Social stratification is the differentiation of some given set of people (population) into classes and groups in a hierarchical rank. It finds expression in the existence of higher and lower strata. Its basis and essence is in the uneven distribution of rights and privileges, responsibilities and duties, the presence or absence of social values, power and influence among the members of this or that society. Specific forms of social stratification are diverse and numerous. If the economic status of members of a society is not the same, if there are among them both the haves and the have-nots, then such a society is characterized by the presence of economic stratification, regardless of the principles on which it is organized, capitalist or communist, it is defined constitutionally as “a society of equals” or not. No labels, signs, verbal statements are not able to change or obscure the reality of the fact of economic inequality, which is expressed in the difference of income, living standards, the existence of the rich and the poor. If a certain picture depicting a tree has the caption "Fish", then only a psychologically abnormal person can claim that this is the picture "Fish." Unfortunately, there are quite a few such "abnormal" judgments in the social sciences. Researchers still have not fully realized that there is a big difference between signage and reality, words and people's behavior. And if the constitution says that “all people are equal,” then they tend to think that this is the case in reality. For the same reasons, many continue to believe that periods of revolution were periods of progress. A few centuries before all these “thinkers”, P. Beyle wrote: “People’s judgments are not a guide to action, and people most often do not follow them.” According to this interpretational model, a Christian is only one who will substitute the left cheek when he is struck on the right. There are an infinite number of examples, as between the actions of people and words there are significant contradictions. And this is perhaps one of the reasons why in describing social phenomena one should not rely on “labels”, signs, words. The second reason is that this contradiction is extremely common. Thirdly, in most cases, people's speech reactions are “only a part of the more significant reactions”. In this sense, attaching exceptional importance to words and signs means doing something non-scientific, although many people do. If within a group there are hierarchically different ranks in the sense of authority and prestige, knowledge and honor, if there are governors and governors, then regardless of the terms (monarchies, bureaucrats, owners, bosses), this means that such a group is politically differentiated, whatever it may proclaim in its constitution or declaration. If members of a society are divided into different groups according to the nature of their activities, occupations, and some professions are considered more prestigious compared to others, and if members of a particular professional group are divided into leaders of various ranks and subordinates, then such a group professionally differentiated regardless of whether the chiefs are elected or appointed, whether they inherit their leadership positions by inheritance or by virtue of their personal qualities.

The theory of social stratification is one of the most developed parts of a sociological theory. The foundations of the modern approach to the study of social stratification were laid by M. Weber and developed by T. Parsons, E. Schizl, B. Barber, C. Davis, and W. Moore. Summarizing the diverse aspects of the theory of stratification, we can distinguish its basic principles:

1) to study all social groups of society without exception, whether they are large or small, stable or unstable, playing major or minor roles in the social process;

2) measure and compare groups using the same criteria. If one or the other is taken, then it applies to all groups without exception;

3) these criteria should be no less than is required for a fairly complete description of each layer.

The social structure of a real society always acts as a certain stratification system, due to the difference in social roles and positions that objectively arise in the course of evolution. This system is determined by the division of labor and the system of values ​​and cultural standards existing in a given society.

In the theory of social stratification there is an ordered set of features (criteria), which, naturally, cannot be reduced to their sum, without taking into account the social significance of each of them. These include: form of ownership, income, profession, amount of power, prestige (authority), position in society, national characteristics, education, type of culture, etc. None of the above (and unnamed) features can be absolutized, its role is changing.

Stratification appears to us as:

1) feature system;

2) the social structure of the existing society;

3) movement of groups along the "vertical" and "horizontal" (social mobility).

Arranging the elements horizontally gives us a variety of criteria - national, professional, educational, cultural, vertical - attitude to property, income level, prestige. Stratification also acts as a method for isolating the corresponding layers, and as a “portrait” of the society itself. In this sense, stratification is a natural feature of the social organism.

Thus, stratification is a process and a state. Moreover, individuals, families are in unequal relations to each other and are grouped (or subdivided) into hierarchically located strata in accordance with their property, power, profession, culture, prestige. Stratification reflects not just the different position of people, groups, strata in society, but their unequal status. Such “dissimilarity” of the position of groups, different in this regard, their public assessment and constitute the essence of stratification. Stratification is a system in which categories of people in a society are in a certain hierarchy, representing social inequality.

