Weberian theory - Multidimensional

Multidimensional approach is associated with the name of Max Weber. Weber felt that influence, or the effect that the behaviour of one individual or group had upon the behaviour of another individual or group, manifests itself in several ways. Influence, a by-product of social stratification and culture, is reciprocal. It exists in many forms and is unevenly distributed throughout the social order. Weber felt that there were at least three independent orders or hierarchies in any society. Weber actually used the terms class, status and party respectively to refer to the three orders-economic, social and political.

In the economic order, an individual's control over property and his role in the production and distribution of goods and services result in differentials in wealth and income.

The social order that represents prestige, honour and social status exists somewhat independently of wealth.

The political order or one's role in the decision making process of a society, provides differentials in power.

Weber's writings and his three-dimensional approach have had the most profound effect on stratification theory.

His American translators (Gerth and Mills) introduced this under the terms- Class, Status and Party. All of these are kinds of interest groups that can fight both among themselves and against each other.

Weber's concept of class is similar to that of Marx, he defines it as an economic interest group and as a function of the market place. Weber is concerned with the distribution of power within a community. He speaks of a class when”(a) a number of people have in common a specific causal component of their life chances, in so far as (b) this component is represented exclusively by economic interests in the possession of goods and opportunities for income (c) is represented under the conditions of the commodity or labour markets.”For Weber, then, a class consists of a group of people who stand in the same relationship to the economic opportunity structure in given society and who live under similar conditions which are determined by the amount and kind of economic power they possess. His basic definition does not differ from the Marxist conception. However, Weber did not conceive of classes as self-conscious groups, but merely as aggregates of people in similar economic position.

Class

Weber devised a typology of classes, which included

• A property class, whose situation is based on differential property holdings,
• An acquisition class, whose situation is determined by the opportunity for exploitation of services on the market,
• A social class, composed of the plurality of class statuses between which an interchange of individuals is on personal basis or in the course of generations is readily possible and typically observable.

Two of these three classes, the property class and the acquisition class are analyzed further on the basis of “Privilege.” Each is assumed to be either positively or negatively privileged.

• The Positively Privileged Property Class lives on income deriving from the ownership of property and is able to monopolize the purchase and sale of consumer goods and the opportunity to accumulate capital and to be educated.
• The Negatively Privileged Property Class is composed of property less people-the poor, the uneducated, and the debtors.
• The Middle Privileged Property Class includes both negatively and positively privileged property class. Weber says capitalists are in this category by virtue of essentially positive privileged class and Proletarians by virtue of negative privileges.

The same scheme is applied for a description of 'acquisition class'.

• The Positively Privileged Acquisition Class monopolizes the management of productive enterprises and the typically entrepreneurs, bankers, financiers and industrialists. These people not only control management but they also influence the economic policies of the government.
• The Middle Privileged Acquisition Class includes independent farmers and artisans, minor public and private officials and professionals.
• The Negatively privileged Acquisition Class is categorized as skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers.

Weber does not analyse “social class” according to privileges, he simply gives examples of these classes, viz. are the working class as a whole, the lower middle classes, the intelligentsia and the class occupying a privileged position through property and education.

Weber suggested that class may, at certain times and under certain conditions act together in their own interests. He termed one kind of class action, “communal class action” because it arises out of feeling of belonging together, the other kind he called “societal class action” because it is oriented toward a change in societal conditions. However, Weber didn't believe class action is a universal phenomenon; or even that it is likely to occur often.

According to Weber, these classes are not necessarily self aware entities but are only economic in nature and they are unlikely to unite into action groups to fight for their interests. A class is merely a group of people who are in similar economic position in the market place. They experience the same life changes to acquire the things that are valued by the society and only under very unusual conditions are likely to develop “class consciousness” and to act in unison. If and when this occurs, according to Weber, class then becomes a “community”.

Status Groups

Status Groups are usually understood as the opposite of economic class stratification. Whereas classes are based on old economic considerations- the grouping of similar interests by virtue of similar market positions, status groups are supposed to e in the realm of culture. They are not mere statistical categories but real communities, people with a common life style and view point of the world, people who identify with one another as belonging to group.

Weber distinguishes between class which represents life chances in the market place and status which represents a style of life. Each is a different way in which people can be unequal e.g. a person can be in a high class if he is smuggler with a high school education, who makes rupees ten billion a year, but he will remain in a low status group because the society does not approve of his way of life. On the other hand, once can be in a low class if one is primary school teacher with a graduation degree, earning Rs. 50,000 a year but he will be accorded a good deal of status and honour b because society values his vocation. At the same time, however, class and status frequently overlap e.g. a doctor is in a high income and is in a high status group because society respects his occupation.

An “Occupational Group” is also a status group because each type of occupation generally yields a similar income to the people within it, enabling them to maintain a certain style of life. Members tend to live near each other, wear clothes of similar quality, and enjoy the same kinds of recreation and share values and goals. Finally the members may form virtually a closed circle as in the case of I.A.S. officials who restrict their membership to “their own kind”.

Parties

Parties, however, may represent interests determined through “class situation” or “status situation” and they may recruit their follower's r respectively from one or the other. But they do not have to either purely “class” nor purely “status “parties. In most cases they are partly class parties and partly status parties, but sometimes they are neither. In any event, “their action is oriented toward the acquisition of social 'power' i.e. to say towards influencing a communal action.” Thus although parties fall within the political order, power can accrue from many avenues-money, influence, authority, pressure.As Weber puts it, parties live “in the house of power”, in other words they inhabit the state. Now the state is an organisation; indeed. Weber's analysis of the state gave rise to his theory of bureaucracy. Weber identifies two different types of party.

• Parties of Patronage are those that have no strong moral commitments and clearly stated aims.
• Parties of Principles espouse firm doctrines    and do not conduct themselves in a purely opportunistic fashion. Weber declares that there is a marked tendency for this type of party to become heavily bureaucratized.

Although Weber makes subtle and important distinctions between three types of inequality, undoubtedly there exists, with imperfections, a correlation between Class, Status and Party.

While there is no question that Weber's Theory of Stratification is widely discussed and accepted by most American Sociologists, Weber has not been without his critics. One criticism is that his scheme does not work when applied only to industrial society.

• Oliver C.Cox says that Weber's typology of class is non-dynamic and too abstract. He says that concepts of property class and acquisition class broken down according to positive and negative privileges cannot be applied in any single society.
• Celia Heller criticizes Weber for his discussion on the relationship between economic order and status groups. According to Heller, on one hand, Weber declares that two are empirically distinct, on the other he says they are very often correlated.

In summary, although there are undoubtedly problems in Weber's theory of stratification, not the least of which may be one of language, it is a vast improvement over Marx's theory because it adds depth and subtlety to the unidimensionality of Marx's economic determinism. Ad Leonard Reissman noted, Weber's contribution “is broad, ranges far and includes a variety of different manifestations of stratification under one roof.”