CHAPTER V

SOCIAL LIFE IN ENGLAND

5.1 Social Class

Social class is a ranking or grouping of individuals according to position in the
economic scheme of things. Class in this sense can be based on income, source of income
(wealth, salary or wages), and occupation. In the terms of Karl Marx, class refers to how a
group of people relates to the production of goods and services in the society. If a person
works primarily with the hands at some form of skilled, semi-skilled, or unskilled work, one
is in the working class (regardless of income). If the work a person does depends more upon
the use of the mind or clerical skills, then the person doing that work is considered to be
middle class (again independent of income). People who do not have a regular, steady
occupation or one that is ‘recognized’ as legitimate is seen to be part of the lower class or
possibly an underclass. Finally, if a person does no productive work but instead commands
others to work or relies upon an inheritance or income from investments, then the person is
considered upper class. These classifications will be expanded upon later.

5.2 Social Status

This is the social dimension of inequality. Grouping or position is based upon social
value and ranking. Status is determined here by “who you are”. For example, if your ancestors
arrived on the Mayflower, you may have higher social status than someone who entered
through the Ellis Island immigration terminal in New York City. This type of grouping may
also relate to the ‘pedigree’ of your parents. If you are listed in the ‘social register’ or are a
Philadelphia ‘mainline’ family, you have very high social status. Another way that a family
may gain status is to be among the pioneers who settled a particular area. For example, in
Oregon, families who can trace their ancestry to those who came overland on the Oregon
Trail have high status in that state.

5.3 Systems of Stratification: Estate, Caste and Class

Differing time periods and historic conditions have given rise to several different
kinds and types of systems of stratification. The feudal period of Europe and Asia (especially
Japan) gave rise to an estate system of stratification. Religious traditions in India, South
Africa, and America have given rise to caste system of stratification. Finally, modern
capitalist (free market or centrally planned, socialist) have given rise to a class system of
stratification.

5.3.1 Estate System

The central characteristic of the estate system of stratification is that it is based in land
and in loyalty to an entity that controls, distributes the land – usually the monarchy. In this
kind of system of inequality there are three estates: the landed gentry/nobility, the serfs or
peasantry, and the clergy. Each of these broad categories stood in very clear relationship to
one another. The landed gentry/nobility made the decisions and ran things. They controlled
the land and how it was to be used. The serfs or peasantry worked the land, providing goods
and services for the gentry and for the clergy as well as for themselves. The clergy provided
for the spiritual needs of the countryside. The landed gentry/nobility stood at the top of the
order, sharing to some degree position with the clergy. The peasants or serfs were at the
bottom.
Within each of these broad categories there were rankings as well. For example in the
clergy there were distinctions between the country parish priests and the upper hierarchy of
the church. Parish priests were often recruited from the peasantry, the upper hierarchy from
the gentry/nobility. Similar distinctions in rank were apparent in the gentry/nobility – note the
differences in titles used in England for example. Among the serf/peasantry there were
distinctions between yeomen, relatively well-to-do small land holders who worked their own
land and the general run of the mill serf that lived essentially at the beck and call of the lord of
the manor.
Systems of this type characterized much of Europe following the collapse of the
Roman Empire and were pretty well developed at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution
in the 1700s. The system began to collapse in European societies with the French Revolution
and never became established in America after the American Revolution (with the possible
exception of the South America). Virtually all of Eastern Asia (China and Japan) developed a
similar type of social structure that lasted until strong European contact in the middle of the
19th Century. Japan’s system had many similarities to that of England, with some interesting
parallels in their historical changes after European contact. Among them is an emphasis upon
merit as a means of getting ahead with a particular estate.

