Historical examples of inequality in society. Introduction. Possession of a profitable profession, position

02.03.2020

Even a superficial look at the people around us gives reason to talk about their dissimilarity. People are different by gender, age, temperament, height, hair color, intelligence level and many other features. Nature endowed one with musical abilities, the other with strength, the third with beauty, and prepared for someone the fate of a weak invalid. Differences between people, due to their physiological and mental characteristics, are called natural.

Natural differences are far from harmless, they can become the basis for the emergence of unequal relationships between individuals. The strong force the weak, the cunning triumph over the simpletons. Inequality resulting from natural differences is the first form of inequality, in one form or another manifested in some species of animals. However, in human main is social inequality, inextricably linked with social differences, social differentiation.

Social those are called differences, which generated by social factors: lifestyle (urban and rural population), division of labor (manual and manual workers), social roles (father, doctor, politician), etc., which leads to differences in the degree of ownership of property, income, power, achievement , prestige, education.

The different levels of social development are basis for social inequality, the emergence of rich and poor, the stratification of society, its stratification (a stratum layer that includes people with the same income, power, education, prestige).

Income- the amount of cash receipts received by a person per unit of time. It may be labor, or it may be the possession of property that “works”.

Education— a set of knowledge gained in educational institutions. Its level is measured by the number of years of study. Say incomplete. secondary school- 9 years. The professor has more than 20 years of education behind him.

Power- the ability to impose your will on other people, regardless of their desire. It is measured by the number of people to whom it applies.

Prestige- this is an assessment of the position of the individual in society, prevailing in public opinion.

Causes of social inequality

Can a society exist without social inequality? Apparently, in order to answer the question posed, it is necessary to understand the reasons that give rise to the unequal position of people in society. In sociology, there is no single universal explanation for this phenomenon. Various scientific and methodological schools and trends interpret it differently. We single out the most interesting and noteworthy approaches.

Functionalism explains inequality based on the differentiation of social functions performed by different layers, classes, communities. The functioning and development of society is possible only thanks to the division of labor, when each social group carries out the solution of the corresponding vital tasks for the entire integrity: some are engaged in the production of material goods, others create spiritual values, others manage, etc. For the normal functioning of society an optimal combination of all types of human activity is necessary. Some of them are more important, others less. So, on the basis of the hierarchy of social functions, a corresponding hierarchy of classes, layers is formed performing them. Those who carry out the general leadership and administration of the country are invariably placed at the top of the social ladder, because only they can support and ensure the unity of society, create the necessary conditions for the successful performance of other functions.

The explanation of social inequality by the principle of functional utility is fraught with a serious danger of a subjectivist interpretation. Indeed, why is this or that function considered as more significant, if society as an integral organism cannot exist without functional diversity. This approach does not allow explaining such realities as the recognition of an individual as belonging to the highest stratum in the absence of his direct participation in management. That is why T. Parsons, considering the social hierarchy as a necessary factor that ensures the viability social system, links its configuration with the system of dominant values in society. In his understanding, the location of social strata on the hierarchical ladder is determined by the ideas that have formed in society about the significance of each of them.

Observations of the actions and behavior of specific individuals gave impetus to the development status explanation of social inequality. Each person, occupying a certain place in society, acquires his own status. is an inequality of status, resulting both from the ability of individuals to perform a particular social role (for example, to be competent to manage, to have the appropriate knowledge and skills to be a doctor, lawyer, etc.), and from the opportunities that allow a person to achieve one or another position in society (ownership of property, capital, origin, belonging to influential political forces).

Consider economic view to the problem. In accordance with this point of view, the root cause of social inequality lies in the unequal attitude to property, the distribution of material wealth. most brightly this approach appeared in Marxism. According to his version, the emergence of private property led to the social stratification of society, the formation antagonistic classes. The exaggeration of the role of private property in the social stratification of society led Marx and his followers to the conclusion that it is possible to eliminate social inequality by establishing public ownership of the means of production.

The lack of a unified approach to explaining the origins of social inequality is due to the fact that it is always perceived at least at two levels. First, as a property of society. Written history knows no societies without social inequality. The struggle of people, parties, groups, classes is a struggle for the possession of greater social opportunities, advantages and privileges. If inequality is an inherent property of society, then it carries a positive functional load. Society reproduces inequality because it needs it as a source of life support and development.

Secondly, inequality always perceived as unequal relations between people, groups. Therefore, it becomes natural to seek to find the origins of this unequal position in the peculiarities of a person's position in society: in the possession of property, power, in the personal qualities of individuals. This approach is now widely used.

Inequality has many faces and manifests itself in various parts of a single social organism: in the family, in an institution, at an enterprise, in small and large social groups. It is necessary condition organizations social life . Parents, having an advantage in experience, skills, and financial resources in comparison with their young children, have the opportunity to influence the latter, facilitating their socialization. The functioning of any enterprise is carried out on the basis of the division of labor into managerial and subordinate-executive. The appearance of a leader in the team helps to unite it, turn it into a stable education, but at the same time it is accompanied by the provision leader of special rights.

Any, organization strive to save inequalities seeing in it ordering beginning, without which it is impossible reproduction of social ties and integration of the new. The same property belongs to society as a whole.

Ideas about social stratification

All societies known to history were organized in such a way that some social groups always had a privileged position over others, which was expressed in an unequal distribution of social benefits and powers. In other words, social inequality is inherent in all societies without exception. Even the ancient philosopher Plato argued that any city, no matter how small it may be, is actually divided into two halves - one for the poor, the other for the rich, and they are at enmity with each other.

Therefore, one of the basic concepts of modern sociology is "social stratification" (from Latin stratum - layer + facio - I do). Thus, the Italian economist and sociologist V. Pareto believed that social stratification, changing in form, existed in all societies. At the same time, as the famous sociologist of the XX century believed. P. Sorokin, in any society, at any time, there is a struggle between the forces of stratification and the forces of leveling.

The concept of "stratification" came to sociology from geology, where they denote the location of the Earth's layers along a vertical line.

Under social stratification we will understand the vertical cut of the location of individuals and groups in horizontal layers (strata) according to such characteristics as income inequality, access to education, the amount of power and influence, and professional prestige.

In Russian, the analogue of this recognized concept is social stratification.

The basis of stratification is social differentiation - the process of emergence of functionally specialized institutions and division of labor. A highly developed society is characterized by a complex and differentiated structure, a diverse and rich status-role system. At the same time, some social statuses and roles are inevitably preferable and more productive for individuals, as a result of which they are more prestigious and desirable for them, and some are considered by the majority as somewhat humiliating, associated with a lack of social prestige and a low standard of living in general. It does not follow from this that all statuses that have arisen as a product of social differentiation are arranged in a hierarchical order; some of them, such as age, do not contain grounds for social inequality. Thus, the status of a young child and the status of a nursing infant are not unequal, they are simply different.

Inequality between people exists in every society. This is quite natural and logical, given that people differ in their abilities, interests, life preferences, value orientations, etc. In every society, there are poor and rich, educated and uneducated, enterprising and unenterprising, those in power and those without it. In this regard, the problem of the origin of social inequality, attitudes towards it and ways to eliminate it has always aroused increased interest, not only among thinkers and politicians, but also among ordinary people who consider social inequality as an injustice.

In the history of social thought, the inequality of people was explained in different ways: by the initial inequality of souls, divine providence, imperfection of human nature, functional necessity by analogy with the body.

German economist K. Marx linked social inequality with the emergence of private property and the struggle of interests of various classes and social groups.

German sociologist R. Dahrendorf also believed that the economic and status inequality underlying the ongoing conflict of groups and classes and the struggle for the redistribution of power and status is formed as a result of the market mechanism for regulating supply and demand.

Russian-American sociologist P. Sorokin explained the inevitability of social inequality by the following factors: internal biopsychic differences of people; the environment (natural and social), which objectively puts individuals in an unequal position; the joint collective life of individuals, which requires the organization of relations and behavior, which leads to the stratification of society into the ruled and the managers.

American sociologist T. Pearson explained the existence of social inequality in every society by the presence of a hierarchical system of values. For example, in American society, success in business and career is considered the main social value, therefore, scientists of technological specialties, plant directors, etc., have a higher status and income, while in Europe the dominant value is “preservation of cultural patterns”, in connection with what society gives special prestige to humanities intellectuals, clergymen, university professors.

Social inequality, being inevitable and necessary, manifests itself in all societies at all stages of historical development; only the forms and degree of social inequality change historically. Otherwise, individuals would lose the incentive to engage in complex and laborious, dangerous or uninteresting activities, to improve their skills. With the help of inequality in income and prestige, society encourages individuals to engage in necessary, but difficult and unpleasant professions, encourages more educated and talented people, and so on.

The problem of social inequality is one of the most acute and topical in modern Russia. A feature of the social structure of Russian society is a strong social polarization - the division of the population into poor and rich in the absence of a significant middle stratum, which is the basis of an economically stable and developed state. Strong social stratification, characteristic of modern Russian society, reproduces a system of inequality and injustice, in which the opportunities for independent self-realization in life and raising social status are limited for a fairly large part of the Russian population.

Social inequality

Inequality of people and social inequality.

social stratification.

social mobility.

The problems of social inequality are very close to everyday, everyday consciousness and feelings of people. Since ancient times, people have noticed and experienced that some people are unequal to others. This was expressed in many ways: in the perception and definition of existing differences as fair or unfair; in secular and religious ideologies that substantiated, justified or, on the contrary, refuted, criticized the existing inequality; in political doctrines and programs that either emphasized the inevitability of inequality and even affirmed its useful social functions or, on the contrary, formulated the ideas of equality, demands for equalizing life chances; in developed philosophical concepts, including the search for sources of inequality in the fundamental features of the human race or in the social conditions of its existence; in ethical theories that interpret equality and inequality as moral categories (values). The problem of inequality and injustice was the topic around which the ground for mass riots, social movements, and revolutions was formed. All this indicates that inequality is an extremely important feature, a hallmark of the human community.

The fact that individuals, separate, concrete people are not equal to others, is a banal truth, an obvious fact. People are tall and short, thin and fat, more intelligent and more stupid, capable and stupid, old and young. Each person has a unique composition of genes, a unique biography and a unique personality warehouse. It is obvious. However, we are not talking about such inequality when we talk about social inequality, that is, about inequality that has social rather than individual characteristics and characteristics. And the most important of these social attributes for a person are the nature of the groups to which he belongs and the nature of the positions he occupies.

Social inequality - unequal access (or unequal chances of access) to socially valuable goods, arising from belonging to different groups or from occupying various public positions

Social inequality is a phenomenon that particularly affects the sphere of people's interests and causes strong emotions. Therefore, reasoning on this topic often turns out to be closed within the framework of ideology, that is, such systems of thought that obey and serve certain group interests. But inequality also remains an important subject of theoretical reflection, the purpose of which is not so much to justify or criticize inequality as to clarify the essence of this phenomenon.

ideologies inequalities.

Despite the many specific formulations and arguments, all ideologies of inequality can be classified into three types. The first is elitist ideologies. They argue that there are groups that, by their very nature, are "higher" than others and therefore should occupy a higher position in society, which finds expression in their privileges, fully justified and justified. Such groups can be formed by birthright, as is the case, for example, in the formation of dynasties, aristocratic circles, citizens of ancient Rome, castes in India. They may also include people who have special prerequisites for this, outstanding abilities, intellect, people who, as it were, are close to God. Examples are tribal elders, shamans, and members of the clergy.

Another type is egalitarian ideologies created by or on behalf of discriminated groups. In their most radical version, they opposed any social inequality and privileges, demanding the same living conditions for all people.

The third type of ideology is meritocratic (from the English merit - merit). According to this ideology, inequalities in society are justified to the extent that they are the result of one's own merit. How is it to be understood that certain groups, strata, classes have special merits? Two interrelated factors are decisive here. First, the level of one's own efforts, the intensity of labor applied, or the level of costs and sacrifices incurred, as well as the possession of exceptional and rare talents, skills, or prerequisites. Secondly, this is the contribution that this group makes to society as a whole, the extent to which this group satisfies the needs of the whole society, the benefits or pleasures that the activity of this group brings to other people and groups of society. From these two points of view, the groups are very different from each other. Social inequality becomes a kind of fair reward for one's own efforts and public benefit.

Theories of inequality

Reasoning about inequality is not only the subject of ideological justifications. This theme also penetrates into the realm of the sciences, first of all into the realm of philosophy, and later into the realm of the social sciences. The prevalence and painful sensitivity of manifestations of social inequality from ancient times caused a desire to find out the causes of this phenomenon.

