Inequality characterizes the uneven distribution of society's scarce resources - money, power, education and prestige - between different strata or segments of the population. On the inequality scale, the rich will be at the top and the poor at the bottom.
If wealth is a sign of the upper class, then income - the flow of cash receipts for a certain calendar period, say, a month or a year - characterizes all layers of society. Income is any amount of money received in the form of wages, pensions, rent, benefits, alimony, fees, etc. Even the alms of beggars, obtained by begging and expressed in monetary terms, represents a type of income.
On this basis, the following population groups can be distinguished: (Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1 - Units of measurement of economic inequality by population group
From Figure 1.1 it follows that the population is divided into 4 groups:
1. Rich
2. Middle class
The fact is that along with a broad understanding of income, there is a narrow one. In a statistical sense, income is the amount of money that people earn due to belonging to a certain profession (type of occupation) or due to the legal disposal of property. However, beggars, even if they regularly earn a living by begging, do not provide any valuable services to society. And statistics take into account only those sources of income that are associated with the provision of valuable, socially significant services or with the production of goods. Beggars are included in the so-called underclass, i.e. literally not a class, or a layer below all classes. Thus, beggars fall out of the official income pyramid.
The essence of social inequality lies in the unequal access of different categories of the population to socially significant benefits, scarce resources, and liquid values. The essence of economic inequality is that a narrow layer of society owns most of the national wealth. The income of the majority may be distributed differently. For example, in the United States, the income level of the majority allows us to speak of the presence of a large middle class, while in Russia the income level of the majority of the population is often below the subsistence level. Accordingly, the income pyramid, its distribution between population groups, in other words, inequality, can be depicted in the first case as a rhombus, and in the second as a cone. As a result, we get a stratification profile, or an inequality profile.
The essence of social inequality
The diversity of relationships, roles, and positions lead to differences between people in each particular society. The problem comes down to somehow ordering these relationships between categories of people that differ in many aspects.
What is inequality? In the very general view inequality means that people live in conditions in which they have unequal access to limited resources of material and spiritual consumption. To describe the system of inequality between groups of people in sociology, the concept of “social stratification” is widely used.
When considering the problem of social inequality, it is quite justified to proceed from the theory of socio-economic heterogeneity of labor. Performing qualitatively unequal types of labor, satisfying social needs to varying degrees, people sometimes find themselves engaged in economically heterogeneous labor, because such types of labor have different assessments of their social utility.
The essence of social inequality, as we have already said, lies in the unequal access of different categories of the population to socially significant benefits, scarce resources, and liquid values. The essence of economic inequality is that a minority of the population always owns the majority of national wealth. In other words, 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. The latter can be distributed in different ways. In the United States, the lowest incomes (as well as the highest) are received by a minority of the population, and the average income is received by the majority. In Russia today, the lowest incomes are received by the majority, the average incomes by a relatively large group, and the highest incomes by a minority of the population.
It is the socio-economic heterogeneity of labor that is not only a consequence, but also the reason for the appropriation of power, property, prestige by some people and the lack of all these advantages in the social hierarchy by others. Each group develops its own values and norms and relies on them. If representatives of such groups are located according to a hierarchical principle, then these groups are social layers.
In social stratification there is a tendency to inherit positions. The principle of inheritance of positions leads to the fact that not all capable and educated individuals have equal chances to occupy positions of power, high principles and well-paid positions. There are two selection mechanisms at work here: unequal access to truly high-quality education and unequal opportunities for equally qualified individuals to obtain positions.
Social stratification has a traditional character: inequality of status different groups people has been preserved throughout the history of civilization. Even in primitive societies, age and sex, combined with physical strength, were important criteria for stratification.
Let us imagine a situation where there are numerous social strata in society, the social distance between which is small, the level of mobility is high, the lower strata constitute a minority of members of society, rapid technological growth constantly raises the “bar” of meaningful work at the lower tiers of production positions, social protection of the weak, among other things, guarantees the strong and advanced peace of mind and the realization of potentialities. It is difficult to deny that such a society, such interlayer interaction is rather in its own way perfect model than everyday reality.
Most modern societies are far from this model. They are characterized by the concentration of power and resources among a numerically small elite. The concentration of such status attributes among the elite as power, property and education impedes social interaction between the elite and other strata and leads to excessive social distance between it and the majority. This means that the middle class is small and the upper class is deprived of communication with other groups. Obviously such social order contributes to destructive conflicts.
