Social Stratification

Social Stratification Systems of Advanced Societies

From an analytical point of view, the advanced societies comprise a plurality of institutional orders characterized by distinct systems of social stratification. For instance, within the political sphere, heads of states, prime ministers, and ministers of central governments perform more crucial roles and hold superior positions compared with those performed and held by members of parliaments, mayors, members of city councils, and the like. The latter, in their [Page 2444]turn, are politically more influential than simple citizens. Indeed, even mayors and members of city councils can (a) take decisions regarding the needs and interests of different people and the whole community and (b) frame these decisions in legal rules. No simple citizen has this authority. However, some simple citizens can hold commanding positions in the economic sphere, such as chief executive officers of big corporations or proprietors of medium- and small-sized firms. Chief executive officers and entrepreneurs can determine the goals of their companies and firms, their organizational features, and the tasks undertaken by their managers and professionals. In their turn, managers and professionals are responsible for organizing the work of routine nonmanual employees, foremen, and skilled and unskilled manual workers. Obviously no white- or blue-collar worker can take any decision regarding the firm's economic strategies and organizational arrangements. As a consequence, they are placed at the bottom of the stratification system of the economic realm. Yet even national politicians have no direct role to perform in this sphere, and in no sense can they be considered as holding top positions in the relevant stratification system. Similar situations can be observed in the cultural and educational sphere, in the religious realm, and so on.

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