Social Stratification (Ch. 9)

• Social stratification
• Slavery
• Indentured service
• Caste system
• Endogamy
• Apartheid
• Estate stratification system
• Class system
• Social mobility
• Bourgeoisie
• Proletariat
Vocabulary
• Class consciousness
• False consciousness
• Meritocracy
• World system theory
• Neo-colonialism

Systems of Social Stratification

Slavery

Slavery
• Ownership of some people by others
– Been around for an extremely long time
• Exodus 13:13 (The Message)
– “Redeem every firstborn child among your sons.
When the time comes and your son asks you,
‘What does this mean?’, you tell him, ‘God brought us out of Egypt, out of a house of slavery, with a powerful hand…”

Slavery
• “As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free.
Psychological freedom, a firm sense of selfesteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery…” –
Martin Luther King

Ancient Romans

Ancient Greeks

African Tribes

Americans?

Causes of slavery
• Debt
– Creditors enslaved people who couldn’t pay back their debts
• Crime
– Murderer was enslaved by the victim’s family for their sentence
• War/Conquest
– Conquered peoples became slaves after war

Conditions of slavery
• Sometimes, slavery was a temporary status
– Slaves of the Israelites were set free in the jubilee years (occurred every 50 yrs.)
– Roman slaves had the right to buy themselves out of slavery
• Slavery was not always inheritable
– Child of a slave in a rich family may end up adopted by the family, later end up an heir to the family inheritance

Conditions of slavery
• Slaves were not necessarily powerless and poor
– Could accumulate property and rise to high positions in society
– Could even become wealthy enough to own slaves while still being a slave

Evolution of Slavery in the New World
• While most of the Caribbean had bonded slavery, the first type of slavery in the American colonies was known as indentured servitude
• Poor people wanted to start a new life away from
England, and thus, were paid to work on tobacco farms in Virginia
– Most contract lengths were 5 years
– Survival rate was less than 40% initially

Evolution of Slavery in the New World
• If you did survive through the end of the contract, you were given a plot of land to start your own farm
– Became future competitors of landowners
• Eventually, there was higher demand for workers
– Tried Native Americans, didn’t work too well
– Africans became the prized slave, typically brought to the American colonies by the Dutch,
English, Portuguese and Spanish

Evolution of Slavery in the New World
• Most historians believe slavery led to the racism of
African-Americans during the U.S. history from
1606-1960s
• American slaveowners developed an ideology
– Slaves were inferior
– Slaves were not fully human
– Africans were the best type of slaves to own

Evolution of Slavery in the New World
• Slave states in U.S. made slavery inheritable
– Children could be sold, bartered, traded
– Illegal for slaves to hold meetings or leave his/her master’s property w/o a pass
• U.S. in the mid-1900s
– MS: Illegal for a white person and black person sit in the same seat of a car

Slavery Today
• Several African countries still practice slavery today
– 1980: Mauritania abolished slavery
– 1987: Sudan abolished slavery
• Other forms of slavery are often sexual in nature
– Slavery in China

Caste

Caste System
• Status is determined by birth and is lifelong
– Low-status birth = low-status label for life
– For the most part, you can’t get out of the status you’re born into
• Many societies practice different forms of a caste system
– Endogamy is the most common
• Marrying w/i one’s group

Caste System – India
• Existed for almost 3,000 years
• Based on Hindu religion
• 4 main castes
– Each castes are subdivided into 2,000 sub-castes
(jati)
– Each jati has an occupational specialty
• Washing clothes
• Sharpening knives
• Repairing shoes

Caste System – India
Caste Occupation
Priests, teachers Brahman
Kshatriya Rulers and soldiers
Vaishya Merchants and traders
Shudra Peasants and laborers
Dalit  “The Untouchables” Outcastes; degrading or polluting labor

Caste System – South Africa
• SA originally est. by the Dutch in 1652
– Minority group of white, native-born South
Africans called “Afrikaaners” est. apartheid  legal separation of races
Racial Group
Europeans
Africans
Coloureds
Asians
Classification
Whites
Blacks
Mixed
Asians

Caste System – South Africa
• Classifications determined:
– Where people could live
– Where people could work
– Where could people go to school
• By law, whites were not allowed to mix socially w/other groups
• Apartheid as a legal system does not exist anymore, but SA still struggles w/a transition to nonapartheid system b/c of how long SA was under apartheid

Caste System – U.S.
• 1865 – Slavery abolished in the U.S.
• 1866-1960s – Racial caste system est. in the U.S.
– Whites were always considered to have a higher status than African-Americans
– Upper class feared “pollution” from the lower class
– Prohibited intermarriage
– Demanded separate-but-equal facilities

Estate System
• Est. in Medieval Europe
Estate
First Estate
Second Estate
Third Estate
Occupations
Nobility – families ruled the country
Clergy – Catholic Church was a major power during this time
Commoners – Serfs; worked the land for the 1 st & 2 nd estates

Estate System
• Nobility practiced primogeniture  only 1 st -born sons are allowed to inherit the land
– Other sons had to find other ways to support themselves
• Joining the clergy, military, or becoming a lawyer was popular

Determination of Social Class

Karl Marx
• Feudal system broke down  people moved to the city
• Moved to the city  people worked in low paying jobs for factory owners
• Owners of production  bourgeoisie
• Workers of production  proletariat
• People in different class develop class consciousness
– Shared identity based on your position in life

Max Weber
• Social class is made up of:
(1) Property
– Includes those that control the means of production, but not necessarily own them
(2) Prestige
– Not just based on property; could be ownership of other things
(3) Power
– Ability to control others