The functional theory considers social inequality as an eternal, unavoidable phenomenon, moreover, inevitable, necessary for the existence and functioning of human communities. Social inequality provides motivation for compulsory education and training, which creates a certain pool of candidates for mastering the necessary professions, for performing the work necessary in a given type of society, which guarantees the very existence of this society. The conclusion naturally follows from this: in every existing society (for if it exists, it means that it has survived and functions) social inequality is found. Social inequality is a mandatory, indispensable, universal, eternal component of any society.

There are three major varieties of dichotomous inequality: the confrontation between the class of owners and the class of the dispossessed in the sense in which Karl Marx first formulated this opposition; further, the confrontation between groups that form the majority and the minority (in particular, nations and ethnic minorities), as well as the confrontation of the sexes - men and women, which is the main theme of feminist concepts that are now gaining more and more sound.

social stratification

All goods or values: wealth, power, prestige, education and health are hierarchical. You can have them to a greater or lesser extent. From the highest to the lowest levels, a whole gradation scale or hierarchy unfolds. There are, as you know, hierarchies of wealth - from millionaires to the homeless; hierarchies of power - from emperors to slaves; hierarchies of prestige - from idols to nonentities; Olympic Games to the disabled. On such scales of comparison, one can find a place for individuals. Moreover, you can calculate how many people will be at each such level of the hierarchy. Then we get certain statistical categories, for example: very rich, rich, wealthy, people of average income, poor, the poorest. You can do it even more precisely by setting any quantitative limits on earnings. In this case, one can speak of stratification layers.

Social stratification (stratification) is a hierarchy of social groups that have greater or lesser access to any socially valued good: to wealth, power, prestige, education.

The term "social stratification", or division into social strata, is used to describe group or status, but not individual, differences in approaching valued social goals. Each good or value of the five above has its own level of stratification. Groups and positions occupy certain levels, certain places on each of these hierarchies. For example, in the stratification by income level, a doctor will be at a higher level than a nurse. In the power stratification, the director will be placed at a higher level than the worker. A prestigious TV presenter will take a higher place than a teacher. But do these systems of stratification exist on their own, independently of each other? Already when describing the individual benefits included in this stratification, we mentioned that some of them may be of auxiliary importance in acquiring other benefits. Wealth can provide power and prestige. Power can help to get a fortune, as well as gain prestige. Prestige can have an impact on the process of achieving power, and on obtaining high wages and incomes. If such an interaction occurs, it may result in a situation in which the same group or position is approximately equally located at all three levels of stratification. Thus, the President of the United States is a position that is associated with high incomes, great wealth, great power and great fame. In this case, we should talk about the coincidence of the stratification parameters. However, much more often we are dealing with examples of a certain disharmony between stratification systems, which is based on the difference in the places occupied by the same group, the difference in the levels at which it finds itself in different stratification systems. A university professor in Poland has high prestige, an average income and little power; a politician, on the contrary, has high incomes and power, but monstrously low prestige; a football player has good prestige, high incomes and no power; prestige. There can be many combinations of this kind. In this case, we are talking about a discrepancy (mismatch) of the stratification parameters.

This discrepancy can have various consequences. Among the members of a given group or persons holding a given position, this may cause a certain sense of dissonance or a peculiarly understood injustice. For example, a person might reason like this: I'm so rich, I've achieved so much, and people are pointing their fingers at me and calling me an "upstart."

There are other features, signs that make it possible to put different phenomena on close or the same levels of the stratification hierarchy: a similar way of life, tastes and passions, customs and mores, religious practices, ideological views, entertainment, etc. For example, rich people in their way of life and thinking are similar to other rich people, and this way of life and thinking is completely different from that of poor people. Wealthy people build similar residences for themselves, drive similar brands of cars, dress from the same “trendsetters”, vacation on the same islands and constantly eat salmon with champagne. In many respects, the way of life of politicians or managers turns out to be similar. The everyday life of the stars of the TV screen, cinema or music has a special character. Ordinary people only timidly, out of the corner of their eye, penetrate this world with the help of illustrated weeklies.

Let us note that the similarity, as it were, accompanies the integrity of those groups or positions that individual individuals represent. Rich people create a certain, real social environment, a rather integral group, a close-knit community, despite the fact that such a community includes doctors, lawyers, businessmen, politicians, television representatives, and mafia bosses. The similarity in the level of wealth is expressed in similar interests (for example, in the desire to protect oneself from taxes).

The similarity in consumer opportunities finds expression in a similar way of life. Accordingly, certain social ties and comradely contacts are formed between people with such similarity, interactions arise and even stronger social relations are established, primarily instrumental, related to ensuring the so-called business interests. A different nature of communication, features of life, tastes in the consumer sphere characterize, say, the environment of managers or the so-called "leading cadres". And again, all this takes on a different character among that wide group of people of the so-called middle class, who are employed in various spheres of production and other professional activities that require high education and qualifications, as well as acting as entrepreneurs who have their own small firms or enterprises that provide them sufficient, though not elite material standard of living. Such close-knit communities - groups, varieties of a certain environment, made up of people who have approximately the same position in hierarchies, in systems of social stratification, regardless of their different group affiliation or other positions they occupy, we call social strata.

social mobility

People change their social positions, as well as their group affiliation. As they move between positions and groups that are on different levels stratification hierarchies, we are talking about social mobility, more precisely, about vertical mobility, which makes it possible to distinguish this process from the movement of people in space - from migrations, travel, tourism, going to work, which we call horizontal mobility. We have spoken of this second form of mobility before. Now let's try to identify the most important aspects of vertical mobility, directly related to social inequality.

The simplest example of vertical mobility is promotion, which means gaining a higher professional position or entering a higher professional group than the position that the person currently occupies, or with the group to which he currently belongs. A school teacher who receives a job offer at a university; a journalist who becomes a minister - these are examples of a person changing his professional affiliation, changing it to one that brings more solid earnings, higher prestige, and in the second case also gives more power. Most often, examples of such career advancement are found within the same professional group, in which there are usually several levels of hierarchy. Assistant who moves to the post of adjunct; an assistant who becomes the head of a department are the first examples of this kind that came across. The succession of such promotions forms the phenomenon we call a career. Turning to the examples we have just given, we note: assistant - adjunct - associate professor - professor - this is one career scheme; referent - head of department - director - this is a scheme of a different kind. Of course, the direction of change may be opposite, people may lose their former, higher positions and move into groups occupying lower levels in the stratification system. An employee who was fired and became unemployed; the head of the department, who was demoted in the form of a disciplinary punishment and made a referent - these are examples of degradation, which sometimes consists in the complete withdrawal of a person from a given professional group, and sometimes is limited only to a decrease in his position within this group. And here, too, there is some consistency. When someone loses the higher position they have held in various social contexts, such as losing their job, being forced to leave the club they were a member of, being kicked out of a sports team, getting divorced, etc., we say they are "rolling". down".

In all the above examples, it was about the rise or fall of an individual in the system of existing, permanent, strong stratification hierarchies. However, mobility can also consist in the movement of entire groups at the same levels of stratification, as well as in a change in the stratification hierarchy itself, due to which the same groups or positions suddenly find themselves at other levels than before, higher or lower, that is subject to promotion or degradation.

Consider first the first case. Professional advancement can cover an entire social category. This was typical for the rural population during the modernization period: migrating to the cities, rural residents, as a rule, occupied higher professional positions in terms of earnings and prestige, penetrating into the environment of the working class.

A change in the relative position of this group can also be caused by a change in the scale of stratification itself. This usually happens as a result of deep and radical social changes, revolutions, upheavals leading to the establishment of a new order, as well as technological and civilizational breaks. Then certain professional groups or other circles can gain access to higher wages, power or prestige. While others, on the contrary, will lose their privileged position. All the movements and changes described above can occur on different scales: within the boundaries of the life of one person, one generation, in a much longer historical period spanning several generations. Accordingly, we can talk about intragenerational and intergenerational mobility. Progress in the educational sphere is especially characteristic of intergenerational activity. Intergenerational activity is a typical phenomenon among emigrants who went to other countries in search of work and earnings: as a rule, in a new country they gain chances to radically improve their lives. The United States of America provides us with a huge number of such examples. Some poor villager of Asian origin in the first generation opens a restaurant there (as the Chinese and Indians often do) or sells vegetables and herbs (like the Vietnamese), but he already sends his children to study at the university, and in the second generation these people are members of the medical or scientific elite.

The American examples lead us to consider the general social conditions that promote mobility. The fact is that the United States is a typical open society in which individual or group advancement is not only possible in a wide area, but also turns out to be a “culturally demanded”, expected, social requirement. It is here that careers “from bootblack to millionaire” constantly happen.

At the other extreme are societies that are called closed. They exclude or at least greatly limit the possibilities of social mobility. Such was the feudal society, where a multi-stage hierarchy, from monarchs, magnates through vassals and up to dependent peasants, was a petrified structure, and each individual estate was closed, inaccessible to representatives of other estates. It is difficult to imagine that a serf could be at the royal court. Today, something similar can be observed in India, where the transition of a person from one caste to another is extremely limited, and for the lower castes, the so-called "untouchables", this is absolutely impossible. The term "caste" is already commonly used not only in relation to this particular situation, but more broadly - as a definition of any closed estate, a closed group, belonging to which is clearly limited to a circle of people, and one can enter this circle only by birthright.

Of course, between the models of an open and a closed society, which are only "ideal types" and nowhere appear in such a pure form, somewhere in the middle between these extreme poles there is a whole range of different situations. The systems of stratification of these phenomena can be flexible enough to allow jumping over some intermediate levels. But there can also be very strict systems of stratification, requiring a clear, rigorous passage of all stages. A symptom of the first type of stratification is the desire to take into account the outstanding achievements of an individual, and a symptom of the second type is a strict requirement for "length of service", an appropriate level of income or life experience. It is instructive to compare the United States and Japan in this regard. Just as outstanding work results in the United States provide the opportunity for quick, “jumping” career advancement, so in Japan it is tough to go through all the stages of a professional career in set periods of time in order to only then reach the top in this hierarchy. Such a difference can also be revealed regardless of culture, but depending on the professional area in which the corresponding processes are unfolding. One can compare, for example, an artistic career, in which victory in some important music competition immediately opens up the opportunity for even the youngest people to perform on the best stages and largest stages in the world, and a scientific career, in which, as a rule, one has to go through everything. steps for which there are specific deadlines.

Within the various professional fields, individual groups differ from each other in the degree of exclusivity, that is, the rigidity of the criteria and procedures that are required and implemented in order to admit new members to the appropriate circle. Sometimes there are special organizations or institutions that stand guard over the "gates" through which one must pass in order to find oneself in a higher elite circle. These institutes select candidates for promotion through complex examination procedures; such a role is played, for example, by special medical commissions, bar associations, scientific councils at university faculties, state examination boards through which one must go through for appointment to a higher administrative position, committees of the Sejm organizing various kinds of hearings, for example, meetings at which candidates for ambassadorial positions answer questions, etc. In democratic societies, joining the political elite is conditioned by a complex election procedure, in which all citizens-voters take on the role of the selecting authority.

Social mobility is an area in which stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination characteristic of a given society are especially pronounced. The extreme form is the complete exclusion of any group, which loses any chance of promotion. For example, certain groups of emigrants or refugees may be denied the right to get a job. More often there is a situation characterized by partial discrimination, which manifests itself in three forms. The first is that for certain social groups the possibility of promotion to the highest positions is closed, regardless of which area it concerns. A kind of barrier of possible achievements is created, and representatives of these social groups cannot overcome this barrier. Studies show that despite the openness of American society, there is de facto a certain barrier to advancement for ethnic and racial minorities.

Social inequality seems to be a relic of the past and should go into oblivion, but the modern reality is such that in one form or another, stratification in society is present today, and this gives rise to a sense of injustice among those people who have been affected by social inequality.

Social inequality - what is it?

Social class inequality has existed since ancient times of human evolution. The history of different countries is a clear proof of what the oppression and enslavement of people leads to - these are rebellions, food riots, wars and revolutions. But this experience, written in blood, teaches nothing. Yes, now it has taken on softer, more veiled forms. What is the expression of social inequality and what does it represent today?

