Social Class System is Alive and Well - Essay Example

Social System is Alive and Well” Introduction Social scientists are deeply at odds regarding what makes people belong to one group or other. However, they all converge at the point that society comprises several layers or segments namely lower class, middle class, and upper class people. In order to describe how society works, sociologists and anthropologists have come up with different theories; and they term this phenomenon of segmentation as ‘social stratification. Many of the Western countries including UK and United States have been making inadequate attempts to rub away the social class problems for several decades. This paper in particular tends to argue that despite the pledge of political leaders, social class system is still alive and well at every point of societal concerns in the developed nations like UK and US. Social Class Theories Marxism Among the various social class theories Marxism is the most prominent one which contributed to the communist outburst in the nineteenth century. Karl Marx, the German sociologist through his social class theory defined the capitalist society into two major classes; bourgeoisie and proletariat. Bourgeoisie refers to the owners of the means of production whereas proletariat refers to the labor class. According to him, a fair society would come true only if everyone has the ownership on factories, public services, and means of production, which could be utilized for the common good. This is the basis of other political philosophies like communism and socialism. Marxism got multiple responses from all over the world and altered the political facet of many economies by making global divisions such as capitalist and communist camps. The relevance of the theory is still a matter of political debate and the so called equality is a utopian idea to capitalists. They believe that social equality cannot be attained through class struggle, and moreover the state ownership or limited access to private property would lessen employees’ creativity. Class is natural as well as inevitable feature of a society which would gradually emerge in every civilization despite all forced strategies. Therefore, a genuine attempt to bring forth equality should focus on healthy interaction, tolerance, and mutual understanding between the classes. Weberianism Although Max Webber also found two classes; owners and workers, he disagreed with Karl Marx’s concept to certain extents. According to him, class is determined by one’s occupation rather than the ownership of the means of production. He argued that an unskilled laborer who is engaged in menial jobs would belong to lower class whereas a laborer with better architectural abilities would belong to a higher class. Therefore, working class as a whole cannot be considered as one class. This theory seems to be more relevant to the present conditions in the UK. The following part of the paper will evaluate the class system in British society based on the occupational position of the population. Functionalism Functionalists maintain comparatively a moderate view on the existing class system. According to this view an individual’s class is determined not only by the ownership or occupation but also by many other factors like how people look at one’s family background, education, social position, and many more. From the point of functionalist view, a hierarchical structure with varying labour, power, and value is natural and inevitable for the smooth functioning of the society. According to Tonkiss (2003, p.92), the conventional thought of class division has been challenged by the emergence of feminisation of the workforce by the mid of the twentieth century because women according to new perspectives constitute a different class. Social class system in UK (Source: businessballs.com) The illustration given above is based on the information of National Readership Survey, January- December 2006. It has divided the society into six classes according to the occupational standards of the people. A total number of 48,186 people were surveyed for the study, among which 23,378 were men and 24,808 were women. Social Grade A points upper middle class with higher managerial, administrative, or professional qualities. This group is the t richest and minority class of the society which constitutes only 4% of surveyed sample. Social grade B represents middle class people with intermediate managerial, administrative or professional qualities. The men of this class contribute 23.1% to the total population while the women contribute only 20.8%. In the case of social class C1, it includes lower middle class people who mainly engage in supervisory or clerical activities. This class is the majority of the society with 27.4% men and 30.6% women of total population; but it possesses only a small difference in number with that of social grade B. Social grade C2 is another important social class which contains skilled manual workers and constitutes 20.7% of the society with 23.1% men and 18.4% women. The other two classes, social grade D and social grade E are the poorest divisions of the society. Social grade D stands for semi and unskilled manual workers with 16.2% dominance in the society having 15.9% men and 16.6% women. Under social grade E, people are too poor as compared to the people of social grade D. State pensioners, widows, and casual or lowest grade workers are the members of social grade E. They constitute 6.1% of the surveyed sample in which 6.1% men and 10% women include. From the surveyed data, it is clear that social grade B, C1 and C2 dominate the UK population with an average contribution of 71.6% people. Even though laws are enforced in order to abolish social class discriminations, class based systems still exist in UK. People who reinstate the prevalence of the class system in UK point out several evidences from daily life. One comment goes like this; ‘working-class people eat chips whereas upper-class people only eat roast potatoes’ (Steele, 2010). The critics often take education field as their major focus to prove the dominance of class system in UK. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, in 2007 there were 2.9 million children in UK who suffered from poverty; and such adverse conditions could be attributed to the current social class division. The report also argues that the admittance in the UK private schools is partially based on the pupil’s ability to pay tuition fees (ibid). Although UK has under gone many structural changes subsequent to the prohibition of class system, the strategies could hardly remove the evils of social class segmentation. Recent reports on class system Many of the recent reports indicate the working class people’s limited access to better education and good social connections. As The Telegraph (2009) reports, ‘despite the rise in living standard and a record number of working class people going to universities’, Britain’s class system is still alive and well; for instance, among the working class only 13% of people go to universities whereas, from the middle class 44% have the access to university education (Gammell, 2009). Although the recent improvements in social mobility and job flexibility have been considered as the indication of an emerging classless society, according to Dr. Atkinson, parents with limited income have still little chance to ensure better education and better profession for their children (ibid). As an ongoing symptom of class system, the poor always tends to pay more on every basic requirement as compared to middle class or upper class. Social class in the United States United States is one of the nations with the most complex social structure for its highly multicultural feature and ethnic diversity. Unlike UK, in the United States social class is a more