• Despite claims of divinity and modern democratic frameworks treating humans as equal, inequality remains a fact of life.

• Sociologists study inequality through frameworks like Stratification and Mobility.

• Functional theorists view stratification as inevitable, arising from the intrinsic needs of society, ensuring efficient division of labour and benefiting all members.

• Conflict theorists oppose this view, considering stratification as a tool of dominant groups, leading to oppression of those at the bottom, serving only the elite.

• Social mobility is seen as a solution, enabling transition between hierarchies or social states.

• Societies show differences in sex, wealth, skills, colour, status, power, geography; some are natural, others man-made.

• Society attaches values (superiority/inferiority, desirability/undesirability) to differences, converting them into inequalities.

• Inequalities are culture-specific and occur in specific patterns.

• Differences are natural, but inequalities are created by man through social stratification.

• Social stratification: a process where social inequalities form structural hierarchical strata, one above another.

• Defined by Sutherland and Maxwell as “a process of differentiation which places some people higher than others.”

• Stratification is both a social process and a method for understanding inequality.

• As a social process, stratification includes four sub-processes.

  • Differentiation: natural and social differences exist in every society.

  • Evaluation: differences judged in terms of prestige and desirability, creating superiority/inferiority (e.g., skin colour in India).

  • Ranking: differences compared, and groups ranked as desirable/undesirable.

  • Rewarding: system of rewards and punishments created through differential opportunities, reinforcing stratification.

• Strata may be closed (no mobility, e.g., caste) or open (mobility possible, e.g., bureaucracy in democracies).

• T B Bottomore classified stratification into four forms: slavery, estates, caste, class.

• Slavery: earliest form, legally dividing society into slaves (no rights) and citizens (with rights); existed in Europe and elsewhere (500 BCE–600 BCE).

• Estate system: arose from feudalism, existed in Europe (7th–17th century); estates were legally defined groups (serfs, clergy, nobility) with privileges/duties; nobility defended, clergy prayed, serfs produced food; feudal lords controlled land and economy; remnants exist in England through hereditary titles and knighthood.

• Caste: occupation, status, rights fixed by birth; still exists in India, though changing in form and function.

• Class: rooted in economic factors, especially ownership of means of production (Marx); those owning land/capital vs. those who do not; more mobility than estates/slavery; diverse classifications by thinkers.

Inequality and Equality

• G D Berreman suggests that out of natural and universal differentiation of persons, inequality arises due to social evaluation of differences.

• Inequalities result from association of individuals with different social groups, which are evaluated differently by society.

• Inequality is significant in Sociology as it is closely linked to poverty, deprivation and exclusion.

• Patterns of unequal access to social resources are called social inequalities.

• Some people have a greater share of valued resources like money, property, education, health, and power.

• Pierre Bourdieu classified social resources into four forms of capital.

  • Economic capital: material assets and income.

  • Cultural capital: educational qualifications and status.

  • Social capital: networks of contacts and associations.

  • Symbolic capital: social status and good reputation.

• Forms of capital often overlap and can be converted into each other, e.g., economic capital enabling cultural capital, or social capital leading to good jobs.

• Inequalities existed long before Sociology as a discipline.

• Rousseau identified two kinds of inequality: natural/physical inequality (age, health, strength, mental ability) and moral/political inequality (privileges authorised by people, e.g., power, honour).

• Inequalities exist in forms like income, political, economic, wealth, capability, social capital.

• Haralambos and Holborn classified inequalities into inequality of power and inequality of material well-being.

• Inequalities become repressive when rigidly enforced, e.g., caste, slavery, bondage.

• Inequalities become stratification when embedded in the structure of society in hierarchical patterns.

• Inequalities exist at micro level and macro level; globally, nations are divided into first world and third world.

• Dependency theory explains inequalities from a Marxist perspective.

• Marxists attribute inequalities to unequal access to forces of production; opportunities and resources monopolised by a few.

• Functionalists argue inequalities are inevitable, ensuring all jobs are done, with unequal rewards reflecting unequal capabilities.

• Wilkinson and Pickett in The Spirit Level (2010) argue inequality is harmful for both individual and society; unequal societies have mistrust, less cooperation and weaker harmony.

• Goran Therborn in The Killing Fields of Inequality (2015) argues inequalities are produced and sustained by systemic arrangements, processes, and distributive actions at both structural and individual levels.

• Therborn highlights consequences of inequalities: premature death, ill health, humiliation, loss of human rights, exclusion, powerlessness, dehumanisation.

• Social consequence of inequality is violation of human dignity and denial of development of human capabilities.

• Therborn suggests countering exclusion of poor and seclusion of elites.

• Inequalities can be measured objectively; Gini Coefficient is used to measure economic inequality nationally.

• A 2017 Oxfam report (An Economy for the 99%) stated that richest 1% in India hold 58% of total wealth.

• Excessive inequalities are undesirable in both communist and capitalist societies as they cause unrest, conflict, and antagonism.

• The Indian Constitution includes reduction of social and economic inequalities as a Directive Principle.

• Progressive taxation is common worldwide, taxing the rich more and the poor less.

• Social security schemes in developed countries aim to uplift the poor and bridge the economic gap.

• In India, positive discrimination tools reduce inequalities: reservations, PDS, concessional loans, subsidies, free education, cheaper medicines, etc.