1. Theme: Why societies are divided into classes?
Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Kazakh Abylai khan University of International Relations and World Languages
Teacher Training Faculty of Foreign Languages
Specialty: “5B Foreign Languages: two foreign languages”
Theme: Why societies are divided into classes?
Done by: Onerbaeva A. A.,
Mami S.
Group #201
Checked by: Botagozov Zh.
Almaty 2013
PROJECT WORK

2. What is a social class? I. Introduction
A status hierarchy in which individuals and  groups are classified on the basis of esteem and prestige acquired mainly through economic success and  accumulation of wealth. Social class may also refer to any particular level in such a hierarchy.

3. Four common social classes informally recognized in many societies are:
1. Upper class
2. Middle class
3. Working class
4. Lower class.

4. How classes appeared?
FOR MOST of our history, human societies knew "no soldiers, no gendarmes or police, no nobles [or] kings, no prisons," Frederick Engels wrote.
But why did class society, the state and inequality develop "at a definite stage of economic development?" The answer lies in the fact that several thousand years ago, some societies, as a result of declining resources, moved from hunting and gathering to domesticating animals and growing crops.

5. Theories of social class were fully elaborated only in the 19th century as the modern social sciences, especially sociology, developed. Political philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau discussed the issues of social inequality and stratification, and French and English writers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries put forth the idea that the nonpolitical elements in society, such as the economic system and the family, largely determined a society’s form of political life. This idea was taken farther by the French social theorist Henri de Saint-Simon, who argued that a state’s form of government corresponded to the character of the underlying system of economic production. Saint-Simon’s successors introduced the theory of the proletariat, or urban working class, as a major political force in modern society, directly influencing the development of Karl Marx’s theory of class.

6. Early agricultural societies rewarded those "big men" who worked the hardest to increase food production. But the "big men" didn't appropriate the fruits of anyone else's labor. The prestige of these "redistributor" chiefs rested on their ability to produce and give away more than anyone else.
Still, their status as providers placed them in control of society's surplus. As the surplus grew, such chiefs could take some of the extra surplus and use it to pay for specialists--craftsmen, priests, servants and professional warriors.

7. Why did the mere existence of a surplus produce class division?
As Engels put it:
So long as the total social labor only yields a produce which but slightly exceeds that barely necessary for the existence of all; so long, therefore, as labor engages all or almost all the time of the great majority of the members of society--so long, of necessity, this society is divided into classes. Side by side with the great majority, exclusively bond slaves to labor, arises a class freed from directly productive labor, which looks after the general affairs of society.

8. the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
Karl Marx divided society into two broad classes:
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
Capitalists, or bourgeoisie, own the means of production and purchase the labor power of others.
Workers, or proletariat, do not own any means of production or the ability to purchase the labor power of others. Rather, they sell their own labor power.

9. The nature of class relations: conflict
Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.” – Communist Manifesto
Marx established conflict as the key driving force of history and the main determinant of social trajectories (Kingston). However in order to understand the nature of “class conflict,” we must first understand that such conflict arises from a unified class interest, also known as class consciousness. Class consciousness is an aspect of Marxist theory, referring to the self-awareness of social classes, the capacity to act in its own rational interests, or measuring the extent to which an individual is conscious of the historical tasks their class (or class allegiance) sets for them.

10. Today’s social classes Postindustrial Societies
The rise of postindustrial societies, in which technology supports an information-based economy, has created further social stratification. Fewer people work in factories, while more work in service industries. Education has become a more significant determinant of social position. The Information Revolution has also increased global stratification. Even though new technology allows for a more global economy, it also separates more clearly those nations who have access to the new technology from those who don’t.