Caste, Class and Democracy

Vijai P. Singh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351529921
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

This volume is an introduction to the role of caste and class in Indian society, meant to emphasize certain important aspects of Indian society such as continuity and change in caste, economic classes, status of women, status of Harijans, village poli-tics, overseas Indians, and casteism and tribalism. Its theoretical interest is to explain the dynamics of social inequalities in Indian society.

All but one of the essays are based on research conducted in India. The other is based on research on Indian plantation workers in Sri Lanka, and included here to demonstrate that the concepts of caste and class are relevant to understanding In-dians who have emigrated to overseas countries.

Part One

The Concepts and Theories of Social Stratification

Introduction

The major theoretical concern behind this research is to study the changes in a stratification system over time and to identify the important societal factors that have influenced the process. Generally, sociologists have paid much attention to the consequences of different stratification systems. Less attention has been given to internal social structural factors and radical institutional and legislative changes that may shape the profile of the stratification system. We will, therefore, examine in this volume how institutionalized inequalities are created and distributed, particularly in India.

Most of the empirical research on social stratification has been concentrated on North America and certain Western European countries. Many of the findings and implications may not be applicable to other societies. In the study of stratification, cultural and political differences between societies should be taken into consideration. Many societies are not as technologically and economically developed as the Western societies, so we may expect to find different structural conditions for stratification. In some non-Western societies internal heterogeneity is so pronounced that dual stratification may coexist.¹

Today, many students of social stratification postulate that occupation is the most important index of social stratification in highly industrialized societies and therefore, the study of occupational structure is crucial to understanding social stratification. The implication is, of course, that occupational status signifies or is the source of differential economic status, power and prestige. It has been reported occasionally that cultural differences and differences in the level of economic development between societies do not produce similarity in the evaluation of occupations. This debate is not settled yet, and more data are needed from within such societies before a definite position can be established.²

There is some evidence which suggests that occupational status as a prestige hierarchy may not be the most important source of differences in economic or political power. Lenski has shown that in less industrialized societies, personal ability, personal characteristics, inheritance, personal relations with the political head, ethnic background, and religious affiliations are important factors which determine one’s access to power and privilege. As a society develops technologically, social, economic and political institutions emerge, which are associated with the loss of significance of hereditary statuses. It is only after a society has reached a mature industrial stage that occupational status becomes a major source of power and privilege.³ It may be stated then, that societies show a wide range of variations in their stratification systems and that our knowledge of stratification systems is based on too small a sample of societies. Serious attempts are yet to be made to examine systematically changes in stratification systems of many non-Western societies.

National leaders and planners throughout the world emphasize in their speeches and policy papers the need to improve the conditions of the masses and to reduce inequalities. Much of this concern may be political rhetoric. Knowledge about the nature and extent of institutionalized inequality can facilitate realistic programs of planned change. The basic question of our limited understanding of stratification systems needs to be answered. A comparative perspective on stratification can emerge only after more definitive studies that cover a wide spectrum of time and space have been made.

A brief review of some of the literature on stratification should be presented before discussing theoretical and methodological issues that surround this research. Theories and concepts that are of particular relevance to this research are discussed here, and of course they do not exhaust the enormous body of literature on social stratification.

Marx and Weber:

Karl Marx argued that a man’s position in the social structure is determined by his role in the system of production. Economic and social forces create conditions in which social groups have comparable ranks on various dimensions of social stratification. These forces result in the formation of two antagonistic social classes – the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. A man’s relationship to the means of production is the basis for class formation in which the bourgeois are the owners of the means of production while the proletariat own nothing more than their own labor. People who occupy similar positions in the work environment belong to similar classes. Therefore, “Free man and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stand in constant opposition to one another…”⁴ This class-based stratification is found in all societies in all historical periods. The nature of class relations depends upon the ownership of property and mode of production.

Marx also mentioned three classes in his writing and it was at this point that he seemed to be engaging in the elaboration of his theory of class. He raised the question “What constitutes a class?” – and the reply to another question, namely, “what makes wage laborers, capitalists and landlords constitute the three great social classes?”⁵ Dichotomous and trichotomous conceptions of class were based on the contexts in which Marx used them. The former was analytic and useful in explaining social change while the latter provided the description of society.⁶

The two-class conception of society has been a point of greater controversy in the contemporary social sciences because of the polarization and eventual revolutionary consequences which Marx envisaged. Dahrendorf pointed out that Marx’s two classes originated from the ownership of the means of production and served only a heuristic purpose in social analysis. The Marxian theory of classes was more useful in the explanation of social change than of social stratification.⁷

Marx did have a multi-dimensional conception of class. He assigned the greatest importance to the economic aspect of social organization, to the extent of neglecting its power element. Power, according to Marx, is treated as a resource to achieve economic supremacy and is not a goal in itself.⁸ Heller pointed out that for Marx, power was a central concept in reflecting economic and social inequality. The fact that he believed that the ownership of the means of production bestowed enormous power to rule non-owners indicated that Marx was aware of the salience of power in the stratification system.⁹ Classes were real for Marx and class consciousness was necessary for their organization and effectiveness.¹⁰ For Marx, classes were indispensable tools for understanding exploitative relations which resulted in revolutions and changes in ideological and institutional thrusts. Marx saw classes as having a profound impact on the major institutions of society and the relations between men.

