SOCIAL INEQUALITY

1. STRUCTURE OF INEQUALITY

Inequality
“To speak of inequality is to describe some valued attribute which can be distributed across the relevant units of a society in different quantities, where ‘inequality” therefore implies that different units possess different amounts of attribute.”

Inequality
Irregularly distributed resources valued by everybody in this society.
Everybody wants to have them but not all are able to get them.
Unequal distribution of valued rewards or opportunities for different status positions or groups of positions within a society.

SUBJECTS OF INEQUALITY
The units can be
Individuals,
families,
social groups,
communities,
nations .

OBJECTS OF INEQUALITY
power
capital (economic power)
income
wealth
prestige
Knowledge
living conditions
security and risk
etc.

SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS
Irregularly distributed resources resulted from taste distinctions.
This object is owned by few members of the society but only few wants to get it.
Social distinctions are markers of lifestyles.
It is a structure of practices shaped by wishes and desires within limits of available opportunities.

2. EXPLANATION OF INEQUALITY

Is an Inequality a Necessary Feature of modern societies?

Inequalities in Material Welfare: Achievement versus Exploitation
Achievement model of income determination
Income acquisition is a process of individuals acquiring income as a return for their own efforts, past and present.
Exploitation models
Through a variety of different mechanisms one group of people can appropriate the fruits of labor of another group.

Liberals’ position
Friedrich Hayek:
Inequality is the price to be paid for the dynamic economic growth that is characteristic of capitalism.

A FUNCTIONALISTS’ RATIONALE FOR INEQUALITY
Kingsley Davis & Wilbert Moore (1945):
Unequal social and economic rewards were are ‘unconsciously evolved device’ by which societies ensured that talented individuals were supplied with motivation to undertake training which would guarantee that important social roles were properly fulfilled. In this way, the most important functions would be performed by the most talented persons, and the greatest rewards go to those positions which required most training and were most important for maintenance of the social system.

COMMUNISTS’ EXPERIENCE
The societies of so called ‘real socialism’ sought to ameliorate if not abolish social inequalities but in fact merely generated novel forms of their own, which were in turn less productive of economic growth and social welfare.

3. A TYPOLOGY OF INEQUALITIES

Monadic and relational attributes
A monadic attribute is any property of a given unit (individual, family, community, etc.) whose magnitude can be defined without any reference to other units. …
Relational attributes, in contrast, cannot be defined independently of other units.

POWER as RELATIONAL ATTRIBUTE
To be powerless is to be controlled by others.
To be powerful is to control others.
My amount of power is defined by the number of people over whom I have control .

Monadic and relational processes
To describe the distribution process <…> as monadic is to say that the immediate mechanisms which cause the magnitude in question are attached to the individual units and generate their effects autonomously from other units .