, economic and social instability in society contribute to the emergence of a social bottom: beggars begging for alms; "homeless"; street children; street prostitutes. These are people deprived of social resources, stable connections, who have lost elementary social skills and dominant values of society.
Let us characterize the six social strata of modern Russia :
1) upper- economic, political and power elite;
2) upper middle- medium and large entrepreneurs;
3) average- small entrepreneurs, managers of the production sector, the highest intelligentsia, the working elite, military personnel;
4) base- mass intelligentsia, the main part of the working class, peasants, trade and service workers;
5) lower- unskilled workers, long-term unemployed, single pensioners;
6) "social bottom"- homeless people released from places of detention.
Social inequality causes social protest and confrontation. The entire history of the class structure of society is accompanied by an ideological and political struggle for social equality.
Egalitarianism(fr. - equality) is an ideological and theoretical movement that advocates universal equality, up to the equal distribution of material and socio-cultural values. Manifestations of egalitarianism can be found in the social movements of ancient Greece and Rome, in the text of the Bible. The ideas of egalitarianism found their support among the Jacobins during the French Revolution, among the Bolsheviks in Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, among the leaders of national liberation movements in the third world countries in the 20th century. Egalitarianism can be attributed to a radical ideological and political movement.
Similar information.
Inequality characterizes the uneven distribution of society's scarce resources - money, power, education and prestige - between different strata or strata of the population. On the scale of inequality, the rich will be at the top and the poor at the bottom.
If wealth is a sign of the upper class, then income - the flow of cash receipts for a certain calendar period, say, a month or a year - characterizes all sections of society. Income is any amount of money received in the form of wages, pensions, rents, allowances, alimony, fees, etc. Even the alms of the poor, obtained by begging and expressed in terms of money, is a kind of income.
On this basis, the following population groups can be distinguished: (Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1 - Units of measurement of economic inequality by population groups
From Figure 1.1 it follows that the population is divided into 4 groups:
1. Rich
2. Middle class
The fact is that along with a broad understanding of income, there is a narrow one. In a statistical sense, income is the amount of money that people earn due to belonging to a certain profession (type of occupation) or due to the legal disposal of property. However, beggars, even if they regularly earn a living by begging, do not provide any valuable service to society. And statistics take into account only those sources of income that are associated with the provision of valuable, socially significant services or with the production of goods. Beggars are included in the so-called underclass, i.e. literally not a class, or layer below all classes. Thus, beggars fall out of the official income pyramid.
The essence of social inequality lies in the unequal access of different categories of the population to socially significant benefits, scarce resources, and liquid values. The essence of economic inequality is that a narrow stratum of society owns most of the national wealth. Most incomes can be distributed in different ways. For example, in the United States, the income level of the majority allows us to speak of the presence of a large middle class, while in Russia the income level of the majority of the population is often below the subsistence level. Accordingly, the pyramid of incomes, their distribution among population groups, in other words, inequality, can be depicted in the first case as a rhombus, and in the second - as a cone. As a result, we get a stratification profile, or an inequality profile.
The essence of social inequality
A variety of relationships, roles, positions lead to differences between people in each particular society. The problem comes down to somehow streamlining these relations between categories of people that differ in many aspects.
What is inequality? In its most general form, inequality means that people live in conditions in which they have unequal access to limited resources of material and spiritual consumption. To describe the system of inequality between groups of people in sociology, the concept of “social stratification” is widely used.
When considering the problem of social inequality, it is quite justified to proceed from the theory of socio-economic heterogeneity of labor. Performing qualitatively unequal types of labor, satisfying social needs to varying degrees, people sometimes find themselves engaged in economically heterogeneous labor, because such types of labor have a different assessment of their social utility.