Social inequality is the division or differentiation of people into classes, societies or groups, according to their position in society, which involves unequal use of opportunities, life's benefits and rights. If we imagine social inequality schematically in the form of a ladder, then on its lowest steps there will be the oppressed, the poor, and at the top the oppressors and those who have power and money in their hands. This is the main sign of the stratification of society into the poor and the rich. There are other indicators of social inequality.

Causes of social inequality

What are the causes of social inequality? Economists see the root cause in unequal treatment of property and the distribution of wealth in general. R. Michels (a German sociologist) saw the reason in giving great privileges and powers to the apparatus of power, which was chosen by the people themselves. The reasons for the emergence of social inequality, according to the French sociologist E. Durkheim:

Encouragement of people who bring the greatest benefit to society, the best in their field.
The unique personal qualities and talents of a person that distinguish him from the general society.

Types of social inequality

Forms of social inequality are different, so there are several classifications. Types of social inequality according to physiological characteristics:

age - applies to all people in certain age intervals, this can be seen when applying for a job, young people are not hired due to lack of experience, older people with their vast experience are replaced by young people who are more promising from the point of view of their superiors;
social sexual inequality - here you can consider such a phenomenon as, expressed in the fact that few women occupy responsible positions, participate in the economic life of the country, a woman is assigned the role of "behind her husband";
social ethnic inequality - small ethnic groups, those that are not included in the concept of "white race" are largely oppressed because of such phenomena as xenophobia and racism.

Social inequality due to status in society:

lack/presence of wealth;
proximity to power.

Manifestation of social inequality

The main signs of social inequality are observed in such a phenomenon as the division of labor. Human activities are diverse and each person is endowed with some talents and skills, abilities to grow. In this case, social inequality manifests itself as the giving of privileges to those who are more talented and promising for society. The stratification of society or stratification (from the word "strata" - a geological layer) is the building of a hierarchical ladder, division into classes, and if earlier it was slaves and slave owners, feudal lords and servants, then at the present stage it is a division into:

top class;
middle class;
low-income (socially vulnerable);
below the poverty line.

Consequences of social inequality

Social inequality and poverty, generated by the fact that only the elite can use the main resources of the planet, gives rise to conflicts and wars among the population. The consequences develop gradually and are expressed in the slow development of many countries, which leads to the fact that progress in the economy is also slowing down, democracy as a system is losing its positions, tension, discontent, psychological pressure and social disharmony are growing in society. According to the UN, half of the world's resources are owned by 1% of the so-called top elite (world domination).

Pros of social inequality

Social inequality in society as a phenomenon does not carry only negative properties, if we consider social inequality from the positive side, then we can note important things, looking at which the thought arises that everything “has a place to be under the Sun”. The advantages of social inequality for a person:

an incentive to become the best in your field, to show your abilities and talents to the maximum;
motivation for those who want ;
ordering in the economic sphere, those who have capital produce resources, in contrast to those who do not have capital and are only able to feed themselves and their families.

Examples of social inequality in history

Examples of social inequality or stratification systems:

Slavery- an extreme degree of enslavement, the original form of social inequality known since antiquity.
castes. A type of social stratification that has developed since antiquity, when social inequality was determined by caste, a child, being born from birth, belonged to a certain caste. In India, it was believed that the birth of a person in one or another caste depends on his deeds in a past life. There are 4 castes in total: the highest - Brahmins, Kshatriyas - warriors, Vaishyas - merchants, merchants, Shudras - peasants (the lowest caste).
Estates. The upper classes - the nobility and the clergy had the legal right to transfer property by inheritance. Unprivileged class - artisans, peasants.

Modern forms of social inequality

Social inequality in modern society inherent property, so social theory functionalism views bundles in a positive way. American sociologist B. Barber divided modern views social stratification based on 6 criteria:

prestige of the profession.
The presence of power.
Wealth and income.
Religious affiliation.
Education, knowledge.
Belonging to one or another ethnic group, nation.

Social inequality in the world

The problem of social inequality is that racism, xenophobia, and discrimination are generated. The most revealing criterion of social inequality throughout the world is the different income of the population. The factors influencing the stratification in society around the world remain the same as many years ago:

way of life- urban or rural, a well-known fact that in the villages wages are lower than in the city, and conditions are often worse, and there is more work;
social roles(mother, father, teacher, official) - determine the status, prestige, the presence of power, property;
division of labor- physical and intellectual work are paid differently.

Social inequality is a type of social division in which individual members of a society or group are at different levels of the social ladder (hierarchy) and have unequal opportunities, rights and obligations.

Main indicators of inequality:

Different levels of access to resources, both physical and moral (for example, women in Ancient Greece, who were not allowed to participate in the Olympic Games);
various working conditions.

The French sociologist Émile Durkheim deduced two causes of social inequality:

1. The need to encourage the best in their field, that is, those who bring great benefits to society.
2. Different levels of personal qualities and talents in people.

Robert Michels put forward another reason: the protection of the privileges of power. When the size of the community exceeds a certain number of people, they put forward a leader, or a whole group, and give him more authority than everyone else.

The key criteria for inequality were outlined by Max Weber:

1. Wealth (difference in income).
2. Prestige (difference in honor and respect).
3. Power (difference in the number of subordinates).

Hierarchy of inequality

There are two types of hierarchy, which are usually presented in the form of geometric figures: a pyramid (a bunch of oligarchs and a huge number of poor people, and the poorer, the more their number) and a rhombus (few oligarchs, a few poor people, and the bulk is the middle class). A rhombus is preferable to a pyramid in terms of the stability of the social system. Roughly speaking, in a diamond-shaped version, the middle peasants, satisfied with their lives, will not allow a handful of poor people to stage a coup and a civil war. You don't have to go far for an example. In Ukraine, the middle class was far from being the majority, and disgruntled residents of poor western and central villages overthrew the government in the country. As a result, the pyramid turned over, but remained a pyramid. There are already other oligarchs at the top, and at the bottom there is still a large part of the country's population.

Solving the problem of social inequality

It is natural that social inequality is perceived as social injustice, especially by those who are in the hierarchy of social division at the lowest level. In modern society, the issue of social inequality is in the introduction of social policy bodies.

Their responsibilities include:

1. The introduction of various compensations for socially unprotected segments of the population.
2. Help for poor families.
3. Benefit for the unemployed.
4. Determination of the minimum wage.
5. Social insurance.
6. Development of education.
7. Health care.
8. Problems of ecology.
9. Professional development of workers.

Social inequalities in society

Even a superficial look at the people around us gives reason to talk about their dissimilarity. People differ in gender, age, temperament, height, hair color, intelligence level and many other characteristics. Nature endowed one with musical abilities, the other with strength, the third with beauty, and prepared the fate of a weak invalid for someone. Differences between people, due to their physiological and mental characteristics, are called natural.

Natural differences are far from harmless, they can become the basis for the emergence of unequal relationships between individuals. The strong force the weak, the cunning triumph over the simpletons. Inequality arising from natural differences is the first form of inequality, which also manifests itself in one form or another in some species of animals. However, in human society, the main thing is social inequality, inextricably linked with social differences, social differentiation.

Social differences are those that are generated by social factors: lifestyle (urban and rural population), division of labor (mental and manual workers), social roles (father, doctor, politician), etc., which leads to differences in degree of possession of property, income, power, achievement of social status, prestige, education.

Different levels of social development are the basis for social inequality, the emergence of rich and poor, the stratification of society, its stratification (a stratum layer that includes people with the same income, power, education, prestige). Income - the amount of cash receipts received by a person per unit of time. It may be labor, or it may be the possession of property that “works”.

Education is a complex of knowledge acquired in educational institutions. Its level is measured by the number of years of study. Say, incomplete secondary school - 9 years. The professor has more than 20 years of education behind him.

Power is the ability to impose your will on other people, regardless of their desire. It is measured by the number of people to whom it applies.

Prestige is an assessment of the position of an individual in society, which has developed in public opinion.

Causes of social inequality

Can a society exist without social inequality? Apparently, in order to answer the question posed, it is necessary to understand the reasons that give rise to the unequal position of people in society. In sociology, there is no single universal explanation for this phenomenon. Various scientific and methodological schools and trends interpret it differently. We single out the most interesting and noteworthy approaches.

Functionalism explains inequality based on the differentiation of social functions performed by different strata, classes, and communities. The functioning and development of society is possible only thanks to the division of labor, when each social group carries out the solution of the corresponding vital tasks for the entire integrity: some are engaged in the production of material goods, others create spiritual values, others manage, etc. For the normal functioning of society, an optimal combination of all types of human activity. Some of them are more important, others are less.

So, on the basis of the hierarchy of social functions, a corresponding hierarchy of classes, layers that perform them is formed. Those who carry out the general leadership and administration of the country are invariably placed at the top of the social ladder, because only they can support and ensure the unity of society, create the necessary conditions for the successful performance of other functions.

The explanation of social inequality by the principle of functional utility is fraught with a serious danger of a subjectivist interpretation. Indeed, why is this or that function considered as more significant, if society as an integral organism cannot exist without functional diversity. This approach does not allow explaining such realities as the recognition of an individual as belonging to the highest stratum in the absence of his direct participation in management. That is why T. Parsons, considering the social hierarchy as a necessary factor that ensures the viability of the social system, links its configuration with the system of dominant values in society. In his understanding, the location of social strata on the hierarchical ladder is determined by the ideas that have formed in society about the significance of each of them.

Observations of the actions and behavior of specific individuals gave impetus to the development of a status explanation of social inequality. Each person, occupying a certain place in society, acquires his own status. Social inequality is an inequality of status arising both from the ability of individuals to perform a particular social role (for example, to be competent to manage, to have the appropriate knowledge and skills to be a doctor, lawyer, etc.), and from the opportunities allowing a person to achieve one or another position in society (ownership of property, capital, origin, belonging to influential political forces).

Consider an economic view of the problem. In accordance with this point of view, the root cause of social inequality lies in the unequal attitude to property, the distribution of material wealth. This approach manifested itself most clearly in Marxism. According to him, it was the emergence of private property that led to the social stratification of society, the formation of antagonistic classes. The exaggeration of the role of private property in the social stratification of society led Marx and his followers to the conclusion that it is possible to eliminate social inequality by establishing public ownership of the means of production.

The lack of a unified approach to explaining the origins of social inequality is due to the fact that it is always perceived at least on two levels. First, as a property of society. Written history knows no societies without social inequality. The struggle of people, parties, groups, classes is a struggle for the possession of greater social opportunities, advantages and privileges. If inequality is an inherent property of society, then it carries a positive functional load. Society reproduces inequality because it needs it as a source of life support and development.

Secondly, inequality is always perceived as unequal relations between people, groups. Therefore, it becomes natural to seek to find the origins of this unequal position in the peculiarities of a person's position in society: in the possession of property, power, in the personal qualities of individuals. This approach is now widely used.

Inequality has many faces and manifests itself in various parts of a single social organism: in the family, in an institution, at an enterprise, in small and large social groups. It is a necessary condition for the organization of social life. Parents, having an advantage in experience, skills, and financial resources in comparison with their young children, have the opportunity to influence the latter, facilitating their socialization. The functioning of any enterprise is carried out on the basis of the division of labor into managerial and subordinate-executive. The appearance of a leader in the team helps to unite it, turn it into a stable formation, but at the same time it is accompanied by the granting of special rights to the leader.

Any social institution, organization strives to preserve inequality, seeing it as an ordering principle, without which the reproduction of social ties and the integration of the new are impossible. The same property is inherent in society as a whole.

CONCEPTS OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

The concept of "stratification" came to sociology from geology, where they denote the location of the Earth's layers along a vertical line.

By social stratification we mean a vertical cut of the location of individuals and groups in horizontal layers (strata) according to such characteristics as income inequality, access to education, the amount of power and influence, and professional prestige.

In Russian, the analogue of this recognized concept is social stratification. The basis of stratification is social differentiation - the process of the emergence of functionally specialized institutions and the division of labor. A highly developed society is characterized by a complex and differentiated structure, a diverse and rich status-role system. At the same time, some social statuses and roles are inevitably preferable and more productive for individuals, as a result of which they are more prestigious and desirable for them, and some are considered by the majority as somewhat humiliating, associated with a lack of social prestige and a low standard of living in general. It does not follow from this that all statuses that have arisen as a product of social differentiation are arranged in a hierarchical order; some of them, such as age, do not contain grounds for social inequality. Thus, the status of a young child and the status of a nursing infant are not unequal, they are simply different.