emotional and highly controversial subject with which one can easily annoy other individuals. Income standard and ethnicity are the two major factors that determine the social class in the United States. The recent economic recession has deepened the gap between the upper class and the poor class people in the country. As Devine (1997 p.118) points out, since the post-war there has been a growing trend toward income inequality; and more specifically, over the 1980s and 1990s income is highly ‘skewed and has become more unequal’. For instance according to the census data, between 1980 and 1988 the share of income of the upper 20 percent of Americans increased from 41.6% to 44.0% whereas the income of the lower class was 60% stagnated (ibid). Factors leading to social class system As mentioned earlier, the range of economic feasibility is the major element that determines one’s social class such as upper class, middle class and lower class. The history of Britain’s class system traces back to hundreds of years. The lower class mainly comprises manual working laborers who have been observed from a narrow angle of social view. The upper class and lower class division is visible even in the field of sports. As Carnell et al (2002, p.251) point out, the upper class mainly engages in hunting for entertainment whereas mob football is the main sports item of the lower class; similarly, the upper class represents managerial and administrative professionals who possess higher education. Therefore, according to the writers, the lower class has an inferiority complex and hence they categorize themselves as working class. The third category, middle class emerged as a result of industrial revolution and formed a three tier social structure (ibid). Another notable factor that intensified the class system in the UK is the education system. Even in earlier days, the students could join private schools only on the basis of their ability to pay tuition fees. Hence, people are brought up with a sense of social class system as they are well acquainted with this economic standard discrimination from primary class levels. As the other side of the coin, the upper class people achieve higher positions in the society using the power of money and traditional nobility as their explicit strategic tools. The lower class is willing to work at lower costs since they have no other options to meet their livelihood. Anyway, the financial position is the main factor which promotes the existence of socio economic class divisions in both countries. Language also is an important factor which determines the level of one’s social standard in the society. According to Nwenmely (1996 p.4), the manual working people may not have ‘acceptable’ pronunciation and grammar; and thus they belong to lower class of the society. The case is same with foreign migrants like Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, or the black migrants from African region. Since lower class people are disadvantaged of a better level of education; it would always impede their efforts to attain better social standards. Since they have comparatively smaller degree of education, they cannot work in professional fields other than relying on the traditional manual works. Generally, working class people live together in rural areas and form their own unique community. This geographical concentration in rural places often becomes a challenge in their developmental process. Although governments give them assistance to vie with middle and upper class people, their indifferent attitude is said to be the major constraint to their improvement in social status. On the other hand, one would go sceptical of the moral perspectives of the whole British society for its concealed love of social class system. Perhaps, most significantly the class based politics also intensifies the emotion of social class among the people of UK. Class system Vs racial discrimination Although racism still exists in UK, to what extent it raises opportunity constraints is a matter of debate. Obviously the last decade has witnessed positive alteration with regard to racial discrimination; and the chance of getting ignored just for being Black is notably reduced. However, some are of the opinion that discrimination has been shifted from ethnicity to class and identity. According to UK Communities Secretary John Denham, racism as a social constraint is of little relevance to the policy makers and public services as compared to factors linked to poverty, class, and identity (Are Ethnic Minorities still disadvantaged?, BBC, 2010). It does not meat racism is now under control but the growing intensity of class system in UK. Although the debate over class is divided into Labor and Conservative camps with considerable conceptual variance, all agree that class system remains to be the most vital socio-economic issue to be addressed. As Denham states, “if the cause of disadvantage is social class we will promote opportunity. And if the cause is a combination of race and social class, we will tackle both together” (ibid). The Impacts on lower class People with limited income normally go late with bill payments and on time remittance of fees or other service charges. Consequently they get overburdened by late fee that normally impedes the payments. In contrast, middle class or upper class people have rather broad scope of choosing better mode of payments with little chance of loss. The case is same with every sphere of purchase or selling process in which profit or loss is determined by the fiscal capacity of the individual. This could be pointed out as one of the notable but inadvertent social injustice the capitalist economies tend to promote. Almost all social security provisions including insurance, healthcare, and judicial systems are not easily accessible to the poor class people. For instance, regardless of the varying income level, people of all segments are expected to pay the same amount of premium or service tax. Conclusion Irrespective of the ongoing debates, social class system remains to be the inseparable characteristic of British and American societies. Governmental actions to bridge the gap between the classes stand still hampered by several emotional and economic factors in both nations. The current social class system could be attributed to various factors including but not limited to education system, unscientific fiscal policies, class based politics, inferior self-esteem of the labor class, and people’s conceptual resistance to social change. Although the past decade witnessed tremendous improvements in UK with regard to racial discrimination, social class inequity has been growing at an alarming pace. Any governmental initiative toward social restructuring should begin with addressing the problems related to class and identity. Reference “Are ethnic minorities still disadvantaged?” 14 January 2010, BBC News, viewed 23 Dec 2010 http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=7414&start=15&edition=2&ttl=20101221124257 Carnell, D. Ireland, J. Jones, C. Mackreth, K & Wely, S 2002, Advanced PE for OCR AS, Heinemann, Oxford. Devine, F 1997, Social Class in America and Britain, Edinburgh University Press, UK. Demographics Classifications, businessballs.com, viewed 23 Dec 2010 http://www.businessballs.com/demographicsclassifications.htm Gammell, C 22 December 2010, “Britain’s class system is ‘alive and well’: claims research”, NCIS. Nwenmely, H 1996, Language reclamation: French Creole language teaching in the UK and the Caribbean, Multilingual matters, UK. Steele, J 10 Oct 2010, “Is social Class Still Relevant?”, Suite101.com, viewed 23 Dec 2010 http://www.suite101.com/content/is-social-class-still-relevant-a296523 Tonkiss, R 2003, Class analysis UK, Encyclopedia of Feminist theories, Ed. Code, L 2003, Routledge, New York. Read More