The essence of social inequality, as we have already said, lies in the unequal access of various categories of the population to socially significant benefits, scarce resources, and liquid values. The essence of economic inequality is that a minority of the population always owns most of the national wealth. In other words, the smallest part of society receives the highest incomes, and the majority of the population receives the average and the smallest. The latter can be distributed in different ways. In the United States, the smallest income (as well as the largest) is received by a minority of the population, and the average - by the majority. In Russia today, the lowest incomes are received by the majority, the average incomes are received by a relatively large group, and the highest incomes are received by the minority of the population.
It is the socio-economic heterogeneity of labor that is not only a consequence, but also the reason for the appropriation of power, property, prestige by some people and the absence of all these advantages in the social hierarchy for others. Each of the groups develops its own values and norms and relies on them. If representatives of such groups are placed on a hierarchical basis, then these groups are social strata.
In social stratification there is a tendency to inherit positions. The operation of the principle of inheritance of positions leads to the fact that not all capable and educated individuals have equal chances to occupy positions of power, high principles, and well-paid positions. There are two selection mechanisms at work here: unequal access to truly high-quality education and unequal opportunities for obtaining positions by equally prepared individuals.
Social stratification has a traditional character: the inequality of the position of different groups of people persists throughout the history of civilization. Even in primitive societies, age and sex, combined with physical strength, were important criteria for stratification.
Imagine a situation where there are numerous social strata in a society, the social distance between which is small, the level of mobility is high, the lower strata are a minority of members of society, rapid technological growth constantly raises the “bar” of meaningful work in the lower tiers of production positions, social protection of the weak, among other things, guarantees the strong and advanced peace and realization of potencies. It is hard to deny that such a society, such interlayer interaction is rather an ideal model in its own way than an everyday reality.
Most modern societies are far from this model. They are characterized by the concentration of power and resources in a numerically small elite. The concentration among the elite of such status attributes as power, property and education hinders social interaction between the elite and other strata, leads to excessive social distance between it and the majority. This means that the middle class is small and the top is deprived of contact with other groups. Obviously, such a social order contributes to destructive conflicts.
The author analyzes various types of social inequality, highlighting the specifics of inequality in the field of education. State the main difference between inequality determined by education and other types of inequality. Based on the text, knowledge of the social science course, the facts of public life, give three other manifestations of inequality in modern society.
Read the text and complete tasks 21-24.
Education as a social institution Education in modern countries is a very wide and highly developed differentiated multi-level social systems (subsystems of society) of continuous improvement of the knowledge and skills of members of society, which play an important role in the socialization of the individual, its preparation for obtaining one or another social status and fulfilling the corresponding roles , in the stabilization, integration and improvement of social systems. Education plays a very important role in determining the social status of an individual, in the reproduction and development of the social structure of society, in maintaining social order and stability, and exercising social control.
Education, along with the army, church and industry, is one of the lifts of social mobility. Having received knowledge and high qualifications in modern society, it is much easier to make a career than a) it was in pre-industrial and industrial society, b) if a person did not possess them.
For a long time and to this day, education as a social institution has been the main mechanism for social testing, selection and distribution of individuals by social strata and groups. The education system was entrusted with the functions of social control over the processes of intellectual, moral, and physical development of the younger generation. And on the system of vocational education, in addition, also the functions of control over the distribution of the generation entering an independent working life, according to various cells of the social structure of society: classes, social groups, strata, production teams.
Thus, education is one of the main channels of social mobility, playing an important role in the social differentiation of members of society, their distribution both among social strata and within these strata. The position of an individual in society, the opportunities for his successful promotion up the career ladder are determined by the quality of the education received, which is largely related to the prestige of the educational institution.
The way it is. An uneducated person cannot get a highly paid and responsible job, no matter what social background he may be. The educated and the uneducated have unequal life chances, but the situation can always be corrected by improving one's qualifications, one has only to apply individual conditions. What distinguishes inequality in the field of education from other types of inequality, say, inherited, is that it puts a person in an unprivileged position temporarily. But if you were born the son of a king or a hereditary nobleman, then this is forever. Nothing can be done about such inequalities based on prescribed statuses.
