Class stratification

Class stratificationis a form of social stratification in which asocietytends to divide into separateclasseswhose members have different access to resources andpower.

Quotes

• One of the most important social distinctions ofRome– inthe city itself,theItalian peninsulaand (eventually) thevast territories the Roman army conquered– was between citizens and the rest. Roman society was obsessed with rank and order, and small distinctions between the upper-class divisions of senators (senatores) and equestrians (equites), the middling ranks of theplebians,and the landless poor known asproletariiwere taken very seriously. Butcitizenshipmattered most. To be acitizen of Romemeant, in the deepest sense,freedom.For men it conferred an enviable package ofrightsandresponsibilities:citizens couldvote,hold political office, use the lawcourtsto defend themselves and theirproperty,wear thetogaon ceremonial occasions, do military service in the legions rather than in the auxiliaries, claim immunity from certaintaxesand avoid most forms ofcorporalandcapital punishment,includingflogging,tortureandcrucifixion.Citizenship was not limited tomen:although many of its rights were denied towomen,female citizens could pass the status on to their children, and their lives were more likely to feature comfort and plenty if they were citizens than if they were not. Citizenship was therefore a prized status, which was why the Roman state dangled it as a reward for auxiliaries who served a quarter-century in the Roman army, and forslaveswho served uncomplainingly in the knowledge that if theirmasterfreed them, they too could claim the right to limited citizenship asfreedmen.To lose one’s citizenship – thepunishmentimposed forvery serious crimessuch ashomicideorforgery– was a form of legal dismemberment and social death.
  • Dan Jones,Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages(2021), pp. 23-24

• We must wantequality,and we must grasp that equality does not coexist with class structure.
  • Melanie Kaye/KantrowitzTo Be a Radical Jew in the Late 20th Century in The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology (1986)

• Singaporehas become a stratified society. Years ofunevenly distributedgrowthin aneoliberalgrowthregime has led to emergence of aclassofworking and non-workingpoorwho face insurmountable challengesin upliftingthemselves from acycle of poverty.
  • Irene Y. H. Ng,(August 2015) "Being Poor in a Rich “Nanny State”: Developments in Singapore Social Welfare".The Singapore Economic Review60(03): 1550038.DOI:10.1142/S0217590815500381.Republished inLim, Linda Y. C., ed.Singapore's Economic Development: Retrospection And Reflections.World Scientific.p. 279.ISBN 978-981-4723-48-0.

• Theprophets... hurled their "woe be unto you" against those whooppressedandenslavedthe poor, those who joined field to field, and those who deflectedjusticebybribes.These were the typical actions leading to class stratification everywhere in the ancient world, and were everywhere intensified by thedevelopmentof the city-state (polis).
  • Max Weber,Sociology of Religion(1922), as translated by Ephraim Fischoff (1963), p. 50

See also

• Class consciousness
• Class conflict
• Gentrification
• Injustice
  • Social injustice
• Social class
• Class discrimination