Question

short answer:

Why would agrarian societies have social stratification that emphasizes caste? Why would industrial societies have social stratification that mixes caste with meritocracy?

State one way in which caste and class systems differ.

What is meritocracy? What part does it play in class systems?

What is status consistency? Provide a description of a person with high status consistency and an example of someone with low status consistency.

Define structural social mobility. How does it differ from individual social mobility?

State the Davis-Moore thesis. According to this theory, why is social inequality useful for society?

According to Karl Marx, what are the two major classes in industrial-capitalist societies? How did Marx describe the relationship between the two classes?

What did Max Weber mean by describing inequality in terms of a socioeconomic status ranking?

Explain how social stratification shapes patterns of social interaction.

What is the Kuznets curve? What does it tell us about how social stratification has varied over the course of human history as well as in the world today?

Answer 1

1. Agriculture demands a life long of routine of hard work. By teaching a sense of moral duty, a caste system ensures that people are disciplined for a lifetime of work and are willing to perform the same jobs as their parents.
Because industrial societies need to develop a broad range of abilities beyond farming, stratification is based not just on the accident of birth but also on merit where skills can be used to maximize in every level.

2. Caste systems are typically closed systems that allow little to no social mobility, and social stratification is based at birth.caste societies tend to be agrarian based because of the time, commitment, and hard manual labor associated with farming.Class societies allow individuals to have equal rights, and more freedom in choosing a profession, marriage partner, or friend. Class societies usually operate under some form of meritocracy which includes education, effort, and abilities & talents.Class societies allow individuals to have equal rights, and more freedom in choosing a profession, marriage partner, or friend. Class societies usually operate under some form of meritocracy which includes education, effort, and abilities & talents.

3. Meritocracy is social stratification based on personal merit.

4. Status consistency is the degree of uniformity in a person's social standing across various dimensions of social inequality. Someone born into the Indian caste system would have a very high status consistency due the lack of the ability to move up and down the social ladder. People in the American social class system has a low status consistency because the lines that define a class are not as defined as that of a caste system.

5. Shift in social position of large numbers of people due more to changes in society itself than the individuals.

6. The Davis-Moore thesis states that social stratification has beneficial consequences for the operation of a society. Social inequality is useful to society, because the greater the functional importance of position the more rewards society attaches to it. this strategy promotes productivity and efficiency because rewarding work with income prestige, power, or leisure encourage people to do these jobs and work better longer and harder. Criticism towards this theory says The cast elements of social stratification can prevent the development individual talent, also living in a society that place is so much money ,we tend to overestimate The importance of high-paying work.

7. According to Karl Marx, the two major classes in the industrial-capitalist societies are the capitalists and the proletarians. The capitalists are "people who own and operate factories and other businesses in pursuit of profits" and the proletarians are "people who sell their labor for wages".Karl Marx believed that over time the working people will overthrow the capitalists because of their different views and the alienation the working people felt from working under the capitalists.

8. Max Weber describes inequality by using the term socioeconomic status meaning "to refer to a composite ranking based on various dimensions of social inequality". Weber says that economic position is a distinct dimension of inequality. For instance Weber talks about a local office official could hold great power, yet have little wealth and social prestige.

9. Social stratification shapes patterns of social interaction because social stratification shows us how we interact with other people. Social stratification also talks about how we are a world based on technology and that is how we interact with people now a days. Another aspect is money because that also affects how we deal with people and our interactions on a daily biases. We tend to interact with people who make the same amount of money.

10.Kuznetsk curve shoes the low and highs that accompany the different types of societies. In the the hunter and gatherer societies stratification is low and makes societies equal since everyone is needed to sustain life, but as we move more to the agrarian it become high suddenly dipping in industrial since both men and women can do the same job.