(G.E. Tadevosyan)
Explanation.
The correct answer must contain the following elements:
1) The main difference between inequality in the field of education is indicated, for example:
– inequality in education depends on the will and desire
the person himself, he can be corrected by improving his qualifications.
2) Other types of inequality that are characteristic of modern society are given, for example:
– inequality based on prescribed statuses, for example,
ethnicity or social origin;
– inequality based on where a person lives, whether metropolitan or provincial;
- inequality associated with the peculiarities of the external appearance or state of health, the conditions of upbringing in the family.
Other manifestations of social inequality can also be cited.
Subject area: Social relations. Social stratification and mobility
Inequality is the living of people in conditions in which they have unequal access to resources. The concept of "social stratification" is used to describe the system of inequality. On the basis of inequality, a hierarchy of estates and classes is created. Signs of social differentiation:
1) gender and age characteristics;
2) ethno-national characteristics;
3) religion;
4) income level, etc.
The reason for inequality is the heterogeneity of labor, which results in the appropriation of power and property by some people, the uneven distribution of rewards and incentives. The concentration of power, property and other resources in the elite contributes to the formation of social conflicts.
In Western societies, the reduction of social distance occurs through the middle class (small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, the prosperous part of the intelligentsia, enterprise workers, small proprietors), which is the guarantor of stability.
People differ among themselves in many ways: gender, age, skin color, religion, ethnicity, etc. But these differences become social only when they affect the position of a person, a social group on the ladder of the social hierarchy. Social inequality in sociology is usually understood as the inequality of the social strata of society.
It is the basis of social stratification. Literally translated, stratification means “to make layers”, that is, to divide society into layers (from “stratum” - “layer”, “fa-cere” - “to make”). The four main dimensions of stratification are income, power, education, and prestige. A stratum is thus a social stratum of people who have similar objective indicators on the four scales of stratification.
In the 20s. XX century P. Sorokin introduced the concept of "stratification" to describe the system of inequality in society. Stratification can be defined as structured inequalities between different groups of people. Societies can be seen as consisting of strata arranged hierarchically, with the most privileged strata at the top and the least at the bottom. The foundations of the theory of stratification were laid by M. Weber, T. Parsons, P. Sorokin and others.
Social stratification performs a dual function: it acts as a method of identifying the strata of a given society and at the same time represents its social portrait.
In sociology, there are several approaches to the study of social stratification:
1) "self-evaluative", when the sociologist grants the respondent the right to attribute himself to the population group;
2) the method of "assessment", in which the respondents are asked to evaluate the social position of each other;
3) here the sociologist operates with a certain criterion of social differentiation.
More on the topic 36. The essence and causes of social inequality. The concept, content, foundations of social stratification:
- 7.1. Social structure and social stratification of society
- The essence of the personality, its main psychological characteristics are determined to a decisive extent in their lifetime, socially, and not innately and biologically (the principle of social conditioning).
Social inequality - such a state of affairs in a society or a separate community, when their members have unequal access to such social benefits as wealth, power and prestige.
Any society is always structured on many grounds - national, social class, demographic, settlement, etc. Structuring, that is, the belonging of people to certain social, professional, socio-demographic groups, can give rise to social inequality. Even natural genetic or physical differences between people can be the basis for the formation of unequal relationships! But the main thing in society is those differences, those objective factors that give rise to the social inequality of people. Inequality is an enduring fact of every society. Ralf Dahrendorf wrote: “Even in a prosperous society, the unequal position of people remains an important enduring phenomenon ... Of course, these differences are no longer based on direct violence and legislative norms, which supported the system of privileges in a caste or estate society. Nevertheless, in addition to more gross divisions in terms of property and income, prestige and power, our society is characterized by many rank differences - so subtle and at the same time so deeply rooted that statements about the disappearance of all forms inequalities as a result of leveling processes can be perceived, at least, skeptically".
Social differences are those that are generated by social factors: the division of labor, the way life, social roles performed by individuals or social groups.