5.3.2 Caste System

The principal distinction between caste and estate systems has to do with the part
played by religion in the separation of groups. Both caste and estate systems were based in
agriculture and the ownership of property. However, the caste system made distinctions
among groups of people in terms of their standing sanctioned by religion. In India there were
three broad castes and the untouchables. The categories of people were rooted in religious
belief and the boundaries between the castes sanctioned by religion. These boundaries meant
that castes were largely self-contained groups, people were exclusively members of a
particular caste at birth with no possibility of moving out of their caste of birth. Caste
determined whom they could marry, where they could live, what kind of work they could do
and so on. If there was any mobility (change in social standing within the society) it occurred
to the entire caste, not to some individuals.
A key feature of the caste system is the control the dominant caste had over the others.
These groups were in charge and had exclusive control of the society and how things were
done within the society. India is the chief example of caste society and where the system was
first described. However, given the definitions above (religiously sanctioned, permanent
group membership) two other societies come very close to having caste.
5.3.3 Class System
Class systems seem to be more a product of the industrial revolution. Classes arise
from the industrial productive system. Marx is in fact one of the first to describe such a
system, but does not go a long way toward defining what the classes are except to note there
are two principal classes: owners and workers. In the class system, people are set apart by
what they do for a living and how they do it. Thus we find managers, professionals (doctors,
lawyers, clergy) placed together in a similar class. People who earn their living by using their
hands are defined as working class - carpenters, plumbers, truck drivers, loggers, mechanics,
assembly line workers, and so on. Between these two groups (managers and workers) is a
large group of lower white collar workers - clerks, sales people, teachers, draftsmen, computer
technicians, and so on. At the very bottom of the class system are those with no skills and no
steady employment or employment outside the ‘legitimate’ economic system - day laborers,
drug dealers, prostitutes, petty thieves and other criminals. This group also often is seen to
include the mentally disabled and mentally ill since they lack the necessary skills or ability for
long term, continuous employment. Finally, there is the upper class, the individuals at the
very top who control the means of production in the society and who make the rules.
The class system tends to be somewhat more open than either the estate or caste
system. People can move up or down with some degree of ease. However, as Stark points out
in the text, even this is often severely limited in some class societies. For example in the
United States, successful mobility is often dependent upon successful completion of an
education. Access to the education structure as we shall see is often a product of one’s class
position. If you were born to a minority family in a central city neighborhood (North City
Park in Denver for example), your chances for completing high school are limited and if you
are able to do so, your opportunity for higher education is even more limited. Certainly you
will be unlikely to attend a selective college or university like Harvard. If your family lives in
Cherry Hills Village, there are no obstacles to your success with the possible exception of
outright stupidity or idiocy (in the technical sense). A mediocre performance in high school
will mean a good chance to enter a good college or university and then to move on to an
appropriate career in industry or politics.

5.4 Education
 Education is the actual learning of skills, ways of solving problems
 Schooling is what happens to you in the classroom.
By now you should all be aware that the two are not necessarily the same. Most of us learn by
doing, by actual participation in a variety of activities related to what it is that we are
attempting to learn. You do not learn chemistry by simply reading a textbook, you learn by
mixing different stuff together and seeing what happens. You can do this on your own and
you will learn something about chemistry, but it helps to be guided in this learning by
someone who already knows something about the process. We do know that hands on
participation in the learning process make what you learn stay with you. When you must
struggle to put ideas, concepts and so on together so that they make sense to you, you retain
that set of skills and information far better than if it is just handed to you by someone else. It
also helps if the things you are learning are relevant to you and your experiences. This seems
to be why on the job training works so well, it is necessary for you to retain the job. Of course
it also helps if the job is really something you want to do.
Each is designed to engage you in the discovery of facts and relationship about human
communities, to demonstrate the influence of the society upon each of us. Laboratory
experiences in psychology, biology, chemistry and physics attempt to do the same thing.
However, none of these will have much impact if you do not see them as being relevant to
what you are and what you are attempting to be.

5.4.1 Academic Freedom

The idea of academic freedom makes the university a market place of ideas, in which
new ways of thinking, of understanding compete with one another. In this fashion the
frontiers of knowledge and our understandings are pushed forward. Every university teacher
expects to be able to present his or ideas in such a context. They also know that they must
support and defend these ideas with fact, with logic and rigorous critical thinking.
The idea extends to students in the classroom as well, the student is there to learn, but
also to test his or her own ideas. In the papers you write you are putting together the
arguments that support your points. The instructor will present counter arguments, each mush
weigh the evidence and draw conclusions about the validity of the arguments and positions
taken.
It is this value (academic freedom) that is protected by tenure at the university. A
member of the faculty earns tenure by publishing, doing research, and teaching. Those who
do this well are given tenure. Those who do not are excluded from the university.

