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SOCIAL CHANGES IN 19TH CENTURY EUROPE: |
Social changes:
Along with its impact on daily patterns of life and family institutions, economic change began to shift Europe's social structure and create new antagonisms among urban social classes. The key division lay between the members of the middle class, who owned businesses or acquired professional education, and those of the working class, who depended on the sale of labour for a wage. Neither group was homogeneous. Many middle-class people criticized the profit-seeking behaviour of the new factory owners. Artisans often shunned factory workers and drew distinctions based on their traditional prestige and (usually) greater literacy. Some skilled workers, earning good wages, emulated middle-class people, seeking education and acquiring domestic trappings such as pianos.
Nevertheless, the social divide was considerable. It increasingly affected residential patterns, as wealthier classes moved away from the crowded slums of the poor, in contrast to the greater mixture in the quarters of preindustrial cities. Middle-class people deplored the work and sexual habits of many workers, arguing that their bad behaviour was the root cause of poverty. City governments enacted harsh measures against beggars, while new national laws attempted to make charity harder to obtain. The British Poor Law Reform of 1834, in particular, tightened the limits on relief in hopes of forcing able-bodied workers to fend for themselves.
Class divisions manifested themselves in protest movements. Middle-class people joined political protests hoping to win new rights against aristocratic monopoly. Workers increasingly organized on their own despite the fact that new laws banned craft organizations and outlawed unions and strikes. Some workers attacked the reliance on machinery in the name of older, more humane traditions of work. Luddite protests of this sort began in Britain during the decade 1810-20. More numerous were groups of craft workers, and some factory hands, who formed incipient trade unions to demand better conditions as well as to provide mutual aid in cases of sickness or other setbacks. Huge strikes in the silk industry around Lyon, Fr., in 1831 and 1834 sought a living minimum wage for all workers. The most ambitious worker movements tended to emphasize a desire to turn back the clock to older work systems where there was greater equality and a greater commitment to craft skill, but most failed. Smaller, local unions did achieve some success in preserving the conditions of the traditional systems. Social protest was largely intermittent because many workers were too poor or too disoriented to mount a larger effort, but it clearly signaled important tensions in the new economic order.
Social upheaval:
In western Europe, economic change produced massive social consequences during the first half of the 19th century. Basic aspects of daily life changed, and work was increasingly redefined.
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AN OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL CLASSES: |
Europe has a history of social groups known
as estates. The estate system reached its peak during the feudal
era and Japan had adopted a similar system. Estates were created
by laws that provided for a clear structure of rights and duties,
privileges and obligations. Estates also referred to the prevailing
economic division of labour. It was not an entirely closed system
of social stratification. Social mobility was possible but not
very widespread. The main estates were:
1. The nobility
2. The clergy
3. The commons/serfs/peasants
While the estate system declined, there was a great rise in the
economic and political power of the bourgeoisie, who developed
in the estate system. Some theories state that it was this group
of merchants, manufacturers and financiers etc. that transformed
and overthrew the estate system of social stratification. The
social stratification refers to the hierarchical classification
of social differences in terms or one or more dimensions or social
inequality-such as wealth, power or prestige. Class systems that
developed in this are characteristics of the industrial capitalist
societies. They are generally defined in economic or political
terms. The class systems are correspondingly more open than any
other types of social stratification; there are no real barriers
to economic success in modern democrat societies
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was the founder of modern communism. He
predicted that workers around the world would unite to overthrow
the ruling class. After the workers revolted, they would end private
property and set up a classless society. Marx has inspired Lenin
& the Bolsheviks and Mao Ze Dong. He had his own theories
about class, called the Marxian Model of Class. According to him,
a class is people who have the same relationship to property such
as land, factories or money used for profit, otherwise known as
capital. His ideas were entirely economic. His theory goes like
this:
1. Bourgeoisie-large-scale owners or capital/employers.
2. Workers-Non-owners or capital/employers
1a. Petty Bourgeoisie-small-scale owners of capital/employers
2b. New Middle Class-Managers and professional employees.
In the Industrial Age, Marx expected the petty bourgeoisie to
decline and the new middle class to expand. He expected conflicts
to arise between the main classes, resulting in a revolutionary
overthrow of the upper class.
Max Weber (1864-1920) also believed there were two main models
of class. He agreed with Marx about the capital ideas but also
believed that some of it was related to the person's relationship
to the market. People have qualifications and skills for which
there is a large or small demand depending on the situation. His
theory of class includes the ownership/non ownership of knowledge,
so it generally has more class categories.
Weber also believed that social prestige defined status. Many
things can influence his concept of status: birth, education,
occupation, lifestyle. Occupational status is used as an alternative
to class models of social stratification as a result of increased
economical and social significance of work. The main occupational
status groups are:
1. Higher managerial and professional (doctors, lawyers, etc.)
2. Lower managerial and professional (teachers, nurses, etc.)
3. Skilled non-manual (insurance agent, secretary, etc.)
4. Skilled manual (carpenter, hairdresser)
5. Semi-skilled manual (bus driver, cashier, etc.)
6. Unskilled manual (cleaner, labourer)
Sociologists, anthropologists and market researchers to refer to non-manual and manual occupation groups respectively use the terms "middle class" and "working class".