What is social classification?
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Answer:
Social class, also called class, a group of people within a society who possess the same socioeconomic status. Besides being important in social theory, the concept of class as a collection of individuals sharing similar economic circumstances has been widely used in censuses and in studies of social mobility.
Thomas Hobbes
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Key People: Kublai Khan Vilfredo Pareto Robert E. Park W. Lloyd Warner C. Wright Mills
Related Topics: Class consciousness Elites Aristocracy Vassal Samurai
History and usage of the term
The term class first came into wide use in the early 19th century, replacing such terms as rank and order as descriptions of the major hierarchical groupings in society. This usage reflected changes in the structure of western European societies after the industrial and political revolutions of the late 18th century. Feudal distinctions of rank were declining in importance, and the new social groups that were developing—the commercial and industrial capitalists and the urban working class in the new factories—were defined mainly in economic terms, either by the ownership of capital or, conversely, by dependence on wages. Although the term class has been applied to social groups in a wide range of societies, including ancient city-states, early empires, and caste or feudal societies, it is most usefully confined to the social divisions in modern societies, particularly industrialized ones. Social classes must be distinguished from status groups; the former are based primarily upon economic interests, while the latter are constituted by evaluations of the honour or prestige of an occupation, cultural position, or family descent.
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Early theories of class
Theories of social class were fully elaborated only in the 19th century as the modern social sciences, especially sociology, developed. Political philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau discussed the issues of social inequality and stratification, and French and English writers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries put forth the idea that the nonpolitical elements in society, such as the economic system and the family, largely determined a society’s form of political life. This idea was taken farther by the French social theorist Henri de Saint-Simon, who argued that a state’s form of government corresponded to the character of the underlying system of economic production. Saint-Simon’s successors introduced the theory of the proletariat, or urban working class, as a major political force in modern society, directly influencing the development of Karl Marx’s theory of class, which has dominated later discussion of the topic.
John Locke
John Locke.
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Henri de Saint-Simon
Henri de Saint-Simon, lithograph by L. Deymaru, 19th century.
BBC Hulton Picture Library
Karl Marx’s social theory of class
For Marx, what distinguishes one type of society from another is its mode of production (i.e., the nature of its technology and division of labour), and each mode of production engenders a distinctive class system in which one class controls and directs the process of production while another class is, or other classes are, the direct producers and providers of services to the dominant class. The relations between the classes are antagonistic because they are in conflict over the appropriation of what is produced, and in certain periods, when the mode of production itself is changing as a result of developments in technology and in the utilization of labour, such conflicts become extreme and a new class challenges the dominance of the existing rulers of society. The dominant class, according to Marx, controls not only material production but also the production of ideas; it thus establishes a particular cultural style and a dominant political doctrine, and its control over society is consolidated in a particular type of political system. Rising classes that gain strength and influence as a result of changes in the mode of production generate political doctrines and movements in opposition to the ruling class.
Answer:
Social class, also called class, a group of people within a society who possess the same socioeconomic status. Besides being important in social theory, the concept of class as a collection of individuals sharing similar economic circumstances has been widely used in censuses and in studies of social mobility.
Explanation:
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