Specific incarnations of social stratification are numerous. However, all their diversity can be reduced to three main forms: economic, political and professional stratification. As a rule, they are all closely intertwined. Representatives of the highest economic strata often simultaneously belong to the highest political and professional strata. The poor are also usually deprived of civil rights and are located in the lower strata of the professional hierarchy. This is the general rule, although there are quite a few exceptions. So, for example, the richest are not always at the top of the political or professional pyramid, nor are the poor in all cases the lowest places in the political or professional hierarchy. And this means that the interdependence of the three forms of social stratification is far from perfect, because the different layers of each of the forms do not completely coincide with each other. Rather, they coincide with each other, but only partially, i.e. to a certain extent.

Any organized social group is always socially stratified. Not a single permanent social group existed and does not exist that is flat and in which all its members are equal. Societies without stratification, with real equality of their members, is a myth that has never become a reality in the history of mankind. This statement may seem somewhat paradoxical, and yet it is true. The forms and proportions of stratification may differ, but its essence is constant, if we talk about more or less permanent and organized social groups. This is true not only for human society, but even for the plant and animal worlds. We give the main arguments.

Flora and fauna. If you can use the concepts of humanitarian sociology when considering the world of animals and plants, then here we will discover the existence of social stratification. Thus, in the plant world there are various “social” classes, phenomena of parasitism and exploitation, domination and suppression, different levels of life in an “economic” sense (by the amount of absorbed air, light, moisture, by soil fertility). Of course, all this can only be roughly identified with the phenomenon of social stratification in human society. And, nevertheless, such phenomena clearly indicate that the plant "community" is not a community of absolutely "equal", with the same position and the same relationships within it.

With even more justification, the same can be said about the animal world, where social stratification finds expression:

a) in the existence of different, strictly demarcated "classes" of bees, ants and other insects;

b) in known facts of parasitism, exploitation, domination, subordination, etc. In short, in the animal world there are no communities where there would be no stratification.

Human tribes before the creation of writing. With the exception, perhaps, of individual cases, when there is still no permanent social way of life and social interaction, one can speak of social inequality, and this is very conditional. As soon as the beginnings of social organization appear, then immediately in primitive social groups, the features of a stratification arise. It is expressed in various forms. First, in the division into groups by sex and age with different privileges and duties of each group. Secondly, in the presence of a privileged and influential group of tribal leaders. Third, in the presence of the most influential and respected leader. Fourthly, in the existence of the outcast, living "outside the law." Fifth, in the existence of a division of labor both within the tribe and between the tribes. Sixth, in the difference in the standard of living, and through it - in the presence of economic inequality in general. Traditional ideas about primitive groups as a kind of communist societies that did not have private property and were not engaged in commerce, who did not know any economic inequality or transfer inherited, is such an idea far from the truth. “Primitive economy is not the management of individual individuals engaged in the search for means of subsistence,” believes C. Blucher, “and not the economy of communism, or collective production. In fact, it is an economic group consisting of interdependent and economically active individuals, as well as of smaller subgroups that have established trade and barter trade with each other. ” And if in many tribes the economic differentiation is barely noticeable, and the custom of mutual assistance is close to communist, then this is possible only because of the general poverty of this group. These facts indicate that primitive groups were also stratified.

Developed societies and groups. If even in primitive communal antiquity it is impossible to find a society without stratification, then it is all the more useless to attempt to find it in later epochs of developed and complex civilizations. Here the facts of stratification are becoming universal, without a single exception. Its forms and proportions differ, but the stratification existed everywhere and at all times. In all agrarian and, in particular, industrial societies, social stratification becomes clear and noticeable. Do not make exceptions to the rule and all modern democracies. Although it is written in their constitutions that “all people are equal,” only a completely naive person can assume that they have no social stratification. And in thriving democracies, social stratification is no less developed than in non-democratic societies.

There is no need to confirm these obvious facts. What should be emphasized here is the fact that not only large social aggregates, but any organized group, as soon as it is organized, inevitably differentiates itself to a certain extent.

Graduations, hierarchies, resplendent leaders, social aspirations — all of this appears spontaneously once people get together, whether for entertainment, for mutual help, for voluntary actions or for the sake of a larger union — the state.

