22
S
OCIAL
S
TRATIFICATION
H
AROLD
R. K
ERBO
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
S
ince the earliest-known writings on the nature of
human societies, there has been recognition that
social stratification is a central part of all human
organization (Lenski 1966). In his
Politics,
in 350 BCE,
Aristotle wrote of the natural ranking of free people and
slaves. More recently, during the Age of Enlightenment,
philosophers such as Locke, Rousseau, and Montesquieu
wrote of the feudal system of social stratification and its
inequities (Zeitlin 1968; Strasser 1976). By the mid-1800s,
the classic sociological theorists such as Marx, Durkheim,
and Weber began more systematic analyses of system of
social stratification using concepts that remain with us to
this day.
From the root word
strata,
we can recognize that social
stratification refers to a ranking of people or groups of
people within a society. But the term was defined by the
earliest sociologists as something more than the almost
universal inequalities that exist in all but the least complex
of societies.
Social stratification
refers to a system with
rather predictable rules behind the ranking of individuals
and groups, which theories of social stratification are
meant to uncover and understand. The existence of a
system of social stratification also implies some form of
legitimation of the ranking of people and the unequal dis-
tribution of valued goods, services, and prestige. Without
belief systems justifying the inequality and unequal rank-
ing, it is unlikely that a stratification system would remain
stable over time. Beyond agreement on a definition of
social stratification, however, the classic sociological theo-
rists agreed on little else. From this classic period of soci-
ology, we have, in fact, a triple legacy of social
stratification theories from the works of Karl Marx, Émile
Durkheim, and Max Weber.
More than anyone, it was Karl Marx...