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, level of intelligence and many other characteristics. Nature endowed one with musical abilities, another with strength, a third with beauty, and for someone she prepared the fate of a frail and disabled person. 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 prevail over the simpletons. Inequality arising from natural differences is the first form of inequality, which appears in one form or another in some animal species. However, in the main human thing is social inequality, inextricably linked with social differences, social differentiation.
Social are called those differences, which generated social factors: way of life (urban and rural population), division of labor (intellectual and physical labor), social roles (father, doctor, politician), etc., which leads to differences in the degree of ownership of property, income received, power, achievement, prestige, education.
Different levels of social development are basis for social inequality, the emergence of rich and poor, stratification of society, its stratification (a stratum that includes people with the same income, power, education, prestige).
Income- the amount of cash receipts received by an individual per unit of time. This may be labor, or it may be the ownership of property that “works.”
Education— a set of knowledge acquired in educational institutions. Its level is measured by the number of years of education. Let's say incomplete high 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 wishes. It is measured by the number of people to whom it applies.
Prestige- this is an assessment of the position of an individual in society, established 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 directions interpret it differently. Let us highlight the most interesting and noteworthy approaches.
Functionalism explains inequality based on differentiation social functions , performed by various layers, classes, communities. The functioning and development of society are possible only thanks to the division of labor, when each social group solves the corresponding tasks that are vital 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. So, based on the hierarchy of social functions, a corresponding hierarchy of classes and layers is formed executing them. Those who carry out activities are invariably placed at the top of the social ladder. general leadership and governance of the country, 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 subjectivist interpretation. Indeed, why is this or that function considered more significant if society as an integral organism cannot exist without functional diversity? This approach does not allow us to explain such realities as the recognition of an individual as belonging to a higher stratum in the absence of his direct participation in management. That is why T. Parsons, considering social hierarchy as a necessary factor ensuring vitality social system, links its configuration with the system of dominant values in society. In his understanding, the location of social layers on the hierarchical ladder is determined by the ideas formed in society about the importance 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. - this is inequality of status, arising both from the ability of individuals to fulfill one or another 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 capabilities that allow a person to achieve one or another position in society (ownership of property, capital, origin, membership of influential political forces).
Let's consider economic view to the problem. In accordance with this point of view, the root cause of social inequality lies in unequal treatment of property and distribution of material goods. Most brightly this approach manifested itself in Marxism. According to his version, it was the emergence of private property led to 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 was 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 at least two levels. Firstly, as a property of society. Written history does not know 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, therefore, 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 relationships between people, groups. Therefore, it becomes natural to strive to find the origins of this unequal position in the characteristics of a person’s position in society: in the possession of property, power, in the personal qualities of individuals. This approach is now widespread.
Inequality has many faces and manifests itself in various parts of a single social organism: in the family, in an institution, in an enterprise, in small and large social groups. It is a necessary condition organization of social life. Parents, having an advantage in experience, skills, and financial resources over 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 a team helps to unite it and transform it into a sustainable entity, but at the same time it is accompanied by the provision leader of special rights.
Any organization strives to preserve inequalities seeing in him ordering principle, without which it is impossible reproduction of social connections and integration of the new. This is the same property inherent in society as a whole.
Ideas about social stratification
All societies famous stories, were organized in such a way that some social groups always had a privileged position over others, which was expressed in the unequal distribution of social benefits and powers. In other words, all societies without exception are characterized by social inequality. 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 the 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 20th century believed. P. Sorokin, in any society, at any time, there is a struggle between the forces of stratification and the forces of equalization.
The concept of “stratification” came to sociology from geology, where it refers to the arrangement of the Earth’s layers along a vertical line.
Under social stratification We will understand a vertical slice of the arrangement of individuals and groups along horizontal layers (strata) based on such characteristics as income inequality, access to education, 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, inevitably some social statuses and roles are preferable and more productive for individuals, as a result of which they are more prestigious and desirable for them, while 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 located in a hierarchical order; Some of them, for example those based on age, do not contain grounds for social inequality. Thus, the status of a young child and the status of an 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 non-entrepreneurial, those with 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 view social inequality as injustice.