Inequality between people exists in any society. This is quite natural and logical, given that people differ in their abilities, interests, life preferences, value orientations, etc. In every society, there are poor and rich, educated and uneducated, enterprising and unenterprising, those in power and those without it. In this regard, the problem of the origin of social inequality, attitudes towards it and ways to eliminate it has always aroused increased interest, not only among thinkers and politicians, but also among ordinary people who consider social inequality as an injustice.

The German economist K. Marx associated social inequality with the emergence of private property and the struggle of interests of various classes and social groups.

The German sociologist R. Dahrendorf also believed that the economic and status inequality underlying the ongoing conflict of groups and classes and the struggle for the redistribution of power and status is formed as a result of the market mechanism for regulating supply and demand.

Russian-American sociologist P. Sorokin explained the inevitability of social inequality by the following factors: internal biopsychic differences of people; the environment (natural and social), which objectively puts individuals in an unequal position; the joint collective life of individuals, which requires the organization of relations and behavior, which leads to the stratification of society into the ruled and the managers.

The American sociologist T. Pearson explained the existence of social inequality in every society by the presence of a hierarchical system of values. For example, in American society, success in business and career is considered the main social value, therefore, scientists of technological specialties, plant directors, etc., have a higher status and income, while in Europe the dominant value is “preservation of cultural patterns”, in connection with what society gives special prestige to humanities intellectuals, clergymen, university professors.

Causes of social inequality

The division of labor is considered to be one of the most important causes of social inequality because economic activity considered the most important.

We can distinguish inequality on a number of grounds:

1) Inequality by physical characteristics, which can be divided into three types of inequalities:
a) Inequality based on physical differences;
b) Sexual inequality;
c) Age inequality;

The reasons for the first inequality include belonging to any race, nationality, a certain height, fullness or thinness of the body, hair color, and even blood type. Very often, the distribution of social benefits in a society depends on some physical characteristic. Inequality is especially pronounced if the carrier of the trait is included in the “minority group”. Very often a minority group is discriminated against. One type of this inequality is "racism". Some sociologists believe that the cause of ethnic inequality is economic competition.

Proponents of this approach emphasize the role of competition between groups of workers for scarce jobs. People who have jobs (especially those in lower positions) feel threatened by those who seek them. When the latter are members of ethnic groups, hostility may arise or intensify. Also, one of the reasons for the inequality of ethnic inequality can be considered the personal qualities of the individual, showing which he considers another race to be inferior.

It is mainly gender roles and sexual roles that lead to sexual inequality. Basically, gender differences lead to inequality in the economic environment. Women have much less chance in life to participate in the distribution of social benefits: from ancient India in which girls were simply killed to a modern society in which it is difficult for women to find work. This is connected, first of all, with sexual roles - a man's place at work, a woman's place at home.

The type of inequality associated with age is mainly manifested in different life chances of different age groups. Basically, it manifests itself in young and in retirement age. Age inequality always concerns all of us.

2) Inequality due to differences in prescribed statuses.

Prescribed (ascriptive) status includes inherited factors: race, nationality, age, sex, place of birth, residence, marital status, some aspects of parents. Very often, the prescribed statuses of a person interfere with the vertical mobility of a person, due to discrimination in society. This type of inequality includes a large number of aspects, so it often leads to social inequality.

3) Inequality based on wealth ownership.

4) Inequality based on the possession of power.

5) Inequality of prestige.

These criteria of inequality were considered in the last century, and will be considered in our work in the future.

6) Cultural and symbolic inequality.

The last type of criterion can be partially attributed to the division of labor, since qualification includes a certain type of education.

The problem of social inequality

Social inequality is a form of social differentiation in which individual individuals, social groups, strata, classes are at different levels of the vertical social hierarchy and have unequal life chances and opportunities to meet needs.

Fulfilling qualitatively unequal working conditions, 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. Considering the dissatisfaction of members of society with the existing system of distribution of power, property and conditions for individual development, one must still keep in mind the universality of people's inequality.

The main mechanisms of social inequality are the relations of property, power (domination and subordination), social (i.e., socially fixed and hierarchized) division of labor, as well as uncontrolled, spontaneous social differentiation. These mechanisms are mainly associated with the features market economy, with inevitable competition (including in the labor market) and unemployment. Social inequality is perceived and experienced by many people (primarily the unemployed, economic migrants, those who are at or below the poverty line) as a manifestation of injustice. Social inequality, property stratification of society, as a rule, lead to an increase in social tension, especially in the transition period. This is what is characteristic of Russia today.

The main principles of social policy implementation are:

1. protection of living standards by introducing various forms of compensation for price increases and indexation;
2. providing assistance to the poorest families;
3. issuance of assistance in case of unemployment;
4. ensuring social insurance policy, establishing a minimum wage for employees;
5. development of education, protection of health, the environment, mainly at the expense of the state;
6. conducting an active policy aimed at ensuring qualifications.

Social stratification (from Latin stratum - layer and facio - I do), one of the basic concepts of sociology, denoting a system of signs and criteria of social stratification, position in society; the social structure of society; branch of sociology. Stratification is one of the main themes in sociology.

The term "stratification" entered sociology from geology, where it refers to the location of the layers of the earth. But people initially likened the social distances and partitions existing between them to the layers of the earth.

Stratification is the division of society into social strata (strata) by combining various social positions with approximately the same social status, reflecting the prevailing idea of social inequality in it, built vertically (social hierarchy), along its axis according to one or more stratification criteria (indicators social status).

The division of society into strata is carried out on the basis of the inequality of social distances between them - the main property of stratification.

Social strata line up vertically and in strict sequence according to indicators of wealth, power, education, leisure, and consumption. In social stratification, a certain social distance is established between people (social positions) and unequal access of members of society to certain socially significant scarce resources is fixed by establishing social filters on the boundaries separating them. For example, the allocation of social strata can be carried out according to the levels of income, education, power, consumption, the nature of work, spending free time. The social strata identified in society are evaluated in it according to the criterion of social prestige, which expresses the social attractiveness of certain positions. But in any case, social stratification is the result of a more or less conscious activity (policy) of the ruling elites, who are extremely interested in imposing on society and legitimizing in it their own social ideas about the unequal access of society members to social benefits and resources. The simplest stratification model is a dichotomous one - the division of society into elites and masses. In some of their very early, archaic social systems, the structuring of society into clans is carried out simultaneously with the implementation of social inequality between them and within them. This is how those who are initiated into certain social practices (priests, elders, leaders) and the uninitiated - profane (all other members of society, ordinary members of the community, fellow tribesmen) appear. Within them, society can further stratify if necessary.

As society becomes more complex (structuring), a parallel process occurs - the embedding of social positions into a certain social hierarchy. This is how castes, estates, classes, etc. appear. Modern ideas about the stratification model that has developed in society are quite complex - multi-layered, multidimensional (carried out along several axes) and variable (allow the existence of many sometimes stratification models). The degree of freedom of social movements (mobility) from one social stratum to another determines whether a society is closed or open.

Social stratification is based on social differentiation, but is not identical to it.

Social differentiation is the dismemberment of a social whole or part of it into interconnected elements that appear as a result of evolution, the transition from simple to complex. Differentiation primarily includes the division of labor, the emergence of various professions, statuses, roles, groups. Social differentiation is the process of the emergence of functionally specialized institutions and the division of labor. Even at the dawn of their history, people discovered that the division of functions and labor increases the efficiency of society, so in all societies there is a division of status and roles. At the same time, members of society should be distributed within the social structure in such a way that different statuses are filled and their corresponding roles are performed.

Although the statuses that form the social structure may differ, they do not necessarily have to occupy a certain place in relation to each other. For example, the statuses of an infant and a child are differentiated, but one of them is not considered superior to the other - they are simply different. Social differentiation provides social material that may or may not become the basis of social gradation. In other words, social differentiation is found in social stratification, but not vice versa.

Open and closed systems of stratification.

Distinguish between open and closed systems of stratification. A social structure whose members can change their status relatively easily is called an open stratification system. A structure whose members can change their status with great difficulty is called a closed stratification system. A somewhat similar distinction is reflected in the concepts of achieved and prescribed status: achieved statuses are acquired by individual choice and competition, while prescribed statuses are given by a group or society.

In open systems of stratification, each member of society can change his status, rise or fall on the social ladder based on his own efforts and abilities. Modern societies, experiencing the need for qualified and competent specialists capable of managing complex social, political and economic processes, provide a fairly free movement of individuals in the stratification system. An example of a closed system of stratification is the caste organization of India (it functioned until 1900).

Traditionally, Hindu society was divided into castes, and people inherited social status at birth from their parents and could not change it during their lifetime. In India, there were thousands of castes, but they were all grouped into four main ones: the Brahmins, or caste of priests, numbering about 3% of the population; Kshatriyas, descendants of warriors, and Vaishyas, merchants, who together made up about 7% of Indians; sudras, peasants and artisans - about 70% of the population, the remaining 20% - Harijans, or untouchables, who were traditionally cleaners, scavengers, tanners and swineherds.

Representatives of the higher castes despised, humiliated and oppressed members of the lower castes, regardless of their behavior and personal merit. Strict rules did not allow representatives of higher and lower castes to communicate, because it was believed that this spiritually defiles members of a higher caste. And today in some parts of India, especially in rural areas, castes determine the type of behavior, setting diets, lifestyle, employment, and even rules for courting a woman. The Dharma legitimizes this system by affirming the idea that bearing the weight of one's fate uncomplainingly is the only morally acceptable way of being. But the caste system never ruled out the possibility of moving up the social ladder. A completely closed system of stratification could not exist due to unequal birth and death rates in different castes, discontent of the downtrodden and exploited, competition between members of different castes, the introduction of more advanced agricultural methods, conversion to Buddhism and Islam, and a number of other factors.

Inequality of social groups

The theories of social stratification and social mobility are based on the concepts of social differentiation and social inequality. Sometimes these concepts are identified, but it should be noted that the concept of "social differentiation" is broader in scope and includes any social differences, including those not related to inequality. For example, some people are football fans and others are not. This occupation acts as a differentiating quality, but will not be a sign of social inequality. Social inequality is a form of social differentiation in which individual individuals, social groups, strata, classes occupy a certain position in the hierarchy of social statuses, have unequal life chances and opportunities to meet needs.

The idea of social equality is one of the great and most attractive myths of mankind. In reality, there was not and is not a single complex society in which social equality would exist. Moreover, it is social differences and social inequality that ensure the development of mankind as a whole. At the same time, a significant level of social inequality is completely unacceptable. The main problem is to constantly find a ratio acceptable to society and its constituent individuals between the degree of inevitable social inequality and people's ideas about social justice.

If among the members of a society there are both haves and have-nots, then such a society is characterized by the presence of economic stratification. No, labels, signs are not able to change the fact of inequality, which is expressed in the difference in income, living standards. If within a group there are rulers and ruled; this means that such a group is politically differentiated. If the members of a society are divided into different groups according to the nature of their activities, occupations, and some professions are considered more prestigious in comparison with others, then such a society is professionally differentiated. These are the three main forms of social stratification. As a rule, they are closely intertwined. People who belong to the highest stratum in one respect usually belong to the same stratum in other respects, and vice versa, although there are exceptions.

The very term "stratification" of Latin origin, borrowed from geology, means "layering, stratification" in translation. Social stratification is a set of social groups arranged hierarchically according to the criteria of social inequality and called strata. There are many such criteria. K. Marx brought to the fore the possession of property and the level of income. M. Weber added social prestige, belonging of the subject to political parties, to power. P. Sorokin called the cause of stratification the uneven distribution of rights and privileges, responsibilities and duties in society, in addition to citizenship, occupation, national, religious affiliation.

He proposed the following stratification division of society:

The highest layer of professional administrators;
- technical specialists middle level;
- commercial class;
- petty bourgeoisie;
- technicians and workers performing managerial functions;
- skilled workers;
- unskilled workers.

There are many other variants of the stratification division of society. In recent years, the six-layer hierarchy of modern Western society has become most widespread:

Top class:

The upper layer of the upper class (hereditary wealth, up to 1% of the population);
- the lowest stratum (earned wealth, up to 4% of the population).

Middle class:

The upper layer (highly paid representatives of mental labor and business people, from 15 to 25% of the population);
- the lowest layer ("white collars", managers, engineering and technical workers up to 40% of the population).

Lower class:

The upper layer (manual workers - 20 - 25% of the population);
- the lowest layer (lumpen, unemployed - 5-10% of the population).

There is social inequality between the strata, which cannot be overcome. The main way to ease social tension is the ability to move from one stratum to another.