Family, sect, church, political party, faction, business organization, gang of robbers, trade union, scientific society - in short, any organized social group is stratified because of its constancy and organization. Even groups of zealous equalizers and the constant failure of all their attempts to create a non-stratified group indicate the inevitability of stratification of any organized group. This remark may seem somewhat strange to many people who, under the influence of high-pair phraseology, may believe that at least the societies of the equalizers themselves are not stratified. This opinion, like many similar ones, is erroneous. Attempts to destroy social feudalism were successful in terms of mitigating some of the differences and changes in specific forms of stratification. However, they never managed to destroy the stratification itself. The regularity with which all these attempts failed, once again proves the natural character of stratification. Christianity began its history with an attempt to create a society of equals, but very soon it had a complex hierarchy, and at the end of its way built a huge pyramid with numerous ranks and titles, beginning with the almighty pope and ending with a heretic. The Institute of Monasticism was organized by sv. Francis of Assisi on the principles of absolute equality; seven years have passed, and equality has evaporated. Without exception, all attempts of the most zealous equalizers in the history of mankind had the same fate. The failure of Russian communism is another additional example in a long series of similar experiments carried out on a larger or smaller scale, sometimes peacefully, as in many religious sects, and sometimes violently, as in social revolutions of the past and present. And if for some instant some forms of stratification are destroyed, they reappear in the old or modified form and are often created by the hands of the equalizers themselves.

Democracies, socialist, communist, syndicalist and other organizations with their slogan of “equality” are no exception to the rule. With respect to democracies, this was shown above. The internal organization of various socialist and related groups claiming “equality” shows that perhaps no other organization creates such a cumbersome hierarchy and “bossism” that exist in these groups. “Socialist leaders treat the masses as a passive tool in their hands, as a series of zeros, intended only to increase the value of the figure on the left,” writes E. Furnier. If there is some exaggeration in this statement, it is insignificant. At least, the best and most competent researchers are unanimous in their conclusions about the enormous development of oligarchy and stratification within all such groups.

The enormous potential striving for inequality in many equalizers becomes immediately noticeable as soon as they reach power. In such cases, they often demonstrate greater cruelty and contempt for the masses than former kings and rulers. This was repeated regularly during the victorious revolutions, when the equalizers became dictators. The classical description of such situations by Plato and Aristotle, made on the basis of social upheavals in ancient Greece, can be literally applied to all historical incidents, including the experience of the Bolsheviks.

Social stratification is a constant characteristic of any organized society. Changing in form, social stratification existed in all societies proclaiming the equality of people. Feudalism and oligarchy continue to exist in science and art, politics and management, a gang of criminals and equalizer democracies - in short, everywhere.

In stratification, a special and significant place is occupied by classes. Max Weber considered class problems to be extremely important for the development of social stratification. He recognized the Marxist division into classes, but considered it narrow, not reflecting the complexity and depth of social differentiation of society. Sociology explores the real classes of specific societies, analyzes class movements and class struggle. Studying the problems of labor organization cannot do without class analysis of this process.

The question of the place and role of classes in the social revolution, their role in the organization of work and life, politics, culture, work and leisure activities remains of fundamental importance. Class theory and the associated analysis of social class relations, conflicts, compromises is an important developed part of world sociology. A significant contribution to the study of classes and class relations was also introduced by Marxism.

The class is an important unit of social structure, as it acts as a stable carrier of economic, political, and ideological relations. Class formation is a complex historical process, the result of social stratification. The immediate cause of the emergence of classes is the crowding out of private property of communal and clan collective property, the alienation of the product of labor, exploitation. The result is a different attitude to the means of production. It should be noted that this process coincided with the formation of a family.

K. Marx stated that the existence of classes is associated with certain historical phases in the development of production. So, this is a “normal” phenomenon of society, based on civilization. But the development of classes leads to increased differences and contradictions. The exclusion mechanism begins to work. The future in the foreseeable future is still impossible to think without classes, without alienation, without dialectical position and the resolution of contradictions in society.

To analyze modern society, one can use both the social class and stratification approach. Sociological studies indicate that while the alienation of workers from the disposal of property remains, the differences between organizational and executive functions in the workplace are deepening. Finally, a special social group has been formed and is developing - bureaucracy, which requires a special sociological analysis. What today is called command-administrative system, in essence, means the absolute power of the bureaucracy. Of course, a significant part of managers and bureaucrats conscientiously perform their professional duties related to management. The presence of the management layer is normal. When the producer is removed from ownership, the bureaucracy discovers traitspeculiar to a special social group, gaining full power. The representative of such a group belongs to the control system of any rank. In the process of his activity mercenary egoistic and group motives are formed. In form, it is aimed at organizing the economy, but in content it is increasingly contrary to social goals. Having developed, this system actively and consciously uses the privileges created by it (drawn up by law or unformed, anyway), due to its position in the structure of social production.this system actively and consciously uses the privileges created by it (issued by law or unformed, anyway), due to its position in the structure of social production.this system actively and consciously uses the privileges created by it (issued by law or unformed, anyway), due to its position in the structure of social production.