In the history of social thought, the inequality of people has been explained in different ways: by the original inequality of souls, by divine providence, by the imperfection of human nature, by functional necessity by analogy with the organism.
German economist K. Marx connected social inequality with the emergence of private property and the struggle of interests of different classes and social groups.
German sociologist R. Dahrendorf also believed that economic and status inequality, which underlies the ongoing conflict of groups and classes and the struggle for the redistribution of power and status, is formed as a result of the action 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; environment(natural and social), objectively placing individuals in an unequal position; the joint collective life of individuals, which requires the organization of relationships and behavior, which leads to the stratification of society into the governed 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 have a higher status and income technological specialties, directors of factories, etc., while in Europe the dominant value is the “preservation of cultural patterns”, in connection with which society gives special prestige to intellectuals in the humanities, clergy, and university professors.
Social inequality, being inevitable and necessary, manifests itself in all societies at all stages of historical development; Only the forms and degrees of social inequality change historically. Otherwise, individuals would lose the incentive to engage in complex and labor-intensive, dangerous or uninteresting activities and improve their skills. With the help of inequality in income and prestige, society encourages individuals to engage in necessary but difficult and unpleasant professions, rewards the more educated and talented, etc.
The problem of social inequality is one of the most acute and pressing in modern Russia. Feature of social structure Russian society is a strong social polarization - the division of the population into poor and rich in the absence of a significant middle layer, which serves as the basis of an economically stable and developed state. The strong social stratification characteristic of modern Russian society reproduces a system of inequality and injustice, in which the opportunities for independent self-realization and improvement of social status are limited for a fairly large part of the Russian population.
Social inequality - This is a type of social division in which individual members of society or groups are at different levels of the social ladder (hierarchy) and have unequal opportunities, rights and responsibilities.
Basic inequality indicators:
- 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);
- different working conditions.
Causes of social inequality.
French sociologist Emile Durkheim identified two causes of social inequality:
- The need to reward the best in their field, that is, those who bring great benefit to society.
- People have different levels of personal qualities and talent.
Robert Michels put forward another reason: protection of the privileges of power. When the community size exceeds a certain certain number people, they nominate a leader, or an entire group, and give him greater powers than everyone else.
Criteria of social inequality.
Key inequality criteria Max Weber stated:
- Wealth (income differences).
- Prestige (difference in honor and respect).
- Power (difference in the number of subordinates).
Hierarchy of inequality.
There are two types of hierarchy, which are usually represented as geometric shapes: pyramid(a bunch of oligarchs and great amount poor, and the poorer, the greater their number) and rhombus(few oligarchs, few poor people and the bulk are middle class). A diamond is preferable to a pyramid from the point of view of stability of the social system. Roughly speaking, in the diamond-shaped version, middle peasants happy with life will not allow a handful of poor people to stage a coup and civil war. You don't have to go far for an example. In Ukraine, the middle class was far from being the majority, and dissatisfied 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 other oligarchs at the top, and at the bottom there is still the majority of the country's population.
Addressing social inequality.
It is natural that social inequality is perceived as social injustice, especially by those who are at the lowest level in the hierarchy of social division. IN modern society The issue of social inequality is under the responsibility of social policy authorities. Their responsibilities include:
- Introduction of various compensations for socially vulnerable segments of the population.
- Help for poor families.
- Benefits for the unemployed.
- Determination of the minimum wage.
- Social insurance.
- Development of education.
- Healthcare.
- Ecological problems .
- Improvement of workers' qualifications.
Social inequality- conditions under which people have unequal access to social benefits such as money, power and prestige; these are some types of relationships between people: personal inequality, inequality of opportunities to achieve desired goals (inequality of chances).
Social inequality is cause and effect social stratification . The main measure of inequality is the amount of liquid assets; in modern society, this function is usually performed by money. Amount of money determines the place of an individual or family in social stratification.
Social inequality in power relations manifested itself in the ability of a certain social subject (social layer, or stratum) to determine in its own interests the goals and direction of the activities of other social subjects (regardless of their interests), to dispose of material, information and status resources society, form and impose rules and norms of behavior. Of key importance in measuring social inequality by power relations is the management of resources, which allows the ruling entity to subjugate other people.
Social inequality by level of education and the prestige of social status , profession, position, occupation is determined by the inequality of starting conditions or the unequal conditions for the development of various social layers and strata (real injustice, infringement of natural human rights, the creation of artificial social barriers, monopolization of the conditions and rules of social production ) .