The United States Class Structure in Brief

The Upper Class: The Corporate Rich
Represent the upper class of the United States, the very wealthy, those at the very top
level of corporate America. These families constitute about 0.1% of all families in the United
States. Every April Fortune Magazine publishes a list of the wealthiest families in America.
Some are quite old (the Duponts, the Rockefellers, the Hunts), others are very new (Bill
Gates, Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson).
The children are products of private secondary schools, selective Ivy League or
private colleges and universities (including Stanford University). In these settings the novice
members of the upper class learn how to ‘govern’, to run large economic enterprises, and how
to represent the interest of their class in the board and governing rooms of America. Through
membership in exclusive social clubs, and listings in the social register (e.g, the Denver Club
in Denver, similar clubs in San Fransisco, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia) the families
maintain links among one another. Many of these families do not become directly involved in
politics (although some do, the Rockefeller family is notable in this respect – governors of
New York, Virginia, and Arkansas). This does not mean that they are not involved in the
politics at the local or national level.
 In conclusion, the upper class is an exclusive group that tends to marry and socialize
entirely within its own groups. They occupy positions of power in the boardrooms of
American corporations and business and to be actively involved directly or indirectly in
politics.

The Upper Middle Class: Professional/Managerial

This upper middle class consists of lawyers, physicians, and other top management of
large and medium corporations, top-level engineers, some college university professors and
others with this type of education and position in the economic structure of the society. The
class is characterized by ‘doing’. The have attended public schools, relatively exclusive
colleges and universities, prestigious public universities. In general this class carries out the
mandates of the upper class or supports them in a variety of ways - educating their children
for example.

The Middle Class: Clerical/Sales

These are the ‘white collar’ lower middle management type people, the solid middle
class. Occupations tend to be those of teacher, lower level management and so forth.
Education is often limited to state colleges and universities, possibly community colleges. The
members of this class do most of the work of the society, manage much of the low – level
sectors of the organizations. They are often quite conservative and very active in their
religious communities. Today this group is a mixed bag, often including the small business
owner and family farmer. Individuals in these last two groupings often feel threatened by the
changes in the society and by large corporations, government, and business

The Working Class: Skilled and Unskilled

The working class, what is often seen as the backbone of America. This class consists
of people who build the goods consumed by the American (if they are indeed made in
America). These are the truck drivers who deliver the goods to the consumers, the policemen
who maintain order, firefighters who keep it cool, This class also includes those who have
very minimal skills. It used to be that one could make a good living as a member of this class,
often with very little formal education (in the 1940s and 1950s some high school was all that
was needed). The cities of the upper Ohio Valley in Ohio, the manufacturing communities of
Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana are filled with these families. The towns of Virginia
and Pennsylvania also have their share of these families (steel workers and coal miners).
As more and more manufacturing is leaving the United States this class is under
severe pressure. It is increasingly difficult for their children to follow in their parents
footsteps. It is increasingly difficult for individuals with less than a high school education to
find well-paying jobs and to be able to support the life styles that their parents found very
familiar and comfortable.
The Lower Class: The Poor/An Underclass
This is often seen as an underclass, a group that is perpetually underprivileged, often
not even managing to get by. There is a very fine line between this group of people and the
ones in the two ‘classes’ above. Any kind of financial downturn, unemployment or major
medical crisis will put many people in the above two group into this one. The members of this
class are characterized as having little formal education and few marketable skills. Marriage
comes early and with it parenthood. Poverty or near poverty is a standard condition of life for
the members of this class (however, do keep in mind that poverty is relative to the wealth of
the society).
The difficulties faced by this class are such that attempts to deal with any single
feature of their lives doomed to failure. For example, it is often argued that all that is needed
for this class to join the main stream is a steady job. However, that is predicated on a better
education. Achievement of either is often hindered by severe health problems that keep them
from focusing on study or from working steadily as is expected by the middle and upper
classes.