You can, for example, highlight the essential features of a bureaucrat who is in the public service, detrimental to the cause and belonging to a special social group - the bureaucracy. The bureaucrat, paradoxically, deliberately reduces the effectiveness of the organization for personal gain, using its membership in the governing system. After all, it is his personal interest — job privileges that allow him to receive the maximum of the social product with a minimum voltage.

In the period of the formation and development of capitalism, the bureaucracy was a social group that served the interests of the ruling classes, not forgetting its own. In our society, the bureaucracy “serves”, above all, itself. Bureaucratism is characterized by a special social function, more precisely, dysfunction, lifestyle associated with the reproduction of the disorganization regime of the social system, a kind of "reorganization" to satisfy vested interests. The social danger of such a group is not so much in its size as in the possession of real power, in manipulating the distribution of material and spiritual benefits.

It is obvious that the bureaucracy is a special social group ("caste", "clan", "layer"), actively opposing the renewal of society. It has tremendous destructive power. Whether the bureaucracy is a class or not is still to be understood, but the fact that it is the carrier of a number of class-forming features is undoubted. Since she has her own place in distribution relations, she disposes of the means of production, plays a special role in the social organization (more precisely, disorganization) of labor. It receives public goods not for labor, but for the position, for belonging to the governing system. Bureaucracy is also a form of organization of modern society, its management structures. It is characterized by a strict regulation of relations between social institutions, groups and people, a strict hierarchy of power, impersonal administrative activities,the existence of a privileged layer of employees exercising power and domination in the organization.

Social societies require special attention, whose members live as if in two or more worlds at the same time, not belonging to any of them. This state of sociology is called “marginality”, and groups and their members — marginal groups and marginal personalities. The main prerequisite of marginality is “loneliness”, the loss of connections with other communities or individual subjects. This borderline, intermediate state in relation to social communities (national, class, professional, cultural) forms typological groups with their own characteristics that can be realized from within.

Например, человек переехал из села в город в поисках работы, нашел ее, но разорвал естественные связи со своей прежней бытовой и профессиональной средой (утрата «малой родины»), оказался в промежуточном положении, которое долго и мучительно им переживается. Он может объективно остаться в прежнем социальном пространстве, но потерять субъективные признаки, свойственные его общности. Явление маргинальности противоречиво. С одной стороны, это разрушение социальности, деградация, депрофессионализм, дезорганизованность. Но всякое движение по пути формирования новых общественных структур, общностей тоже связано с маргинальностью. Значит, с другой стороны, это механизм и одно из слагаемых прогресса общества.

It should be emphasized that marginal groups acquire a state of stability, group stability, form a moral specific code, a particular lifestyle. This is not a progressive trend. The margin, compensating for its intermediate position, is able to wear a mask and take on the appearance of a representative of a particular nation, culture or religion. Not having their own values ​​of life and culture, marginalized people imitate someone else’s way of life, usually distorting it, because, in essence, they do not possess its inner potential. Being in society, they are actually outside of it, outside of social connections and processes. In marginal groups, this is expressed in a state of feeling lost, pretentiousness, despair, and cynicism.

Marginal structures are inherent in our society. This is a social disaster. Marginality is a product of the social revolution that continued throughout the entire period of “socialist construction”. It is known that the Stalinist totalitarian regime was relatively dynamic. Horizontal and vertical movements of huge masses of people led to the marginalization of the lives of many social groups. Suffice it to call the "barrack subculture." The hope of a “bright future,” which brought people together and preserved their spiritual health for the time being, turned into a collapse of expectations, a state of marginality.

Marginalization in our country has been feeding migration processes for decades. People move according to the scheme: village - small town - big city. Almost 3/4 of the country's citizens over the age of 30 years live and work not where they were born. Such movements, of course, generate significant staff turnover (in industry and construction it is at least 1/5). To this is added the so-called “pendulum migration” (from the village to the city and back), which generates both “transport fatigue” and the impossibility of leisure life.

В ряде социальных общностей, имеющих прямое отношение к непосредственному производству, сформировалась уродливая структура сословных групп – «вахтовиков», «лимитчиков», «стройбатовцев», «шабашников», «бомжей», испытывающих на себе внеэкономическое принуждение, что ставит под угрозу воспроизводство на собственной основе профессиональных групп, а главное – разобщает людей.