Social inequality characterizes not so much the functional spheres of society and their organization as the relative position of individual individuals and social groups. In itself, this approach to identifying social structure involves comparison, assessment, specification and personification of subjects, as a result of which theories of social inequality are often not devoid of ideological bias, value preferences and conflictological interpretations of the authors.
Theories of social inequality are divided into two fundamental directions: functionalist and conflictological (Marxist).
Functionalism, in the traditions of E. Durkheim, derives social inequality from the division of labor: mechanical (natural, gender and age) and organic (arising as a result of training and professional specialization). Since stratification is seen as a product of the division of labor, functionalists believe that social inequality is determined primarily by the importance and prestige of the functions performed for society.
In modern society, profession has become the determining criterion for social stratification and the professional status of a department of a person or social group. is closely related to such bases of stratification as income, power and prestige. Therefore, education is considered as a source of increasing the social capital of the individual, the opportunity to get good. profession, provide higher standard of living, gain a new status.
Marxism focuses on issues of class inequality and exploitation. Accordingly in conflict theories The dominant role in the system of social reproduction of differentiating (dividing society into groups and layers) relations of property and power is usually emphasized. This logic of describing inequality is well applicable to dynamic transitive societies experiencing revolutions and reforms, since the redistribution of the social structure and changes in the general “rules of the game” are always associated with the institutions of power - property. The nature of the formation of elites and the nature of the flow of social capital (forced or trust, exploitative or equivalent) depend on who gets control over significant social resources and under what conditions.
Considering the individual as an active creator of society (as a subject, producer, source of constant changes in society), we can imagine inequality as a social good, a way of leveling starting positions due to competition, as a mechanism for consolidating a newly won social position and the accompanying privileges, an incentive system (reward and punishment) ), the condition for the priority of “passionarity”, maintaining the potential for survival, social activity, creativity, innovation.
Inequality is unjust because all people have equal rights; secondly, inequality is fair, since it allows differentiated and targeted compensation for the social costs of different people.
The classics of “classics” (O. Comte, G. Spencer), “modernity” (M. Weber, P. Sorokin, T. Parsons) and postmodern socialism (for example, P. Bourdieu) directly speak about the fundamentality and inviolability of the principle of social inequality and its high functional significance for the organization of communities. Specific forms of inequality undergo modifications, but the principle itself always appears.
T. Parsons focuses on the unique and therefore fundamental functions of the social system, which for this reason acquire the character of a social monopoly. The indispensability, obligation and qualitative difference of these functions predetermine the specialization and professionalization (assignment) of separate social groups to them, where energy-rich (economic, producing) communities are subordinate to information-rich (political, law-supporting, culture-reproducing) communities.
M. Weber believed that the process of social stratification and occupation of more advantageous positions in society is organized quite complexly, identifying three coordinates that determine the position of people and groups in social space; wealth, power, social prestige. Such a model is not just multifactorial, it marks a transition from a focused and linear to a spatial research vision of the problem, when the dynamics of social dispositions are actually considered as a system of vector movements.
In the modern world, it is formed new system relations of inequality in social space. The ratio of forms of ownership and institutions of power are changing, some groups and layers are disappearing, others are emerging, others are fragmenting, the social role and status of others are changing, etc.
The trends in the transformation of the social structure in Russia are determined by: 1) the transformation of institutional foundations, primarily the emergence of private property and the development of entrepreneurship on its basis; 2) profound changes in the employment system (system of planned formation, distribution and use work force gives way to not just a free, but a “wild” labor market; 3) a decrease in the standard of living of the overwhelming majority of the population; 4) social anomie (the destruction of one value-normative system and the lack of formation of another) and 5) social deprivation, limitation or deprivation of access to material and spiritual resources necessary to satisfy basic life needs.
The basis of the modern social structure is still made up of the social groups of Soviet society - the working class, the peasantry, the intelligentsia (although they have changed social role and quantitative indicators); New sociostructural layers also appeared.
The main trends are the deepening of social inequality (economic, political, social) and the marginalization of a significant part of the population. Inequality between regions is deepening, reaching a ratio of 1:10.
The process of formation of a new social structure and its composition proceeds in three ways, predetermined by basic changes in forms of ownership.