The concept of social mobility was introduced into scientific circulation by P. Sorokin. Social mobility is a change in the place occupied by a person or a group of people in the social structure of society. The more mobile a society is, the easier it is to move from one stratum to another, the more stable it is, according to supporters of the theory of social stratification.

There are two main types of social mobility - vertical and horizontal. Vertical mobility involves movement from one stratum to another. Depending on the direction of movement, there is upward vertical mobility (social ascent, upward movement) and downward vertical mobility (social descent, downward movement). Promotion is an example of upward mobility, dismissal, demolition is an example of downward mobility. With a vertical type of mobility, a person can make both rises, for example, from a cashier to a bank manager, and falls.

An entrepreneur can lose part of his fortune, move to a group of people with lower incomes. Having lost a qualified job, a person may not find an equivalent job and, in connection with this, lose some of the features that characterize his former social status. Horizontal mobility involves the movement of a person from one group to another, located at the same level, on the same step. With this type of mobility, a person, as a rule, retains the main features of the group, for example, a worker moved to work in another enterprise, retaining the level of wages and the same rank, or moved to another city; the same in terms of the number of inhabitants, etc. Social movements also lead to the emergence of intermediate, boundary layers, which are called marginal.

"Social elevators" with the help of which movements are carried out, first of all, are the army, the church, the school. Additional "social lifts" include funds mass media, party activities, accumulation of wealth, marriage with representatives of the upper class.

Social control and social responsibility.

The concept of responsibility in a broad sense is characterized in science as a social relationship between individual subjects (a person, a group, etc.) and those who control their behavior. It can be control of one's own conscience, public opinion or the state.

Social responsibility can be defined as one of the aspects of the relations of participants in public life, characterizing the relationship of an individual, society and the state, individuals among themselves and including the subject's awareness of the social significance of his behavior and its consequences, his duty to act within the requirements of social norms governing social relations. In relation to an individual, responsibility is the obligation and willingness of the subject to be responsible for the actions, deeds and their consequences. Responsibility for an individual is formed as a result of the requirements that society imposes on him, the social group in which he is included. The requirements realized by the individual become the basis for the motivation of his behavior, which is regulated by conscience, a sense of duty. The formation of a personality involves cultivating a sense of responsibility in it, which becomes its property. Responsibility is manifested in the actions of a person and covers the following questions: is a person able to fulfill the requirements at all, to what extent he correctly understood and interpreted them, can he foresee the consequences of his actions for himself and society, is he ready to accept sanctions in case of violations. Responsibility must be approached based on the organic unity of rights and duties, taking into account the place individuals and groups of people occupy in the system of social ties. The wider the public powers and the real possibilities of individuals, the higher the measure of their responsibility.

Depending on the content of social norms, moral, political, legal and other types of social responsibility are distinguished.

Sanctions are different in case of violation of certain norms. For example, in the absence of moral responsibility, violation of moral norms, the so-called informal negative sanctions are applied: censure, remark, ridicule. Social responsibility is not only the responsibility of individuals, but also the responsibility of the state, all subjects of the political system of society for the obligations assumed, which is the essence of political responsibility. The main sanctions in case of non-fulfillment by politicians of their obligations are non-election for the next term, criticism by the public, in the media. A specific feature of legal liability is a clear definition in the law of the subjects, content, types, forms and mechanisms of implementation. The basis of legal liability is the commission of an offense. Depending on the nature of the offense, the types of legal liability are determined: criminal, administrative, disciplinary, civil law.

Social inequality of people

The fact that individuals, separate, concrete people are not equal to others, is a banal truth, an obvious fact. People are tall and short, thin and fat, more intelligent and more stupid, capable and stupid, old and young. Each person has a unique composition of genes, a unique biography and a unique personality warehouse. It is obvious. However, we are not talking about such inequality when we talk about social inequality, that is, about inequality that has social rather than individual characteristics and characteristics. And the most important of these social signs for a man are the character of the groups to which he belongs and the character of the positions he occupies.

Social inequality - unequal access (or unequal chances of access) to socially valuable goods, arising from belonging to different groups or from occupying different social positions.

Social inequality is a phenomenon that particularly affects the sphere of people's interests and causes strong emotions. Therefore, discussions on this topic often turn out to be closed within the framework of ideology, that is, such systems of thinking that obey and serve certain group interests. But inequality also remains an important subject of theoretical reflection, the purpose of which is not so much to justify or criticize inequality as to clarify the essence of this phenomenon.

Ideologies of inequality

Theories of inequality

Level of social inequality

According to the level of inequality and poverty (the second is a consequence of the first), individuals, peoples, countries, eras can be compared with each other. Cross-historical and cross-cultural analyzes are widely used in macrosociology. They reveal new aspects of the development of human society.

According to the hypothesis of Gerhard Lenski (1970), the degree of inequality in different historical eras is different. Deep inequality characterized the era of slavery and feudalism.

G. Lensky explains the lesser degree of inequality in an industrial society by the lower concentration of power among managers, the presence of democratic governments, the struggle for influence between trade unions and entrepreneurs, high level social mobility and a developed social security system that raises the living standards of the poor to certain, quite acceptable standards. Other points of view on the dynamics of inequality were expressed by K. Marx and P. Sorokin.

According to Marx, minimal inequality or its complete absence was observed in the primitive communal system. Inequality appeared and began to deepen in antagonistic formations (slave ownership and feudalism), reached its maximum during the period of classical capitalism and will grow rapidly as this formation develops. Marx's theory can be called "an escalation of inequality". His theory of the absolute and relative impoverishment of the proletariat is that "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

In contrast to Marx, P. Sorokin argued that there is no constant increase or decrease in inequality in the history of mankind. In different eras and in different countries, inequality either increases or decreases, i.e. fluctuates (fluctuates).

Another way is to analyze the share of family income spent on food. It turns out that the rich pay only 5-7% of their income for food. The poorer the individual, the greater part of the income is spent on food, and vice versa.

At the end of the XX century. finds its confirmation derived empirically in the middle of the XIX century. a statistical pattern known as Engel's law: the lower the income, the greater the share of the expenditure should be dedicated to food. With the growth of family income, absolute expenditures on food increase, but in relation to all family expenditures they decrease, and the share of expenditures on clothing, heating and lighting changes insignificantly, and the share of expenditures on satisfying cultural needs rises sharply.

Later, other empirical "laws" of consumption were found: Schwabe's law (1868) - the poorer the family, the higher the share of housing costs; Wright's law (1875) - the higher the income, the higher the level of savings and their share in spending.

In developed countries, the share of meeting housing needs in the composition of expenditures is large (more than 20%), in fact it is the largest: in the USA - 25%, in France - 27, in Japan - 24, etc., while in the former USSR it was only 8%. In Russia, the cost of paying for the actual living space amounted to 1.3%, and taking into account utilities- 4.3%. This indicates, in particular, the poor provision of the population with housing: 5-6% of Russian families (that's 2.5 million families) continue to live in communal apartments, and 70% of them occupy only one room; more than 4% of our fellow citizens live in hostels Radaev V.V., Shkaratan O.I. social stratification.

The poor and the rich differ in the degree to which they satisfy their needs for cultural and household goods, especially more expensive ones that are not purchased very often. Thus, in households with an income of 3 times more than a certain basic level, there are 1.5 times more items of this group. According to budget surveys, low-income groups have 1.5 times fewer refrigerators, 3 times fewer tape recorders, 9 times fewer cameras, and 12 fewer vacuum cleaners than high-income groups. The level of per capita consumer expenditures of low-income farms amounted to approximately 30% of their value in high-income farms.

Examples of social inequality

Social inequality is the unequal access of people to social, economic and other benefits. By good we mean that (things, services, etc.) that a person considers useful for himself (purely economic definition).

Society is designed in such a way that people have unequal access to goods. The reasons for this state of affairs are varied. One of them is the limited resources for the production of goods. There are over 6 billion people on Earth today, and everyone wants to eat deliciously and sleep sweetly. And food, land, in the end, is becoming extremely scarce and scarce.

It is clear that the geographical factor also plays a role. Russia, for all its territory, has only 140 million people, and the population is rapidly declining. But, for example, in Japan - 120 million - this is on four islands. With wildly limited resources, the Japanese live well: they build artificial land. China, with a population of over three billion people, is also, in principle, living well. Such examples seem to refute the thesis that the more people, the less benefits and inequality should be greater.

In fact, it is influenced by many other factors: the culture of a given society, work ethic, the social responsibility of the state, the development of industry, the development of monetary relations and financial institutions, etc.

In addition, social inequality is strongly influenced by natural inequality. For example, a person was born without legs. Or lost his legs and arms. Here is an example of how this individual:

Of course, he lives abroad - and in principle, I think he lives well. But in Russia, I think he would not have survived. In our country, people with hands and feet are dying of hunger, and social services do not need anyone at all. So the social responsibility of the state is extremely important in smoothing out inequality.

Very often in my classes I heard from people that if they get sick more or less seriously, then the company in which they work offers them to quit. And they can't do anything. They don't even know how to protect their rights. And if they knew, then these companies would “hit” a decent amount and the next time they would think a hundred times whether it is worth doing this with their employees. That is, the legal illiteracy of the population can be a factor of social inequality.

It is important to understand that when studying this phenomenon, sociologists use the so-called multidimensional models: they evaluate people according to several criteria. These include: income, education, power, prestige, etc.

Thus, this concept covers many different aspects. And if you are writing an essay on social studies on this topic, then disclose these aspects!

Social inequality in Russia

Our country is one of those in which social inequality is manifested to the highest degree. There is a very big difference between the rich and the poor. For example, when I was still a volunteer, a volunteer from Germany came to Perm. Who does not know, in Germany, instead of serving in the army, you can volunteer for a year in any country. So, they put him to live in a family for a year. A day later, the German volunteer left. Because, according to him, even by the standards of Germany, this is a chic life: a chic apartment, etc. He cannot live in such chic conditions when he sees that the homeless and beggars are asking for alms on the streets of the city.

Plus, in our country, social inequality manifests itself in an extremely large form in relation to different professions. A school teacher - God forbid, gets 25,000 rubles for one and a half rates, and some painter can get all 60,000 rubles, the salary of a crane operator starts from 80,000 rubles, a gas welder - from 50,000 rubles.

Most scientists see the reason for such social inequality in the fact that in our country there is a transformation of the social system. It broke overnight, along with the state. A new one has not been built. Therefore, we are dealing with such a social inequality.

Socio-economic inequality

To describe inequality between groups of people, researchers use such concepts as "social inequality", "economic inequality", "socio-economic inequality", "socio-economic differentiation", "social stratification", "socio-economic stratification". Let us consider what is the similarity of the listed categories and their features.

When people talk about social inequality, they primarily mean the presence of rich and poor people in society. At the same time, referring this or that person to the category of “rich”, they are guided not only and not so much by the amount of income received by him, but by the level of his wealth. Income shows how much the purchasing power of a person's income has increased over a certain period, and wealth determines the amount of purchasing power at a given fixed moment. That is, wealth is a stock, and income is a flow.

In the very general view the level of social inequality is determined by differences in the volume and structure of individual wealth.

Individual wealth can take three main forms:

1) "physical" wealth - land, house or apartment, car, Appliances, furniture, works of art and jewelry and other consumer goods;
2) financial wealth - stocks, bonds, bank deposits, cash, checks, bills, etc.;
3) human capital- wealth embodied in the person himself, created as a result of upbringing, education and experience (i.e., acquired), as well as received from nature (talent, memory, reaction, physical strength, etc.).

However, in some cases, human capital is not considered as a form of individual wealth, since it is attributed to the causes of social inequality, which is understood as the differentiation of people (the population of one country, the population of different countries of the world, employees of an organization, etc.) according to property and, as a result, , according to the standard of living.

Differentiation, by definition, also means differences between people and social groups in terms of income, property, wealth, prosperity, standard of living; difference between the individual parts of a collection. The concepts of "inequality" and "differentiation" are identified by researchers: "inequality is a form of social differentiation", "inequality is a differentiation of people". In most cases, at present, socio-economic differentiation is viewed as an inequality in the levels of well-being of the population.

The terms "economic", "economic", "socio-economic", "socio-economic" are used by the authors in combination with the terms "inequality" and "differentiation" in cases where it is necessary to emphasize the economic nature of the causes of this phenomenon (wage differentiation, imperfection of redistributive mechanisms, etc.). In fact, using the terms "economic inequality" or "socio-economic differentiation", researchers talk about the phenomenon of the division of the population into groups according to the standard of living.

