Complex Inequality

The concept of complex (social) inequality refers to both the actual patterns of inequality—social hierarchy, domination, exclusion, or, to put it in [Page 120]more technical terms, differential access to goods and services, rights and entitlements, power, status, and prestige—and the conceptualizations cum representations of these inequalities. Inequalities are regarded as social in at least two senses: (1) when they are seen with a humanistic coefficient, that is, as socially evaluated (thus distinct from economic or cultural inequalities); and/or (2) when they are studied as aspects of asymmetric social relations of domination, discrimination, and so forth (thus contrasted with distributive inequalities). Most social scientists see social inequalities as implicating certain value standards that underlie social perceptions. Thus understood, social inequalities encompass only these aspects of social hierarchy and exclusion that are seen as problematic, unfair, or violating popular standards of justice. This makes them historically and culturally relative. It also means that these actual patterns of inequality are directly associated with how people socially construct their understandings of self-identity and others’ identities.

The concept of complex (social) inequalities was introduced in the 1980s in critical response to the dominant stratificationist and Marxist class accounts of inequality and the accompanying (mainly in comparative studies) simple hierarchical gradational representations of social inequality. These accounts and representations implied that various aspects of social hierarchy and exclusion were correlated and crystallized and, therefore, could be represented as socially formed hierarchical classes, strata, or both. The resulting ladderlike stratification schemes gained wide popularity in the Anglo-American class and stratification literature. The best examples are the class hierarchies popularized by Anthony Giddens, John Goldthorpe, and Erik O. Wright. In spite of diverse theoretical inspirations (mainly Marxist and Weberian), these schemes have some common features: an emphasis on hierarchical aspect (verticality); a synthetic character reflected in (typically unidimentional) ladder-like hierarchy (e.g., occupational or employment status); and, finally, universalism, reflected in an underlying assumption that those simple class-stratification schemes are applicable to the broad family of developed, advanced, or (post)industrial societies. Perhaps the best-known application of these schemes was in comparative studies of occupational stratification and social mobility, the CASMIN (Comparative Analysis of Social Mobility in Industrial Nations) project, and the comparative neo-Marxist class analyses inspired and coordinated by Wright.

Growing interest in complex social inequalities has coincided with the acceleration of social change—especially the process of globalization and rapid social differentiation—and a revival of the French theoretical tradition, as represented by classic analyses of Alexis de Tocqueville, Émile Durkheim, and, more recently, Pierre Bourdieu. In this tradition, social inequalities are seen as having complex, combining vertical (hierarchy) and horizontal (exclusion) dimensions, as being culturally embedded, and as being time and place distinctive. French theorists tend to represent inequalities in the form of multidimensional maps of assets/capitals and the accompanying asymmetric social relations of domination and (in the more radical visions) exploitation. In more recent studies, such complex inequalities are characterized by hybridization, that is, a fusion of different forms of inequality into new forms (e.g., ethnoracial “underclasses” separated in ghetto-like urban clusters), the emergence of multiple and cross-cutting social hierarchies, and multiplication of social divisions based on socially “hermetic” distinctions (e.g., consumption-lifestyle categories). Consequently, the consistency (crystallization), hierarchical transparency, and degree of social formation are low, and it is difficult to circumscribe, rank, and draw boundaries around them. The emergence of “genderized” occupations, ethno-specific or “racialized” market segments (ethno-classes), consumption-lifestyle categories, and ecologically distinct groupings (e.g., underclasses) illustrates the increasing complexity of social inequality.

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