Class Stratification

This essay will examine class stratification in the social order and whether or not it is a necessary facet in modern society. In a historical context perhaps it was needed. Were it not for stratification the world may be a very different place to what society now perceives it to be. Class is examined and re-examined over and over again by social theorists such as Marx and Weber for example. It is a subject from which many different theorists have garnered many different opinions. The division of society by creating a clear hierarchy such as lower, middle and higher classes has been the source of much consternation over time. The lower classes, or “useful classes’’ are the work horses of society and the higher, or “privileged classes’’ in society are by that rationale the “useless’’, enjoying the fruits of the lower class’ labour. Williams tell us that “In a widely-read translation of Volney’s The Ruins, or A Survey of the Revolutions of Empires(2 parts,1975) there was a dialogue between those who by ‘useful labours contribute to the support and maintenance of society’(the majority of the people, ‘labourers, artisans, tradesmen and every profession useful to society’, hence called People) and a Privileged class(‘priests, courtiers, public accountants, commanders of troops, in short, the civil, military or religious agents of government’). This is a description in French terms of the people against an aristocratic government.”
Buckley defines stratification as a system of unequally privileged groups, membership in which is determined by the intergenerational transmission of roles, or of opportunities to attain them, through kinship affiliation. What this means essentially is that you inherit your place in society. Class as a word has existed for centuries according to Raymond Williams, “superseded older names for social division’’. In a society such as today’s that people would hope strives for equal rights and opportunities for all, the question of social

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