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Class, Caste, and Social Stratification in India: Weberian Legacy See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333560917 Class, caste, and social stratification in india: Weberian legacy Article · May 2019 CITATIONS READS 0 4,726 1 author: Hira Singh York University 16 PUBLICATIONS 44 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Ambedkar-Gandhi Debate on Caste View project All content following this page was uploaded by Hira Singh on 02 June 2019. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Class, Caste, and Social Stratification in India: Weberian Legacy Oxford Handbooks Online Class, Caste, and Social Stratification in India: Weberian Legacy Hira Singh The Oxford Handbook of Max Weber Edited by Edith Hanke, Lawrence Scaff, and Sam Whimster Subject: Sociology, Social Theory, Economic Sociology Online Publication Date: May 2019 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190679545.013.21 Abstract and Keywords Max Weber’s distinction between class and status, identifying caste as the latter, is the single most important influence on the mainstream sociology of caste. There is ambiguity in Weber’s conceptualization in the sense that the contrast between class and status is marked by precarity in the long run when stabilization of economic power serves as a condition for the predominance of status usurpations. This ambiguity remains unresolved in Weber’s conceptual formulation. Mainstream sociology of caste owing allegiance to Weber reifies the contrast between caste as status and class. In Weber, caste is part of global-historical enquiry. In mainstream sociology, caste is uniquely Indian. It is argued that a critical scrutiny separating the rational and historically verifiable from the irrational empirically-historically unverifiable elements in Weber’s conceptual and theoretical formulations will enrich the Weberian legacy. Similarly, historical, cross- cultural comparative study will liberate caste from the myth of Indian exceptionalism. Keywords: class, status, caste, religion, political economy It has been claimed that Max Weber was the first to undertake a strictly empirical comparison of social structure and normative order in world-historical depth. He disagreed with the systems and “isms” of the time, such as social Darwinism and Marxism that remained essentially speculative notwithstanding their claim to a science of society. Similarly, he was opposed to the evolutionary and monocausal theories—idealist or materialist. While he did recognize the significance of economic factors and their role in group conflicts, he rejected the thesis of class contradictions and class struggle in society and history. Finally, “Unlike Engels, he saw no grounds for assuming an ‘ultimately determining element in history.’” To the contrary, he approached sociological theory and historical generalization on the concrete level.1 Page 1 of 19 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 15 May 2019 Class, Caste, and Social Stratification in India: Weberian Legacy This statement about Weber’s general approach is useful in examining the particular strands of his theory. My particular interest in this chapter is to underline the salience of Weber’s conceptual and theoretical contributions to the study of the caste in India as a system of social stratification. Caste is unarguably a most studied and at the same time a most contentious subject in sociological enquiry of India, by Indians and non-Indians alike. Max Weber’s distinction between class and status is the single most important influence on the mainstream sociology of caste. Caste appears in this work as a particular case to illustrate his general theory of the distribution of power. Caste is not determined by economic and political power. Rather, it is a source of economic and political power. Another work by Weber that deals directly with caste is his study of Hinduism and Buddhism, which formed Volume II of the “Economic Ethics of the World Religions” (and was translated by Hans H. Gerth and Don Martindale as The Religion of India. The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism).2 This was part of his larger study, that is, the development of capitalism in the West. We may be reminded that the larger question Weber was interested in was why it was in the West and only in the West that “modern capitalist conditions” emerged. Why did they not emerge in India or China? We may note that this question is central to Weber’s wider theoretical goal, rooted in his rejection of the role of class contradictions and class struggle in history. Some sixty years before Weber, Marx had emphasized the role of class struggle under feudalism leading to the expropriation of the direct producers from land, the means of their subsistence, as a decisive factor in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, replacing serfdom with wage labor, the distinguishing feature of the capitalist mode of production. He had also emphasized the role of violence in the process: the rosy dawn of capitalism was anything but idyllic, he noted. Weber rejects that and offers an alternative explanation of the genesis of capitalism in his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism as peaceful pursuit of acquisition determined by the economic ethic of Calvinism and the Puritan sects. How did caste as embodiment of the work ethic of Hinduism determine “the pursuit of life conduct” of Indians, and how did that impact on the development of capitalism in India, was Weber’s question. Caste in India was not peripheral but central to Weber’s theoretical scheme. Two important, arguably the most important, components of Weber’s theoretical contributions include the distribution of power and the emergence of capitalism in the West; and caste figures prominently in both. I propose to critically examine Weber’s contribution to the study of caste, particularly the distinction between class and status, identifying caste as the latter, and the relationship between caste and religion (Hinduism). Class and Status Max Weber’s seminal essay “Class, Status, and Party” is hailed as “perhaps the most influential single essay in the sociological literature … the embryo of … a multidimensional approach to social analysis … primary alternative and antidote to Marx’s strong emphasis on material factors in social economic formations.” His main Page 2 of 19 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 15 May 2019 Class, Caste, and Social Stratification in India: Weberian Legacy concern in this essay, we are told, was “to avoid confusing different forms of power that served as the bases for different types of social formation.”3 Weber’s main concern in the aforementioned essay is the distribution of power in society. He identifies class (economic), status (cultural), and party (political) as three different phenomena of the distribution of power. He argues that economically conditioned power is not identical with “power” as such. Nor is it the primary source of power in all cases. In some cases, economic power may be the consequence of other sources of power. It is further argued that power is not merely a source of enrichment but frequently also a source of social honor. The source of social honor is cultural as opposed to economic and may frequently be a source of the latter.4 There are two component parts of class recognized by Weber: one, property and lack of property as the basic categories of all class situations and, two, class situation is ultimately the market situation. Those who cannot have a chance of using goods or services for themselves on the market (e.g., slaves or serfs) are not classes but status groups. Caste is characterized as status group, based on cultural power, in contrast to class, based on economic power. Following on the distinction between economic power and cultural power, Weber distinguishes economic order from social order. One, concerned with the distribution of goods and services, is the realm of class. The other, concerned with the distribution of social honor, is the realm of status. Caste belongs to the realm of status as opposed to class. Property as such is not always recognized as a status qualification, but in the long run it is, and with extraordinary regularity. However, status honor need not necessarily be linked with a “class situation.” It is so since both the propertied and the propertyless can belong to the same status group. This equality of social esteem (without equality of property) may, however, in the long run become quite precarious.5 If property becomes a status qualification in the long run, does that mean that status, albeit social honor, without property is a phenomenon only in the short run? The same holds for status equality between the propertied and the non-propertied: what happens in the long run when equality between the propertied and the non-propertied, the very essence of status in contrast to class, becomes precarious? There is no satisfactory answer to these and other—more serious—questions arising from Weber’s distinction between class and status. Status as Style of Life It is argued that the status group is not to be confused with the “occupational status group.” Status group is distinguished by style of life, not the occupation per se. Thus, for example, military service as a knight is status, but military service as a mercenary is not.
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