The first way is the emergence of new social communities based on the pluralization of forms of ownership: these are specific layers of hired workers and engineering workers employed in the semi-state and private sectors of the economy according to labor agreements or permanently under employment contracts, employees of mixed enterprises and organizations with foreign capital, etc.
The second way is a change, based on the transformation of the state form of ownership, of the position of traditional class-group communities: their boundaries, quantitative and qualitative characteristics, the emergence of border and marginal layers, etc.
The third way is the emergence of layers-strata based on interaction various forms property: managers - the new managerial layer, the new elite, the middle layers, etc.
The social structure of Russian society looks like a “triangle pressed to the base” (in contrast to the “lemon” in developed countries or “Eiffel Tower” - in Latin America); Of particular importance in it is the state of marginality, which accompanies the forced transition of a person from one socio-professional group to another and significantly changes the characteristics of socio-professional status.
“New poor” have appeared. And earlier, in Soviet time, there were enough low-income people in the country. But more skilled, more complex work was paid higher than low-skilled work. Education was one of the main structure-forming factors. A university diploma was a filter for advancement in the job hierarchy. This, in turn, determined higher wages, as well as the share of privileges in receiving additional social benefits.
In studies of social structure, multidimensional stratification models now predominate using criteria such as property status and income, education, position in the power structure, social status and prestige, self-identification, i.e. a combination of objective and subjective criteria.
Some of the examples we have given are a reflection of the inequalities that exist in society. Social inequality characterizes the position in relation to each other different people and their associations. Inequality existed in society at different stages of its development, but for each period there were certain features and characteristics inherent in that particular era. People in society, as we know from history, were not equal in status; there was always a division into rich and poor, respected and despised, successful and unsuccessful.
The class structure was more typical for ancient and medieval societies, which are commonly called traditional. An estate is a group of people who have certain rights and responsibilities that are inherited. Some of the classes had privileges - special rights that elevated these people and allowed them to live at the expense of others. Thus, in the Russian Empire, the privileged class was the nobility. And, on the contrary, the vast majority of people in the country were deprived of even basic human rights. Serfs were the property of the landowners; they could be bought and sold, even by parents separately from their children.
With the beginning industrial revolution the structure of society changed, classes appeared instead of estates. Class division is carried out, first of all, according to the place of people in economic system, in relation to property, according to the amount of income they receive. Belonging to a class is not inherited, the transition from one class to another is not regulated in any way, much depends on the person himself. In the 19th century, the main classes in the leading countries of the world became the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (wage workers). It was then that the theory of K. Marx and F. Engels about the class division of society appeared. They believed that classes always oppose each other, are in a state of struggle, and this struggle between them is the driving force of history. At first, the opposing classes were slaves and slave owners, then feudal lords and dependent peasants, and finally workers and the bourgeoisie.
Modern social science interprets the concept of class somewhat differently. An important sign of class affiliation is a certain way of life, determined by profession and income level. In the structure of society today it is customary to distinguish three main classes:
The highest level, which includes bankers, employers who own and control production, top managers performing leading management functions;
Middle - office workers and skilled workers, businessmen with a certain level of income;
Lowest - workers without special education, service personnel.
A special group also includes people working on the land - farmers, peasants. Of course, such a division is extremely arbitrary, and the real distribution of people into social groups is much more complicated.
In every society, at different historical periods, there were people who did not belong to established groups and strata. They occupied a kind of borderline, intermediate position. Such a state in science is called marginal, and these people themselves are called marginal.
Marginalized people are people who, for various reasons, have fallen out of their usual social environment and are unable to join new groups. For example, with the beginning of the industrial revolution in European countries and Russia, some peasants were forced to move to cities, look for work there, and adapt to a new life. But not every peasant likes urban conditions and the rhythm of city life. The migrants feel like strangers in this new environment. In soul and mind they still remain peasants living in a small village, with their own way of life.
Another example can be given. Some representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, radically minded and negatively related to autocracy, state and public order Russian Empire, renounced their belonging to the ruling strata in society and declared a transition to the position of the oppressed people. They proclaimed themselves to be spokesmen for the interests of peasants and workers. The position of such people can also be called marginal.
Over time, the marginalized can form a new stable group of people. In the modern world, where the boundaries of social groups are very fluid and people can move from one to another, the emergence of marginal groups is an important source of change and development of social structure.
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