Class Stratification

Class stratification refers to the hierarchical arrangement of society into social classes defined by unequal access to wealth, income, occupation, education, and power. Unlike caste or estate systems, class stratification is based mainly on economic position and is in principle open to mobility, although in practice advantage tends to be inherited. Karl Marx analyzed stratification in terms of the relationship to the means of production, dividing capitalist society into the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Max Weber offered a multidimensional view in which class, status, and party each shape inequality, and later scholars built on this approach. Erik Olin Wright developed a neo-Marxist class map based on exploitation and control of assets, while John Goldthorpe and Robert Erikson created the influential class schema used in mobility research. Pierre Bourdieu showed how economic, cultural, and social capital combine to reproduce class position, and Mike Savage and colleagues proposed a model of seven British classes based on these resources. Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore defended stratification as functionally necessary, a claim criticized by Melvin Tumin. Class stratification remains central to research on inequality, social mobility, education, labor markets, and the distribution of life chances.