Class-Based Society in America

There are, essentially speaking, only three main ways to generally “organize” a society: caste, class, or social estate; all are variations or, sometimes, mere subthemes of these three basic types seen repeatedly, throughout all of recorded human history, in the entire world. However, it will be seen how class-based society has become the usual norm within all modern and postmodern realities of social organization, as applied, more or less, to almost all contemporary nations. Some definitions, nevertheless, would yet help at supplying a useful elucidation, as is given below.

Caste, Class, and Social Estate: Explanations

A caste-based society means that people are thought to be naturally born into their social condition based upon their accident of birth and having pre-assigned social roles; thus, rich Brahmans, to simply an illustration, beget only other Brahmans; everyone is automatically or by custom expected to forever remain only within their birth caste, including the pariahs and, slightly above them, the untouchables, as with the famous case-in-point of India [now with its first lunar probe, of course].

Although wealth is a clear feature, however, an impoverished Brahmin still retains his caste importance regardless. [Note: For the sake of extreme brevity, various detailed exceptional circumstances within these three cited types will not, however, be covered since they are not part of the norm considered as such.]

A class-based society assumes some or, perhaps, much regular fluidity of the normally wide range of classes, so that entrance into or out of one class is held to be possible and, sometimes, even greatly encouraged. With increasing money, people can usually rise from one class to another and, with a decrease of money, can also, therefore, fall from a higher into a lower strata; birth status alone is not supposed to be relevant and there are usually no pre-assigned social roles.

Within the broad class structure, the radical bourgeoisie, though mostly found among the really wealthy people and not being of the supposed “middle classes,” have been the most successful. Status, as a feature, almost always depends upon the income level or wealth of the person in question, with exceptions, e.g., for such people as clergy who may take vows of poverty.

A society of social estates would most likely be that of, e.g., Medieval Europe with its three basic divisions as to the composition of the social order: clergy, aristocracy, and commoners; all were thought to have pre-assigned social roles as to their proper and permanent functions in society, usually reduced to a more ancient dividing up of traditional roles into priest, soldier, and peasant.

There was some possible social fluidity in that, for instance, a peasant’s son could end up becoming a powerful bishop or pope; but, generally speaking, each person was normally expected to want to stay within his social estate nor was this ranking destroyed even by the possible impoverishment of a noble personage; the ranking remained, though actual status evaluations may not always hold in empirical practice as compared to pure theory.

But, what does all of the above have to do with social-class analysis thinking? In the Western world, since, for instance, the end of the Middle Ages in Europe, all modernizing and modern societies have tended, increasingly, to become class-based societies; this includes, regardless of propaganda to the contrary, Communist societies of the 20th century and later.