Weber's three dimensions of stratification

Max Weber (1864-1920) is one of the great names in the history of sociology. We shall assess his work on re­ligion and social change in Chapter 17 and his work on bureaucracy in Chapter 20. In Weber's lifetime, as in ours, the influence of Marx on social theory was immense. And some of Weber's major works were at­tempts to modify Marxist positions.

Weber believed that Marx's wholly economic view of stratification could not capture primary features of modern industrial stratification systems. Looking around in Germany. Weber noticed that social position did not always seem to be simply a matter of property ownership. Many Germans who belonged to the nobility lacked wealth yet possessed immense political power; for example, only they could be officers in the army. On the other hand, Weber noted that some wealthy German families, despite owning factories or large companies, lacked political power of social standing because they were Jewish.

In a strictly Marxist conception of class, these Jewish families would belong to the bourgeoisie, while "any powerful Junkers (aristocrats) would belong to the proletariat. Thus, Weber came to view Marx's scheme as too simple. He proposed that stratification is also based on other, independent factors. He suggested three factors: class, status, and party.

Modern social scientists have found several of We­ber s terms somewhat confusing; therefore, they have renamed them to constitute "three P's" of stratifica­tion: property (what Weber called "class"), prestige (what Weber called "status"), and power (what Weber sometimes called "party").

Property

By class Weber meant groups of people with similar "life chances" as determined by their economic position in society—their material possessions and their opportunities for income. This is what mod­ern social scientists refer to as property. Weber stressed class membership based on objective economic posi­tion. Unlike Marx, he did not reserve the word class only for groups that had developed class consciousness and had organized for class conflict. Instead, Weber regarded the banding together by persons with the same economic position as merely one possibility. Thus, a key question for Weber was when and why class conflicts occur. Making class conflict part of the definition of class would not answer the question.

Furthermore, Weber did not stress ownership of property, but realized that in some circumstances con­trol of property might be independent of ownership. If a person can control property to his or her personal benefit, then it matters little whether the person legally owns the property. Thus, Weber was able to recognize the high-class positions of managers whether capitalist corporations or socialized indus­tries) who control firms they do not own. Marx had placed such persons in the proletariat.

Prestige

Weber recognized that economic position could rest on control without ownership because he saw that prestige (or "status," in his terms) and power were not wholly the consequence of property relations. Instead, they could be the source of property relations. To use a trivial example, when famous athletes or military) heroes endorse a commercial product, they are exchanging their prestige, or social honor, for economic ad­vantage. Indeed, people often enjoy high prestige society while having little or no property. For example, poets and saints may have immense influence 'no-society while remaining virtually penniless.

Power

The case for power as being independent of wealth is even more obvious. Weber defined power as the ability to get one's way despite the resistance of others. People may be very powerful without acquir­ing much property. For example, a corporation president may wield great power within the corporation and even in the political process of a society without personally owning any substantial part of the corporation. The same is often true of senior civil servants, who run such powerful agencies as the CIA, the FBI the RCMP, or the Federal Reserve while receiving relatively modest salaries. Additionally, power is often trudet for economic advancement. Many politicians manage to retire rich even though they received only modest s salaries while in office. The whole notion of power while Marx seemed to believe that power could only be bought.