Marx’s theory of social stratification has been critically examined by Bendix, Upset, Dahrendorf and Barber to mention only a few.¹¹ They agreed that Marx saw ownership of economic resources as pivotal in determining the nature of a stratification system. However, Marx’s perspective of class was too narrow to be applicable across time and space in the explanation of stratification systems generally. Class consciousness, polarization and revolution, which the Marxian theory of class envisaged, are more ideologically validated than empirically observed in industrial societies. The potential for rebellions and revolutions is more likely to be present in underdeveloped countries which have experienced a “revolution of rising expectations,” in countries where a tiny proportion of the population monopolizes economic and political power in the midst of an impoverished but increasingly hopeful majority. Despite its ideological perspective, the Marxian theory of class may be a useful tool for social analysis in the underdeveloped nations, even if not in its original form.

The concept of class as one form of social stratification is indeed relevant to most particular historical and social structural contexts; however, some theoretical inadequacies may result when Marx’s theory of social class is applied narrowly. The result may be the exclusion of noneconomic stratification variables that may in fact have consequences similar to those which Marx predicted from their relations to the mode of production alone. The contemporary world has witnessed exploitation, oppression and even the breakup of nation states, not so much as a result of economic modes of production, but due to a greater extent to such noneconomic factor as religion and ethnic and racial antagonism. The specification of a single factor for the explanation of all social stratification should be made with the utmost caution no matter how frequently that factor appears to be related: what seems to be a simple explanation may actually be a distortion of emipircal reality.

Max Weber was more aware of the complexities of society than Marx. He suggested a multidimensional approach to social stratification. Weber’s conceptualization of class has an economic basis, with a man’s class position determined by the type of property he possesses and the kind of service he offers in the market place.¹² Weber made this point explicit when he stated that “… the factor that creates ’class’ is unambiguously economic interest, and indeed, only those interests involved in the existence of the ‘market’.”¹³ The propertied classes are at the top and live on the income from property; middle classes own various types of property and skills and derive their income from them, and below these two classes are non-owners of property or skills.¹⁴ Weber, unlike Marx, cautioned that class struggle is not inevitable and in fact, classes of owners and non-owners may coexist and may even have ties of solidarity.¹⁵ Whether people in similar class situations will organize to act collectively depends upon whether they themselves relate to the cultural context.¹⁶

In contrast to classes which are economically determined, status groups, according to Weber, are based upon the social estimation of honor. Although status honor may not be associated with property status, they are often linked. Status honor is based on style of life and a status group may exclude others from interaction.¹⁷ Social status rests on (i) mode of living, (ii) formal education, (iii) prestige of birth, (iv) prestige of occupations, or prohibitions from certain modes of acquisition. Weber argued that property status and professional status are not sufficient to acquire social status but they may help when other conditions are favorable. Also, social status may determine class status, but people of diverse income and professional background may constitute a status group.¹⁸ Weber suggested that the relationship between classes and status groups is complex and should be studied in specific contexts.

Weber labeled a status group with distinct conventions, laws and rituals as fully developed. Status groups may be open or closed; a caste is an example of a closed status group. A style of life which involves monopolization of ideals, conventions, material goods and opportunities is elaborately practiced by the upper status groups.¹⁹ The upper castes in India rigidly practice endogamy and commensality; it is a disqualification for caste members to perform physical labor or to come in contact with objects which are polluting. The upper castes can therefore be considered to be fully developed status groups.

According to Weber, another important dimension of stratification is power. It is exercised by “parties.” Party actions may be rationally planned to achieve certain goals or may be oriented to enhance prestige for their leaders and followers. The power structure is influenced by the social structure in which it is welded, and may represent elements from both classes and status groups.²⁰

For Marx, greater control of economic resources guaranteed greater access to prestige and power. Objective conditions determined the attitudes and actions of individuals within the system. In contrast, We...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copy Right Page
• Content Page
• Preface
• Part I: The Concepts and Theories of Social Stratification
• Part II: Conceptualization of Social Stratification in India
• Part III: The Stratification Variables
• Part IV: Changes in the Stratification System
• Part V: Conclusions and Some Theoretical Applications
• Bibliography
• Appendix A: Intercorrelations Among Family Possessions in the Three Villages
• Appendix B: Distribution of Occupations Across Generations in The Three villages
• Appendix C: Intercorrelations Among the Stratification Variables Over the Three Generations
• Indexes