Transcript Class Status and Party - CLAS Users

Class Status and Party
► All
communities are arranged in a manner that
goods, tangible and intangible, symbolic and
material are distributed.
► Such a distribution is always unequal and
necessarily involves power.
 ''Classes, status groups and parties are phenomena of
the distribution of power within a community'' (927).
►
Status groups makes up the social order, classes
the economic order, and parties the legal/political
order. Each order affects and is affected by the
other.
Power
► Power
is the ''chance of a man or a number of
men to realize their own will in a social action
even against the resistance of others who are
participating in the action''
► ''Economically conditioned power is not identical
with power... The emergence of economic power
may be the consequence of power existing on
other grounds. Man does not strive for power only
to enrich himself economically. Power, including
economic power, may be valued for its own sake.
Very frequently the striving for power is
conditioned by the social honor it entails. Not all
power entails honor.''
Class
► When
market conditions prevail (eg,
capitalism), property and lack of property
are the basic categories of all class
situations.
 However, the concept of class-interest is
ambiguous. Collective action based on class
situations is determined by the transparency of
the connections between the causes and the
consequences of the class situation.
 If the contrast between the life chances of
different class situations is merely seen as an
acceptable absolute fact, no action will be taken
to change the class situation
Status
► Unlike
classes, status groups do have a quality of
groups. They are determined by the distribution of
social honor.
► A specific style of life is shared by a status group,
and the group itself is defined by those with whom
one has social intercourse.
► Economic elements can be a sort of honor;
however, similar class position does not
necessitate similar status groups (see old money's
contempt for the nouveau riche).
 People from different economic classes may be
members of the same status group, if they share the
same specific style of life.
Party
► ''Parties
reside in the sphere of power'' (938).
''Parties are... only possible within groups that
have an associational character, that is, some
rational order and a staff of persons'' (938).
► Parties aim for social power, the ability to influence
the actions of others, and thus may exist in a
social club, the state, or a cohort of professors at
the University of Florida.
► Parties may represent class or status interests, or
neither. They usually represent a mix
►
►
►
Weber's discussion of class, status and party give an idea
of how markets affect people, and how people form
themselves into groups, partly as a result of markets and
partly on the basis of other factors that are socially
important.
To some extent, Weber's status groups would appear to be
ways in which people in capitalism protect themselves from
the effects of markets, but at the same time using the
market as they can, and using the means of power they
have at their disposal.
In spite of the myriad factors that must be taken into
consideration when looking at these social structures and
institutions:
 Weber concludes that there are relatively few dominant features of
social structure. In terms of classes, the major classes are the
working class, the capitalist class, and the middle professional
group.
 For Weber there are also a number of major status groups and
parties, not necessarily identical to or determined by the same
factors as are classes. That is, one may consider some of the major
styles of life as those of upper class, middle class, and lower class.
 Within this system of stratification, the working class
does not fit, although the working class has been and
continues to be an important social class in capitalism.
 Finally, people in societies create some major parties,
political parties and other organizations, each aiming to
achieve some end. Again, it is likely that only a few of
these organizations will acquire major importance for
people at any one time.
► Weber's
writings can thus be used as a guide, but
one should not get lost in the mass of details to be
considered. Rather, one must attempt to
reconstruct the major groups and classes in
society, determine how people related to these,
and how these interact.
Weber v. Marx
► Workers
are not reduced to being paupers,
but are generally better off than agricultural
labourers.
► There is a diversified system of class
relationships, with a growing rather than a
smaller middle class. The polarization of
society into capitalist and worker does not
result, but there are more middle groupings,
with more non-manual workers in
bureaucratic organizations.
► The working class becomes divided in
various ways, due to trade unions,
developments noted above.
► Social
classes are clusters of class situations
with common mobility chances for
individuals or across generations. People in
these class situations have a common set of
social interchanges, but these class
situations do not necessarily create
communities.
► Capitalism makes classes more important
compared with earlier societies, due to
expanded market relations and operations,
and the expansion of the capital-labour
relationship. But the most distinctive feature
of the development of capitalism is the
rationalized character of this economic and
social system.