The term "stratification", in contrast to the already mentioned inequality and differentiation, contains a dynamic component and means an increase in the degree of inequality in society, as evidenced by the following definition. Economic stratification of society - increasing differences in incomes and living standards between individual segments of the population, an increase in the gap between high- and low-paid members of society, leading to a deepening differentiation of the population in terms of social security.

As noted above, the concept of social inequality is not limited to the inequality of members of society in terms of the absolute and relative amount of income they receive. However, it is believed that of all the components of socio-economic inequality, differences in incomes play a special role. Monetary income mainly determines the standard of living of people, the motivation of labor and business activity, the social well-being of the population and the political situation in society depend on them.

Differentiation (inequality) of incomes of the population - real differences in the level of incomes of the population, largely predetermining social differentiation in society, the nature of its social structure. Differentiation of incomes of the population is the result of the distribution of incomes, expressing the degree of uneven distribution of benefits and manifested in the difference in the shares of income received different groups population.

A society with a rational differentiation of incomes, relatively uniform, is the most stable due to the large middle class, has intensive social mobility, strong incentives for social advancement and professional growth. And vice versa, as the historical experience of Latin American countries testifies, a society with a sharp differentiation in the incomes of the extreme polar groups of the population is characterized by social instability, the absence of strong incentives for professional growth, and a significant degree of criminality in social relations.

Thus, by socio-economic inequality, we understand the differences between people and between social groups in the provision of material goods and in the ability to meet their needs, which is based on the differentiation of incomes of the population.

The process of income differentiation, and hence the socio-economic inequality in society, is influenced by many different factors: economic, social, demographic, political, psychological, etc. Some factors affect the process of differentiation directly, others indirectly, and others are the background for action. the rest. Some factors have an impact on the formation of incomes of the population, others - on the process of their distribution and redistribution. The impact of some of the factors of differentiation can be mitigated or even eliminated, while others cannot. At the same time, they are all interconnected and interdependent, they act not separately, but together, reinforcing or weakening each other. Factors of income differentiation of the population can be both long-term and short-term. Many of them are ambiguous in their action.

There are such factors of social inequality inherent in the life of society as:

Differences in individual abilities;
the initial wealth of households and their investment opportunities;
differentiation in wages for skilled and unskilled labor;
demographic characteristics and household mobility;
development of the social protection system;
demand for skilled labor;
disparity between urban and rural populations.

To these factors in a transitional economy, researchers usually add:

Privatization of enterprises;
liberalization of prices, wages, trade and the market;
liberalization of financial markets;
earnings in the shadow economy;
tax reform;
reform of the wage system;
pay inequality across industries and regions;
expansion of poverty.

However, one or another combination of several criteria is most often used, including:

Attitude to ownership of the means of production;
the ability to make strategic decisions or influence their adoption;
the size of the accumulated material wealth of the family;
method and source of obtaining the bulk of income;
scope and nature of work;
the level of current cash income of the family;
the nature and volume of consumption of material goods and services;
level of education, professional qualification;
place of residence and quality of main housing;
belonging to a certain subcultural or subethnic group.

Structured social inequality

Social inequality is a form of social differentiation in which individuals, social groups, strata, classes are at different levels of the vertical social hierarchy and have unequal life chances and opportunities to meet needs.

Any society is structured according to national, social class, demographic, geographical and other characteristics. Such structuring inevitably gives rise to social inequality.

The social structure is determined by social differences between people, i.e., differences generated by social factors: the division of labor, the way of life, the social roles performed by individual individuals or social groups.

The source of social inequality 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 or more relevant, in-demand activities.

Social stratification (from Latin stratum - layer and facio - I do) is a systematically manifested inequality between groups of people that arises as an unintended consequence of social relations and is reproduced in each next generation. The concept of social stratification is used to refer to the conditions under which social groups have unequal access to such social goods as money, power, prestige, education, information, professional career, self-realization, etc.

Western sociology traditionally considers the social structure of society from the point of view of the theory of stratification.

Stratification is such an organization of society in which some individuals, social groups have more, others have less, and still others may have nothing at all. It is almost impossible to resolve this conflict. It is based on two incompatible absolute truths.

On the one hand, the stratification of society is fraught with social conflicts up to revolutions. People who are at the bottom of the stratification system are hurt both physically and morally. On the other hand, stratification forces people, social groups to show initiative, enterprise, to ensure the progress of society.

Karl Marx considered class conflict to be the main source of social change. According to Marx, antagonistic classes are distinguished according to two objective criteria: the commonality of the economic situation, due to the attitude towards the means of production, and the commonality of power in comparison with state power.

The founder of the theory of stratification, Max Weber, unlike Marx, believed that social position is determined not only by property rights, but also by prestige and power. According to these three criteria, three levels of social stratification can be distinguished: the lowest, the middle and the highest. Differences in property create classes, differences in prestige create status groups (social strata), differences in power create political parties.

Fundamental for modern stratification concepts is the principle of functionalism, which implies the need for social inequality, due to the fact that each social stratum is a functionally necessary element of society.

Each person moves in the social space, in the society in which he lives. Sometimes these movements are easily felt and identified, for example, when an individual moves from one place to another, moves from one religion to another, changes in marital status. This changes the position of the individual in society and speaks of his movement in the social space. However, there are movements of the individual that are difficult to determine not only for the people around him, but also for himself. For example, it is difficult to determine the change in the position of an individual in connection with an increase in prestige, an increase or decrease in the possibilities for the use of power, a change in income. At the same time, such changes ultimately affect a person's behavior, his needs, attitudes, interests and orientations.

All social movements of an individual or a social group are designated by such a concept as social mobility. According to the definition of Pitirim Sorokin, “social mobility is understood as any transition of an individual, or a social object, or a value created or modified through activity, from one social position to another.”

P. Sorokin distinguishes between two types of social mobility: horizontal and vertical. Horizontal mobility is the transition of an individual or a social object from one social position to another, lying on the same level. In all these cases, the individual does not change the social stratum to which he belongs, or social status. The most important process is vertical mobility, which is a set of interactions that facilitate the transition of an individual or a social object from one social stratum to another. This includes, for example, a job promotion, a significant improvement in well-being or a transition to a higher social level.

Society can elevate the status of some individuals and lower the status of others. Depending on this, ascending and descending social mobility, or social rise and social decline, are distinguished. Ascending mobility (professional, economic or political) exists in two main forms: as an individual rise (infiltration of individuals from the lower stratum to the higher stratum) and as the creation of new groups of individuals with their inclusion in the higher stratum next to the existing groups of this stratum or instead of them. Similarly, downward mobility exists in the form of both pushing individual individuals from high social statuses to lower ones, and lowering the social statuses of an entire group.

The desire to achieve a higher status is due to the need for each individual to achieve success and avoid failure in the social aspect. The actualization of this need generates the strength with which the individual strives to achieve the highest social position or to keep on the existing one and not slide down. In order to achieve a higher status, an individual must overcome barriers between groups or strata. An individual striving to get into a higher status group has a certain energy aimed at overcoming these barriers. The probabilistic nature of infiltration in vertical mobility is due to the fact that when assessing the process, one should take into account the constantly changing situation, which consists of many factors, including the personal relationships of individuals.

For a quantitative assessment of mobility processes, indicators of speed and intensity are usually used. The rate of social mobility refers to the vertical social distance or the number of strata - economic, professional or political - that an individual passes through in his movement up or down in a certain period of time. The intensity of social mobility is understood as the number of individuals who change social positions in a vertical or horizontal direction over a certain period of time.

Often there is a need to consider the process of mobility from the point of view of the relationship between its speed and intensity. In this case, the aggregate mobility index for a given social community is used. In this way, for example, one society can be compared with another in order to find out in which of them or in which period mobility is higher in all indicators. Such an index can be calculated separately for the economic, professional or political field of activity.

Social income inequality

Differences in wages and other sources of family budget formation determine inequality in income distribution. For example, average salary There are about 1,500 teachers at the school, 700 janitor, 4,500 financiers, and 500 stipends. Why is there such income inequality? Indeed, the market system does not provide for absolute equality, because one uses the factors of production better than another. And thus earn more money. However, there are more specific reasons that contribute to this disparity.

Causes of inequality in the distribution of national income:

1) differences in abilities;
2) differences in education;
3) differences in professional experience;
4) differences in the distribution of property;
5) risk, luck, failure, access to valuable information. Differences in ability. People have different physical and intellectual.

Capabilities. For example, some people are endowed with exceptional physical abilities and can receive a lot of money for their sports achievements. And some are endowed with entrepreneurial abilities and have a penchant for successful business. So, people who have talent in any area of life can receive more money than others.

Differences in education. People differ not only in differences in abilities, but also in the level of education. However, these differences are partly the result of the choice of the individual himself. So, someone after the end of the 11th grade will go to work, and someone will enter a university. So, a university graduate has more opportunities to earn more income than people who do not have a higher education.

Differences in professional experience. People's incomes differ, including due to differences in professional experience. So, if Ivanov works in a company for one year, then it is clear that he will receive a salary less than Petrov, who has been working in this company for more than 10 years and has more professional experience.

Differences in the distribution of property. Differences in the distribution of property is the most significant cause of income inequality. A considerable number of people have little or no property and, accordingly, either receive little or no income. And others are owners of more real estate, equipment, shares, etc. and earn more income.

Risk, luck, failure, access to valuable information. These factors also have a significant impact on income distribution. Thus, a person who is inclined to take risks in economic activity, can receive more income than other people who are not capable of risk. Luck also helps to earn more income. For example, if a person finds a treasure.

Lorenz curve

All these causes act in different directions, increasing or decreasing inequality. In order to determine the degree of this inequality, economists use the Lorenz curve, which reflects the actual distribution of national income. Economists use this curve to compare incomes over different periods of time, or between different strata of a given country, or between different countries. The horizontal axis of the curve represents the percentage of the population, while the vertical axis represents the percentage of income. Of course, economists divide the population into five parts, each containing 20% of the population. Population groups are distributed on an axis from the poorest to the richest. The theoretical possibility of an absolutely equal distribution of income is represented by the AB line. The AB line indicates that any group of the population receives a corresponding percentage of income. Absolutely uneven distribution of income is represented by the WB line. It means that all 100% of families receive all the national income. Absolutely even distribution means that 20% of families receive 20% of the total income, 40% - 40%, 60% - 60%, etc.

Suppose that each of the population groups received a certain share of the national income.

Of course, in real life, the poor part of the population receives 5-7% of the total income, and the rich - 40-45%. Therefore, the Lorenz curve lies between lines that reflect absolute equality and inequality in the distribution of income. The more uneven the distribution of income, the greater the concavity of the Lorenz curve and the closer it will be to the point. Conversely, the more equitable the distribution, the closer the Lorentz curve will be to the line.

How can the problem of inequality in the distribution of national income between different segments of the population be reduced? In most developed countries, it is the state (government) that assumes obligations to reduce income inequality. The government can solve this problem with the help of the tax system. That is, the entire well-to-do part of the population is taxed higher (as a percentage) than the low-income. In addition, the state can use the received tax revenues as transfer payments in favor of the poor. In almost all countries, there are various social programs to protect the population, namely social insurance assistance in case of job loss, loss of a breadwinner, disability benefits, and the like.

So, the state tax system and various transfer programs significantly reduce the degree of inequality in the distribution of the country's national income.

The concept of social inequality

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 implies 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 are 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 is a system of relations emerging in society that characterizes the uneven distribution of society's scarce resources (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 form 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 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 ratio of the concepts of "rich", "poor". Poverty is the economic and socio-cultural condition 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 is to compare the lowest and highest incomes in a given country. Another way is to analyze the share of family income spent on food.

Economic inequality lies in the fact 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.

The poverty threshold is the amount of money officially set as the minimum income that 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. 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. Relative poverty refers to the inability to maintain a decent standard of living. Relative poverty indicates how poor a particular individual or family is compared to other people. The working poor are 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) top - economic, political and power elite;
2) upper middle - medium and large entrepreneurs;
3) medium - small entrepreneurs, managers of the production sector, the highest intelligentsia, the working elite, military personnel;
4) basic - the 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 (French - equality) is an ideological and theoretical trend that advocates universal equality, up to an 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.

Theories of social inequality

In the European tradition, several theories of social inequality have been developed. The most famous were the theory of classes and the theory of elites. However, there are also alternative explanations. The ambiguity of descriptions of inequality is connected mainly with the variety of approaches to social reality, that is, the existence of alternative approaches to a common sociological object.

