Social stratification

The political issues of social stratification and group inequality at tracted the attention of man very early in his history, long before they concerned him as subjects for scientific investigation.

For centuries inequality as such was almost never seriously chal lenged. When there were revolutions, the rebels simply wanted to turn the tables and make servants out of their masters; or perhaps more fre quently, the underprivileged groups asked only for a lesser burden. The decisive change came with the two great revolutions of the late eighteenth century. Both the French and the American Revolution aimed at the establishment of complete equality.

At that time the first scientific book on stratification made its appear ance: John Millar's Observations concerning the distinction of Rank in Society (1771). It was quite a success; four editions were published, the last as late as 1801. But Millar had no successors. The temper of the time favored emotional partisanship rather than scientific objectivity. Since Rousseau's passionate exhortations, equality had become a moral postulate and a political goal. The scientist yielded to the philosopher and the popularizer, to the politician and the pamphleteer. It became more impor tant "to change than to know the world." Karl Marx came upon the scene. His views, whether accepted or rejected, dominated the entire nine teenth century, again to the detriment of analytic and scientific investiga tion. Marx died before he could present a systematic class theory, and his followers, as well as his adversaries, preferred to indulge in endless con troversies about class struggle.