Stratification is the structured ranking of entire groups of people in a society, so as to perpetuate social inequality. Worldwide, stratification can be seen in the unequal distribution of wealth and income within countries, as well as in the gap between rich and poor nations. This chapter examined three systems of stratification, including the class system that prevails in the United States. It considered two theoretical explanations for the existence of social inequality, as well as the relationship between stratification and social mobility. It closed with a discussion of stratification in developing countries.

1. All cultures manifest some degree of social inequality through stratification systems such as slavery, castes, and classes.

2. Karl Marx wrote that capitalism created two distinct social classes, the bourgeoisie (owners of the means of production) and the proletariat (workers).

3. Max Weber identified three analytically distinct components of stratification: class, status group, and power.

4. Functionalists assert that stratification benefits society by motivating people to fill demanding positions. Conflict theorists, however, see stratification as a major source of societal tension.

5. Sociologists distinguish between absolute poverty, which is defined as a minimum level of subsistence, and relative poverty, a floating standard of deprivation that is based on comparison with the society as a whole.

6. One's life chances--opportunities to obtain material goods, positive living conditions, and favorable life experiences--are related to one's social class. The higher a person's social class, the better one's life chances.

7. Social mobility is more likely to be found in an open system that emphasizes a person's achieved status than in a closed system that focuses on a person's ascribed status.

8. As of 1995, developing nations accounted for 78 percent of the world's population but only 16 percent of all wealth. Many of these nations, former colonies of developed nations, are still subject to foreign domination through the process of neocolonialism.

9. According to sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein, the global economic system is divided between industrialized nations that control the world's wealth, called core nations, and the developing nations they exploit, called periphery nations. Wallerstein's teaching, a version of dependency theory, is referred to as world systems analysis.

10. Critics blame the process of globalization--the worldwide integration of government policies, cultures, social movements, and financial markets through trade and the exchange of ideas--for contributing to the cultural domination of periphery nations by core nations. They also charge that multinational corporations exploit workers in developing countries in order to maximize their profits.