C3: The Weberian Theory of Social Inequality

welcome to this component free screencast on the viian theory of social inequality now alongside KL Marx and Emil durheim Max vber is regarded as one of the founders of sociology and he's particularly famous for his analysis of capitalism and to some extent the work of Max vber builds upon and critiques the earlier work of KL Marx like KL Marx Max vber regarded society as being characterized by conflicts over power and resources and VOR defined power as the ability to get your own way uh even when other people resist now Max vber like Marx believed that Society was organized in a stratified system of hierarchy with some people being more powerful and other people being being less able to dominate or resist that power so vber therefore agrees with Marx that relations of inequality are Central to social life however vber rejects the Marxist idea that class inequality is always the most significant form of social inequality for vber status groups that is groups possessing certain amounts of prestige or social honor and parties that is organized groups of people possessing certain amounts of political power can be just as significant sources of social inequality as class membership and therefore a major strength of the viian approach is it avoids the problem of economic determinism associated with Marxism because it adopts uh a multi-dimensional approach to the study of social inequality for Max vber the concept of class refers to people who share the same economic interests and according to vber class divisions derive not simply from ownership or lack of ownership of the means of production as is the case uh for traditional marxists but also from an individual's capacity to obtain Financial Rewards Wards for selling their skills uh within society's Marketplace and this is referred to as the market situation of individuals so some individuals are able to demand uh more money uh better jobs because of their skills and their qualifications which obviously affect the types of work and the types of pay that they're able to obtain for example those in managerial professional uh White Collar uh occupations uh generally earn more and have more favorable conditions of work uh than people in Blue Collar uh manual workingclass jobs so the qualifications that white collar workers possess such as a degree diplomas and the skills that they've acquired make them more marketable than others without such qualifications and similarly if we look at uh blue collar uh manual working class workers a skilled crafts person would be able to secure higher wages than the semi or unskilled different classes have different life chances and life chances are described by VOR as access to things that are regarded as necessary and desirable uh in a societ Society such as access to food housing uh good health uh educational and job opportunities vber distinguished the following class groupings in capitalist Society so firstly we have the propertied upper class uh the group that Marx referred to as the Bourgeois at the bottom we have the manual working class but then in between the top and the bottom we have two important intermediate social classes we have white colar workers so people like uh middle class professionals and managers and also we have the self-employed or the petty Bourgeois Vapor also argued that there are important divisions within each of these four broad social classes and unlike marks vber argued that the white collar uh middle class expands rather than contracts as capitalism develops so he maintained that capitalist Enterprises and the modern nation state require a rational bureaucratic Administration that involves large numbers of White Collar uh admin clerical and managerial staff whilst class forms one possible basis for social inequality they were argue the other factors needed to be taken into account including the status of particular groups and in V's work this concept of status uh refers to differences between social groups in the amounts of prestige that they're accorded by others and Prestige is the respect and social honor uh given to some people in society so whereas class refers to the unequal distribution of economic or financial rewards status refers to the unequal distribution of social honor or Prestige and vber argued that the relationship between class and Status uh isn't always obvious and clearcut vber argued that status often varies independently of class uh possession of wealth can obviously sometimes confer High status but this is not universally the case uh drug dealers for example uh may be multi-millionaires but they aren't well respected and therefore aren't ranked High uh in a stratification system based on status on the flip side uh an academic working in a university may earn a relatively modest salary but they command a fair amount of respect Prestige and social honor so they have a higher uh status now occupations ethnic and religious groups Lifestyles can all be accorded different levels of status within Society furthermore some societies are patriarchal and judge females as having less status uh than men and a status group therefore is a group made up of individuals who are awarded a similar amount of social honor and they often share a similar lifestyle and social identity now members of some status groups might try to place restrictions on Outsiders joining them and this is known as social closure so social closure involves the exclusion of some people from membership of a status group uh a con example in the uh contemporary UK would be those studies that suggest that those who've attended uh elite private schools what are referred to as public schools usually feel certain types of occupations and this type of social closure is often referred to as Elite self-recruitment vber also identified a third form of inequality which party and he was referring not just to political parties but to any organized group of individuals which try to gain power and influence Society so for example in addition to political parties these groups would also include various forms of pressure groups that seek to influence government policy some of these political groups are clearly linked to class interest interest for example many trade unions uh represent groups within the working class however pressure groups often draw their members from all social classes and some um pressure groups might also represent specific status groups uh for example the pressure group Stonewall campaigns for the rights of lesbian gay and bisexual people so the existence of these other dimensions of status and party in addition to class make V's conflict Model A stratification and social inequality far more complex than simply a battle between the rich and the poor and vber was skeptical as to whether or not a revolution uh resulting in the overthrow of capitalism would actually occur in western societies and he also suggested that communism the alternative to capitalism proposed by Marx might end up being just as oppressive as capitalism now V's approach to stratification has been adopted and developed by many sociologists as it allows them to create more complex and multi-dimensional models of how Society is stratified and divided and compared to Marxism approach is it is much easier to explain social inequality by things like gender ethnicity and age since the position of these groups can be described in general terms relating to both their Market situation their status as well as their ability to organize in a political sense and the vuan approach rightly identifies that people may come together and identify with others not simply on the basis of economic interests but also because of a shared status position or shared political goals so for example in the 1960s and the 1970s the women's Liberation movement tried to bring together women from all social class backgrounds to campaign for women's rights the main criticism of the vuran approach comes from Marxism marxists argue that focusing on multiple dimensions of inequality obscures the fundamental importance as they would see it of class divisions within capitalist societies so marxists would argue that the status distinctions that V talks about that exists within the working class are often uh simply encouraged as a means of divide and rule by the ruling class and that the really important political struggles are ultimately linked to the class struggle and conflicts over economic interests nevertheless in spite of these criticisms as we shall see in the next screencast vor's ideas have had considerable influence on Modern sociologist

Channel: Steve Bassett

Views: 32,299

Keywords: C3, Sociology, Max Weber, Weberian, Social inequality, A level, eduqas, parksociology

Id: 23iXgRl6bt4

Length: 12min 26sec (746 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 04 2017