The class system was evolved in society after slavery system, estate system, and the caste system. In class system society was divided into upper class, middle class, and lower class. But unlike other systems, the class system was an open system. The circumstances can change someone’s status at any point in time.
But from the 90’s decade, there has been a rising conflict about the effects and ways of eliminating it with the new system if needed. The class system was categorized according to hierarchy and economic condition as well. But the point was to see how much beneficial it is serving to society. But it was contributing to more differences between the members of society, thus sociologists presented their work in many research works.
Clark and Lipset were in support of new stratification ways in which society can be divided, For example before independence there were princely states in which class-based stratification was hierarchical, but as time passed this stratification collapsed as princely states were removed from political powers. They can be seen as new modifications in the stratification of society to achieve a better system of society.
Pakulski and Waters were also in favor of Clark and Lipset and supported their ideation of collapse which the class system was facing. By hanging to the concept of class where each and every small phenomenon like the concept of dressing or sexual harassment was sluggish. For example, you cannot decide the person involving in any criminal behavior belongs to a particular class, for this reasons the class stratification looked outdated and many other forms of stratification concept can be used. For example, sometimes the rights of a particular gender are violated, thus for this inequality, a new form of stratification came called as gender stratification or inequality which does not need to be linked with class.
If we see stratification from the work done by Marxist ideas, he classified society status as two major types viz the production head which had enormous control as their wealth and economic condition were better ad the second type was the lower class people who were involved in the process of production. It was the scenario before the starting of world wars, French revolution, and Industrialization.
But as time forwarded like entering into the 20th century, there was a development in technical knowledge. Many developments were seen in the form of new gadgets, technologies, and science. The quotation for today’s world is the better knowledge you have, the more power you have irrespective of your class, creed, caste or race. For example, a worker who belongs to lower class but has adequate information regarding skills and ways to promote the production will be seen as asking for higher wages and authority in the company. The hierarchical process was no more the only criteria of securing something in the society. For example, an IT engineer who has relative more knowledge than the son of a DGM posted employee in any company will rise more than his son. Pakulski and Waters also rise up a point that every part of the world is seeing the class level collapse in their own way. It does not account for a global phenomenon.