A structured society can be represented as a set of interrelated and interdependent areas social life: economic, political, spiritual, social, in which sometimes the family sphere is distinguished. Each of these spheres of social life has its own social stratification, its own structure. Social differences between people determine the social structure. In it, first of all, the economic structure of society is manifested. The main elements of this structure are classes, social and professional groups, and strata.
The largest social-stratification formation of society is the class. We should not forget the thesis of K. Marx about the fundamental importance of social classes in the history of human society.
The word "class" comes from ancient Rome, where it was used to divide the population into separate groups for tax purposes. At the top step were the Assidi - the richest Romans, at the bottom - the proletarians.
Plato in ancient Greece saw two classes - the rich and the poor. Aristotle divided society into a greedy upper class, a lower class of slaves, and a venerable middle class, which can be trusted to take care of the common good, since it moderately possessed virtues and vices.
The scientific concept of the class appeared in the 19th century. Its author is K. Marx. He saw the whole history of society in the conflict of classes. Hence the idea of a classless society, a society of complete social integration, social equality. K. Marx divided contemporary society into two main classes, primarily in relation to private property. Following his logic, we can assume that the socialist system ensures complete social equality, because property has become public, or state property, to which all members of society, all social groups should have an equal relationship. However, it was precisely on the basis of public property that the nomenclature and privileges flourished, and a shadow economy appeared. Why did the socialist experiment end in failure?
First, in any society, in addition to owning property, someone must exercise operational economic control over it. The possibility of distribution of material and monetary Resources often turns out to be more important and profitable than a direct drop in property. In this option, the manager has the advantage of irresponsibility, because he is dealing with someone else's property. Thus, with illiterate management of the army of officials, the risk is small, and the social benefits are obvious.
Secondly, society always has a certain state, political organization, which means that leaders, state managers, officials appear, who objectively should have more rights, otherwise they simply will not be able to perform the functions of state administration. In almost any society, such social groups occupy a certain status that objectively gives rise to social inequality.
Written story mankind does not yet know a single society without social inequalities. Social inequality has many faces, it manifests itself in a variety of ways. forms and at different levels of social organization. Polls show that people have a fairly good idea of their place in the social hierarchy, they are keenly aware of and painfully react to social inequality, which is often expressed in social conflicts.
Thirdly, there is reason to believe that human nature has a genetic desire to dominate other people. This desire is expressed to varying degrees in individuals. A person or a social group, having received power, always tries to use it openly or disguisedly. These processes can be regulated (representative democracy, separation of powers, rotation of state officials), but cannot be completely eliminated.
Fourthly, society is objectively interested in nominating the most capable, gifted for management, to the heights of power, and thus is forced to create such conditions that people aspire, have a desire to occupy these places. Social inequality is a kind of tool for the self-preservation of society, with the help of which it consciously ensures that the most important posts are filled by capable and qualified people, a kind of elite - political, economic, scientific, military, etc. The mistakes of such people or their incompetence can cost society too much. Therefore, it is necessary to create some advantages in social status, social position, stimulating the promotion of the most capable people.
Fundamental theoretical basis social inequalities, stratification is the very development of civilization. Each individual person cannot master all the achievements of material and spiritual culture. There is a specialization of people and with it - more and less valuable activities. People are equal in their abilities, upbringing and education. Here is the objective basis of stratification.
Causes social inequalities.
Functionalism:
When a certain type of activity or profession is valued more in society, a hierarchy in society is built depending on the significance of these professions.
People have different abilities, the most talented ones are engaged in the most prestigious professions, the talented ones should occupy the top of the social pyramid.
According to Marx:
Social inequality is based on economic.
Those who own property oppress those who do not.
By Weber. At the core social inequalities lie:
Wealth
Power
Prestige
According to Sorokin. Cause social inequalities are:
Own
Power
Profession
Forms social inequalities:
biosocial
sexual
ethnic
National
Gender