Theory of E. Durkheim. E. Durkheim was one of the first sociologists who addressed the topic of social inequality. In the work "On the division of social labor", published in 1893, he outlined his point of view on this issue.

Durkheim singled out two aspects of social inequality: inequality of abilities and socially fixed inequality. In this respect, he was a successor to the traditions of European thought. More J.-J. Rousseau said that there are two types of inequality: natural, or physical, which is established by nature, and conditional, or political, which is approved with the consent of people.

As for natural inequality, according to Durkheim, it only intensifies in the learning process. From the point of view of a scientist, the most talented people are encouraged by society to perform the most important functions from the point of view of this society. At least a sufficiently developed society seeks to attract these people to the performance of these functions with prestige and high incomes.

Durkheim also expressed the idea that in any society different types of activities are not evaluated equally, more and less important and prestigious stand out among them. All features that are important with. points of view of the survival of society, are not equivalent, in each society they line up in a hierarchy, and how this happens is specific to this society. Thus, in one society, the functions associated with a religious cult may be more valued, while in another, economic prosperity comes to the fore.

Durkheim's theory has further development in the works of K. Davis and W. Moore.

Theory of classes. concept social class was introduced and developed by economists, philosophers and historians (A. Smith, E. Condillac, C.-A. Saint-Simon, F. Shizo and others) as early as the 18th century. However, only K. Marx truly “loaded” it with meaning. According to Marx, classes arise and fight on the basis of different positions and different roles performed by individuals in the production structure of society. K. Marx himself rightly noted that the merit of discovering the existence of classes and their struggle among themselves does not belong to him. However, before Marx, no one offered such a deep substantiation of the class structure of society on the basis of a fundamental analysis of the entire system. economic relations.

Marx's theory is a variant of the explanation of inequality using the concept of conflict.

According to Marx, the main, most important feature of society is the mode of production - the way in which goods are produced. For example, the capitalist mode of production is characterized by the fact that the owner of the means of production pays workers wages, which they then spend on meeting their needs at their own discretion. Another important feature of economic organization is the class that occupies the dominant economic position, that is, owns the means of production, as well as the exploited class. In feudal society, the exploiters are the feudal nobility, and the exploited are the peasants; in capitalist society the exploiter is the bourgeoisie, the exploited are the workers. The dominant ideology in any society is the ideology of the class that owns the means of production. It is created in order to preserve the existing state of affairs, that is, the access of the ruling class to benefits.

This distribution of roles is based on economic interest. The goal of any economic system is to make a profit. By exploiting someone, the ruling class extracts surplus value, that is, profit - a part of the value of the goods, which exceeds the sum of the cost of equipment and raw materials and the cost of labor.

Marx assumed that the status quo was not stable. He predicted that at some point the workers must realize their situation and change it with the help of the revolution. This assumption was not justified for several reasons. First, the picture of social life drawn by Marx suffers from excessive unambiguity: everything is distributed in it into two categories, between “black” and “white”. In fact, the situation is more complicated. In particular, many business owners began to pay more attention to protecting the interests of their employees, sought to raise wages and provide them with benefits that were previously inaccessible to them. Such a socially oriented policy was one of the first obstacles to the formation of a cohesive, aware of its interests and ready to fight with its position of the exploited working class.

Secondly, Marx identified workers with hired workers. But there is a fairly strong stratification among the wage earners, and those who receive the highest wages are interested in an alliance with the owners of the means of production. This stratification is also due to the fact that some enterprises have developed a socially oriented policy.

Theory of M. Weber. Along with Marx, Max Weber had a decisive influence on the formation of modern ideas about the essence, forms and functions of social stratification. Weber, being an opponent of Marx on many issues, could not confine himself to the economic aspect of stratification, and therefore took into account such factors as power and prestige. Weber viewed property, power, prestige as three separate, interacting factors that underlie hierarchies in any society. Differences in ownership give rise to economic classes; differences related to power give rise to political parties, and differences in prestige give rise to status groupings, or strata. Based on this, Weber built a theory about "three autonomous dimensions of stratification." He emphasized that "classes", "status groups" and "parties" are phenomena related to the sphere of distribution of power within the community.

The main difference between Weber's ideas and the views of Marx is that, according to Weber, the class cannot be the subject of action, since it is not a community. In contrast to the Marxist approach, for Weber the concept of class became possible only with the emergence of a capitalist society, where the market is the most important regulator of relations, with the help of which people satisfy their needs for material goods and services. However, in the market, people occupy different positions or are in different “class situations”: some sell goods, services, while others sell labor, that is, some own property, while others do not have it.

Weber did not propose a clear class structure for capitalist society.

However, taking into account his methodological principles, it is possible to reconstruct Weber's typology of classes under capitalism:

1. The dispossessed working class.
2. Petty bourgeoisie - a class of small businessmen and merchants.
3. Dispossessed "white-collar workers": technicians and intellectuals.
4. Administrators and managers.
5. Owners, i.e. a) owners who receive rent from owning the means of production, and b) the "commercial class" (entrepreneurs).

It must be borne in mind that class stratification is not universal: it is a product of capitalist society, and therefore has existed only since the 18th century. The concept of "class" from this point of view is not neutral: it generalizes the phenomena and problems that are specific to capitalist society. It was during this period that the formation of a new independent force began - the "fourth estate", which included merchants, merchants, entrepreneurs and bankers. At the same time, the number of the remaining three estates (the nobility, the clergy and the peasantry) remained unchanged or decreased. The reduction in numbers was especially noticeable in the peasant class, since Agriculture experienced a crisis and many ruined peasants moved to the cities, thus contributing to the development of industry. Precisely for these reasons, such a stratification criterion as the economic situation came to the fore, displacing belonging to an estate first into the background, and then from the list of significant stratification criteria in general.

The theory of elites arose and was formed to a large extent as a reaction to radical and socialist teachings and was directed against various currents of socialism, primarily Marxist and anarchist.

The elite is not an exclusively political category, since in modern society there are also military, economic, professional elites. It can be said that there are as many elites as there are areas of social life. The position of the elite as an upper class or caste can be secured by a formal law or religious code, or it can be achieved in a completely informal way. At the same time, the elite is always a minority that opposes the rest of society, that is, its middle and lower strata as a kind of "mass".

There are two approaches to defining elites. In accordance with the power approach, the elite are those who have decisive power in a given society. This approach is often referred to as Lasswell's line, who was one of the first to offer such an explanation. Researchers such as Moek and Mills also stood at its origins.

In accordance with the meritocratic approach, the elite are those; who possess certain special virtues and personal qualities, regardless of whether they have power or not. In the latter case, the elite is distinguished by talent and merit, as well as by the presence of charisma - the ability to lead people. This approach is called the Pareto line.

The theory of elites is an alternative explanation of social stratification to the Marxist approach. The rejection by Marxists of the provisions underlying the theory of elites is easily explained. First, the recognition that the lower strata are a weak or even unorganized mass that can and should be controlled would mean that this mass is not capable of self-organization and revolutionary action. Secondly, it would mean recognizing the inevitability and even "naturalness" of such a sharp inequality.

Social stratification is a particular dimension of social structure. If we consider society as a set of social institutions that include statuses and roles, then it turns out that all these elements are equal in rights and differ from each other only in content, in terms of the functions they perform. At the same time, inequality also plays a huge role in society. If social institutions, statuses and roles reflect the horizontal stratification of society, then inequality is the basis for its vertical stratification, that is, for social stratification.

There is no clear distinction between horizontal and vertical dimensions. Essentially, this different approaches to describe the same facts. For example, we can consider a teacher and a school principal from the point of view of a horizontal dimension, in which case they will be completely equal employees, and the differences between them will be reduced to differences in the functions they perform. The relationship between them can also be considered from the point of view of the vertical dimension. And in this case it will be different. Indeed, the director of the school is the boss, and the teacher is the subordinate; the social status (authority) of the headmaster as a whole is higher than the status (authority) of the teacher; a school principal has wider access to socially prestigious benefits than a teacher, and so on.

The term "stratification" came to sociology from geology, which uses it to describe how rock layers are arranged. A stratum in geology is a layer of the earth that consists of homogeneous elements. It is this aspect of this concept that was borrowed by sociology: a stratum in sociology also includes people who are more or less similar in certain parameters.

However, the geological metaphor is not entirely acceptable in sociology, and therefore, as often happens, the concept, passing from one science to another, has acquired additional meanings. In particular, from the point of view of geology, it is difficult to imagine that one layer moves relative to another, or that one component suddenly changes position and moves to another layer, which sociology constantly has to deal with. For example, at present in our country the standard of living of teachers, including university teachers, has significantly decreased. And this process can only be comprehended as a shift to a lower layer of a sufficiently large group of people, which leads to a "redistribution of forces" in society, to a change in the overall picture.

Membership in a stratum is determined in sociology on the basis of two groups of indicators: subjective and objective.

Under the subjective indicators understand the feelings and thoughts of a person associated with belonging to a particular social group. Objective indicators are indicators that are generally independent of a person's assessment and can be measured with greater or lesser accuracy. Objective indicators to a much greater extent reflect the generalized position of a person in the stratification system, that is, his position in terms of universal, universal criteria for a given society.

There are four main parameters by which in modern society the objective position of a person in the stratification system is determined: income, education, power and prestige. Subjective and objective indicators do not always coincide. For example, the head of a criminal gang may believe that he belongs to the highest stratum because he has a high income. Indeed, in terms of power and standard of living, this person belongs to the highest stratum. However, the parameters of education and prestige do not allow him to be placed at the top of the vertical classification. In European societies, criminal activity is condemned (although in our country there are many people who highly appreciate the position of a bandit); most likely, the education of this person is also relatively low. Consequently, his position cannot be assessed as highly as he himself does.

Let us consider the main parameters by which the objective position of a person in the stratification system is determined.

Income is the amount of money an individual or family receives in a given period. The easiest way to calculate income is to recalculate it in certain monetary units (rubles, dollars, marks, etc.). In sociology, it is customary to single out conditional levels of income, relative to which groups of the population are distributed. For example, at the bottom of such a classification there will be people whose monthly income is up to 1,000 rubles, then people whose income is from 1,000 to 5,000 rubles, then people who receive up to 10,000 rubles, etc. The allocation of such groups is conditional. In particular, people who earn an average of 9,000 rubles a month are much closer to those who earn just over 10,000 rubles than those who receive 5,000 rubles, although the grouping does not reflect this. However, such a classification makes it possible to obtain and generalize important data on the vertical structure of society.

Education is another parameter that indicates the position of a person. At present, in European states, the vast majority of people have a secondary education; only a few citizens receive a higher education.

In fact, this parameter is expressed in the number of years that a person has spent on training. Obtaining an incomplete secondary education requires 8-9 years, while a person spends 15-16 years on higher education, and a professor spends more than 21-22 years on his education.

Power is a stratification parameter measured by the number of people subordinate to a person. The more subordinates a person has, the higher his status. For example, the orders of the President Russian Federation 150 million people carry out orders of the governor, several million, orders of the plant director - from several hundred to several tens of thousands of people (depending on the number of employees), and orders of the head of the department - an average of five to twenty people.

Finally, prestige is a parameter that reflects the “weight” (authority) that a person who occupies a given status receives. For example, studies have shown that in the United States, the professions of a college teacher, judge, doctor, lawyer are considered the most prestigious, and the least prestigious are the professions of a janitor, shoe shine, maid, plumber, etc. This list, by the way, certainly differs from the opinion of the citizens of our country. However, we can only speculate about the actual situation, since no such studies have been conducted in Russia.

Prestige can be measured by examining how members of a society evaluate certain professions. As a rule, in the process of such research, people are offered a list of professions that they must evaluate on a certain scale. The data is then summarized and a figure is displayed that reflects the average score.

There are many stratification criteria by which any society can be divided. Each of them is associated with special ways of determining and reproducing social inequality. The most famous are the criteria underlying caste, slaveholding, estate and class differentiation, which are identified with the historical types of social order.

However, it can be argued that any society simultaneously involves several different stratification systems and many of their transitional forms that coexist with each other.

There are the following types of stratification:

1. Physical and genetic stratification. It is based on the differentiation of social groups according to such "natural" socio-demographic characteristics as gender, age, and the presence of certain physical qualities (strength, beauty, dexterity). Accordingly, weaker, physically handicapped people automatically occupy a lower place in the system. Inequality in this case is affirmed by physical violence, and subsequently fixed in customs and rituals.