The propiska system, which still exists today, is another source of marginality, because a person loses the status of a private individual - a citizen, personality, and individuality. Urbanization, among other things, breeds burghers with a low level of culture. And as a result - atrophy of spiritual, creative aspirations. Another source of marginality is the spread of unqualified performing intellectual work, which, as a rule, are employed by women. Marginalization is also found when referring to people with disabilities and pensioners who are near or below the poverty line, who are disadvantaged and poorly protected socially.

Many problems are caused by the weakening of family ties. In our country, this is a blow, first of all, to the youth. Her reaction to family deprivation is not only cruelty and aggressiveness, but also increasing indifference and infantilism. These are signs of marginalization. Society must find measures of social protection for young people.

Как возникло социальное неравенство? Это один из ключевых вопросов социального познания. Он остается проблемным и для социологии, анализирующей перманентный процесс стратификации, возникновение и умирание тех или иных групп. Классический ответ на этот вопрос связан с выделением решающей роли средств производства, с разделением труда, обменом, товарным производством, возникновением частной собственности, имущественного неравенства и возможностью присвоения чужого труда, с появлением семьи, с насилием и обманом. Эта концепция «схватывает» основные механизмы возникновения социального неравенства классов, но не исчерпывает всей сложности и многогранности процесса. Не учитываются стремления людей к «общественному договору», к разделению функций, их индивидуальные особенности, профессиональные ориентации.

Supporters of the functional theory that emerged in the 40s of the XX century (T. Parsons, R. Merton, K. Davis, U. Moore), see the reason for stratification in the division of functions in society. This is a whole hierarchy of functions - major and non-major, important and minor, significant and insignificant, of any kind, but included in a single life process. Their implementation affects not only the interests of people, but is experienced by them, because the performance of functions can be pleasant and unpleasant, light and heavy, interesting and uninteresting.

But after all, individuals themselves are an infinite variety of talents and stupidity, hard work and laziness, health and disease, education and ignorance. And this is not only personal problems, but also public concern - how to “accommodate” individuals, so that the most capable perform the most important and complex functions and at the same time be as competent as possible. The society unconsciously, to some extent spontaneously forms such a selection mechanism, which is not always determined by the form of ownership and the power in place. Here too, the mechanism of inequality works, but of a different kind, since it relates to the personal qualities of people and to the evaluation of their achievements. The American sociologist M. Tümen believes, not without reason, that this selection "in all societies known to us, past and present, is made depending on the provisions whose holders receive different amounts of goods and services according to how the importance of their position is assessed."

experiment with Didier Desor's rats

Role distribution in society is practiced not only by people, but also by rats. Once in a closed system, exploiters and exploited, as well as independent "comrades" appear among rats.

Didier Dezor , a researcher at the Biological Behavioral Laboratory of the University of Nancy (France), conducted a study of rat behavior, which showed results that are interesting to psychologists. In order to study the swimming ability of rats, he placed six animals in one cage. The only exit from the cage led to the pool, which had to be crossed in order to get to the feeder with food.

During the experiment, it turned out that the rats did not swim together in search of food . Everything happened as if they had distributed social roles among themselves: there were two exploiters who never swam at all, two exploited swimmers, one independent swimmer and one non-floating scapegoat.

The process of food consumption was as follows. Two exploited rats dived into the water for food. Upon returning to the cage, the two exploiters beat them until they gave their food. Only when the exploiters were saturated did the exploited have the right to eat leftover food.

Exploiting rats themselves never swam. To get enough of their fill, they limited themselves to constantly thrashing swimmers. Autonomous (independent) was a fairly strong swimmer to get food himself and, without giving it to the exploiters, to eat it himself. Finally, the scapegoat, which everyone beat, was afraid to swim and could not frighten the exploiters, so he ate the crumbs left after the rest of the rats.

The same division — two exploiters, two exploited, one autonomous, one scapegoat — reappeared in twenty cells where the experiment was repeated.

To better understand the mechanism of the rat hierarchy, Didier Desor put six exploiters together. Rats fought all night. The next morning the same social roles were distributed: autonomy, two exploiters, two exploited, a scapegoat.

The researcher obtained the same result, alternately placing six exploited rats in one cage, then six autonomies and six scapegoats.

As a result, it became clear: no matter what the previous social status of individuals, they always, in the end, distribute new social roles among themselves.

Researchers at Nancy University continued the experiment by examining the brains of experimental rats. They came to the conclusion, which was unexpected at first glance, that scapegoats or exploited rats experienced the greatest stress, but quite the opposite — rats — exploiters.

Undoubtedly, the exploiters were very afraid of losing their status as privileged individuals in the rat herd and really did not want to be forced to work themselves once.