2. Slave stratification is also based on direct violence. But the inequality of people here is determined by military-physical coercion. Social groups differ in the presence or absence of civil rights and property rights. Certain social groups with such stratification turn into an object of private property. This position is most often inherited and fixed in generations. An example of slave-owning stratification is ancient slavery, as well as servitude in Russia.

The methods of reproduction of the slave-owning system are characterized by considerable diversity. Ancient slavery was maintained mainly by conquest. For early feudal Russia, debt, enslavement was more characteristic.

3. Caste stratification is based on ethnic differences, which are fixed by the religious order and religious rituals. Each caste is a closed group that occupies a strictly defined place in the social hierarchy. There is a clear list that defines the occupations that members of this caste can engage in (priestly, military, agricultural), as a result of which the isolation of this group increases even more. The position in the caste system is also inherited, and consequently, the phenomena of social mobility in systems organized according to this principle are practically not observed.

An example of a system dominated by caste stratification is India, where caste division was legally abolished only in 1950.

4. Class stratification. In this stratification system, groups are distinguished by legal rights, which are strictly connected with their duties, which are legal obligations to the state. At a specific level, this is manifested in the fact that representatives of some estates are required to carry out military service, others - bureaucratic service, and so on. Thus, the estate is primarily a legal, and not an economic division. Belonging to a class is also inherited, contributing to the relative closeness of this system.

An example of developed estate systems are feudal Western European societies, as well as feudal Russia.

5. Etacratic stratification system (from Greek - state power). In it, differentiation between groups occurs according to their position in state hierarchies (political, military, economic), and all other differences (demographic, religious, ethnic, economic, cultural) play a secondary role. Stratification is thus connected in this case primarily with the formal ranks that these groups occupy in the respective power hierarchies. The scale and nature of differentiation (volumes of power) in the etacratic system are under the control of the state bureaucracy.

There is some similarity between the estate and etakratic system, since hierarchies can be legally fixed through bureaucratic tables of ranks, military regulations, assignment of categories government agencies. However, they may remain outside the scope of state legislation. The etacratic system is characterized by the formal freedom of members of society, who actually depend only on the state, and the absence of automatic inheritance of positions of power, which distinguishes it from the system of estates.

A striking example of this stratification system is the system of the Soviet party nomenklatura, the principles of differentiation within which, as well as the principles of differentiation with other strata of society, were not enshrined in laws.

6. Socio-professional stratification system. The socio-professional division is the basic stratification system for societies with a developed division of labor. They play a special role in it. qualification requirements required for a particular professional role, for example, the possession of relevant experience, skills and abilities. In other words, in such a system the strata are distinguished primarily by the content and conditions of their labor.

Approval and maintenance of hierarchical orders in this system is carried out with the help of certificates (diplomas, grades, licenses, patents), fixing the level of qualification and ability to perform certain types of activities. The validity of such certificates is ensured by the power of the state or some other sufficiently powerful corporation (professional workshop).

For this stratification system, inheritance of belonging to a layer is not typical, this is manifested in the fact that certificates are most often not inherited (although this pattern has some exceptions).

Examples include the structure of craft workshops in a medieval city, the rank grid in modern industry, the system of certificates and diplomas of education, the system of scientific degrees and titles, etc.

7. Class stratification system. Although the class approach is often opposed to the stratification approach, we will consider class differentiation as one of the varieties of stratification. From the point of view of the socio-economic interpretation, classes are social groups of politically and politically free legal relation citizens, the differences between which lie in the nature and size of ownership of the means of production and the product produced, and, consequently, in the level of income received.

Belonging to classes is not regulated by the highest authorities, is not established by law and is not inherited, which significantly distinguishes the class stratification system from all the others. At the same time, economic prosperity automatically transfers a person to a higher group (although in fact there may be other restrictions).

It should be noted that the class division of society is often secondary, subordinate to other methods of differentiation of society into layers, and, consequently, its role in Marxist theory is noticeably overestimated. At least, the primacy of this method of division was typical only for the bourgeois societies of the West and none can be recognized as universal.

8. Cultural-symbolic stratification system. Differentiation arises in such a system on the basis of differences in access to socially significant information and abilities and opportunities to be the bearer of sacred knowledge (mystical or scientific). Naturally, a higher position in the social hierarchy is occupied by those who have the best opportunities to manipulate the consciousness and actions of other members of society, who have the “better” symbolic capital.

In ancient times, this role was assigned to priests, magicians and shamans, in the Middle Ages - to church ministers, who make up the bulk of the literate population, interpreters of sacred texts, in modern times - to scientists and party ideologists (to a large extent, in this position of scientists, the assertions of positivists that science become a new religion. With some simplification, it can be argued that theocratic manipulation is more typical for pre-industrial societies, partocratic manipulation for industrial ones, while in post-industrial societies technocratic manipulation comes to the fore.

9. Cultural-normative stratification system. At the heart of such a system are differences in the degree of authority and prestige arising from the comparison of lifestyles and norms of behavior followed by a given person or group.

The social division can be based on such parameters as the nature of labor (physical and brainwork), habits, manners of communication, consumer tastes, etiquette, language (for example, in the form of professional terminology or jargon). As a rule, such differences allow members of groups to distinguish between insiders and outsiders.

Social inequality in the world

Today, almost 40 percent of the world's funds are controlled by just 1 percent of the world's population. These data indicate that social and economic inequalities continue to take root today. Moreover, it is getting bigger and bigger. This was stated recently by the administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Helen Clark.

According to her research, only 8 percent of the population owns half of the world's income, of which 1 percent are those the richest people world, which owns 40 percent of all the assets of the planet.

It must be said that such inequality existed before, but over the past twenty years its level has increased markedly. Thus, the economic gap between different social strata of the population has increased by almost 11 percent in developing countries and by 9 percent in countries that are considered economically developed.

However, other statistics are observed in parallel with this. Thus, thanks to the active development information technologies over the past two weeks, poverty has been markedly reduced in many parts of the world. Thus, in those countries whose economic markets are only in the process of their formation, it was possible to observe strong economic growth. And although this is a good trend in itself, the problem of inequality is still not able to be solved.

According to UN experts, the level of social and economic inequality that has risen so much contributes to the fact that the development of many countries of the world is greatly slowing down. Moreover, it is precisely for this reason that economic progress stops, democracy loses its positions and, thus, social harmony is violated.

It should be noted that the point is not only that different representatives of different classes receive unequal incomes. The problem lies in the fact that their opportunities are also unequal. UN experts draw their attention to the fact that in various countries of the world inequality is progressing in many respects. So, for example, there is inequality between women and men, inequality between the inhabitants of the city and the countryside. They receive completely different incomes, have different education, have different rights and opportunities, which simply cannot but affect their standard of living accordingly.

As the UN notes, the situation continues to worsen from year to year.

Types 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.

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.

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.

It is the socio-economic heterogeneity of labor that is not only a consequence, but also the reason for the appropriation by some people of power, property, prestige and the absence of all these signs of advancement in the social hierarchy among others. Each group develops its own values and norms and is based on them. If these groups are placed on a hierarchical basis, then they are social strata.

There are such types of inequality:

1. Poverty as a kind of inequality. The phenomenon of poverty became the subject of research in modern Russian sociology in the early 1990s. In socio-economic literature, the category of low income received official recognition, which was revealed within the framework of the theory of welfare and socialist distribution. For the most part, these are working people over 28 years of age with a higher or secondary specialized education. The most typical factors that determine the risk of being in one or another group of the poor include: loss of health, low skill level, displacement from the labor market, high family “burden” (large families, single-parent families, etc.); individual characteristics associated with lifestyle, value orientations (unwillingness to work, bad habits etc.).

2. Deprivation as a kind of inequality. Deprivation should be understood as any condition that creates or can create in an individual or group a feeling of being disadvantaged in comparison with other individuals (or groups), or with an internalized set of standards. The feeling of deprivation can be both conscious, when individuals and groups experiencing deprivation can understand the reasons for their condition, and not conscious, when its real reasons are not understood. However, in both cases, deprivation is accompanied by a strong desire to overcome it.

There are five types of deprivation:

Economic deprivation - stems from the uneven distribution of income in society and the limited satisfaction of the needs of some individuals and groups. The degree of economic deprivation is assessed according to objective and subjective criteria. An individual who, according to objective criteria, is economically quite prosperous and even enjoys privileges, may, nevertheless, experience a subjective feeling of deprivation;
- social deprivation - due to the tendency of society to evaluate the qualities and abilities of some individuals and groups higher than others, expressing this assessment in the distribution of such social rewards as prestige, power, high status in society and the corresponding opportunities to participate in social life. The grounds for such an unequal assessment can be very diverse. Social deprivation usually complements economic deprivation: the less a person has in material terms, the lower his social status, and vice versa;
- ethical deprivation - it is associated with a value conflict that arises when the ideals of individual individuals or groups do not coincide with the ideals of society. These kinds of conflicts can arise for many reasons. Some people may feel the internal inconsistency of the generally accepted system of values, the presence of negative latent functions of established standards and rules, they may suffer because reality does not correspond to ideals, etc. Often a value conflict arises as a result of contradictions in social organization;
- mental deprivation - occurs as a result of the formation of a value vacuum in an individual or group - the absence of a significant system of values, in accordance with which they could build their lives. This is mainly the result of an acute and not resolved for a long time state of social deprivation, when a person, in the order of spontaneous mental compensation for his condition, loses adherence to the values of a society that does not recognize him. The usual reaction to mental deprivation is the search for new values, new faith, meaning and purpose of existence. A person experiencing a state of mental deprivation, as a rule, is most receptive to new ideologies, mythologies, and religions.

Inequality is a natural difference in the state of the members of modern society. Inequality is fixed in any society, while a system of norms is created, according to which people should be included in the relationship of inequality, accept these relationships, not oppose them.

Social inequality is a consequence of the uneven access of members of society to spiritual and material resources, which leads to the stratification of this and the formation of a vertical hierarchy. People at different levels of the hierarchy have unequal life chances in realizing their aspirations and needs. Any society is structured in one way or another: according to national, geographical, gender, demographic or other characteristics. However, social inequality has a completely unique

nature. Its main source is the development of civilization itself, existing in the form of society.

Causes of social inequality

Every society in human history has been characterized by the specialization of its members. This fact alone gives rise to social inequality in the long term, since sooner or later specialization leads to a difference between more and less demanded forms of activity. Thus, in the most primitive societies, shaman healers and warriors had the highest status. Usually the best of them became the heads of the tribe or people. At the same time, such differentiation does not yet imply the obligatory accompaniment of material goods. In a primitive society, social inequality is not at all the result of material stratification, since trade relations themselves did not yet matter. However, the fundamental reason remains the same - specialization. In modern society, in a privileged position are, for example, people who

creating a cultural product - film actors, television presenters, professional athletes and others.

Inequality criteria

As we have already seen in the example of primitive societies, social inequality can be expressed not only in material conditions. And history knows many such examples. So, for medieval Europe it is extremely an important factor social status was pedigree. Only one noble origin determined a high status in society, regardless of wealth. At the same time, the countries of the East hardly knew such a class-hierarchical model. All subjects of the state - viziers and peasants - were the same slaves in the face of the sovereign, whose status came from the simple fact of power. Sociologist Max Weber identified three possible criteria for inequality:

Thus, the difference in income, social respect and honor, as well as the number of subordinates, depending on the value orientations of society, can affect the final social status of a person in different ways.

Social inequality coefficient

Over the past two hundred years, there have been disputes among economists and sociologists about the degree of stratification in a particular society. Thus, according to Vilfredo Pareto, the ratio of the poor to the rich is a constant value. In contrast, the teaching of Marxism testifies that there is a constant increase in social differentiation - the poor are getting poorer, the rich are getting richer. However, the practical experience of the twentieth century has shown that if such increasing stratification does occur, it makes society unstable and ultimately leads to social upheaval.

Historical examples of inequality in society. Introduction. Possession of a profitable profession, position

Causes of social inequality

Ideas about social stratification

Social inequality - what is it?

Causes of social inequality

Types of social inequality

Manifestation of social inequality

Consequences of social inequality

Pros of social inequality

Examples of social inequality in history

Modern forms of social inequality

Social inequality in the world

Social inequalities in society

Causes of social inequality

The problem of social inequality

Inequality of social groups

Social inequality of people

Level of social inequality

Examples of social inequality

Socio-economic inequality

Structured social inequality

Social income inequality

The concept of social inequality

Theories of social inequality

Social inequality in the world

Types of social inequality

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