THE TWO SOURCES OF INEQUALITY
By Andre Beteille
Good potential introduction
The great paradox of the modern world is that everywhere men attach themselves to the principle
of equality and everywhere in their own lives as well as in the lives of others they encounter the
presence or inequality. The more strongly they attach themselves to the principle or the ideology
of equality the more oppressive the reality becomes. Their attachment even makes it difficult for
them to consider dispassionately and objectively whether the inequalities which surround them
are increasing or decreasing. The two principal political ideologies of the present-age, democracy
and socialism-either singly or in various combinations- are built on the premise of equality for all
human beings. Soon after their emergence in the West they spread to other parts of the world and
today they have come to acquire a universal character. The ideologies of equality are simple in
their essential features, but the realities they confront differ greatly from one society to another
and, within the same society, from one sphere of life to another.
In an age where the ideal or equality has so much fascination, any attempt to interpret inequality
runs the risk of being condemned as being by implication a justification of it. The risk is all the
greater when the attempt is to show that inequalities are rooted in features which are inherent in
all human societies. Industrialization gave a new turn to inequality in Western society. With
economic advances and the mitigation of the more extreme forms of poverty, inequalities have
become less visible if not less harsh in Europe and North America as compared to their own past
and to what prevails in the poorer countries of Asia and Latin America. Thus people in the
former countries can be far more optimistic about the future of equality, and inequality can
therefore be more easily studied as a technical problem within sociology.
The position is very different in many of the countries belonging to what is called the Third
World. There traditional forms of inequality, sustained by centuries of economic stagnation, are
still very much in evidence. The most gross forms of poverty and the most palpable differences
in life chances between classes and between communities are to be encountered there. Inequality
is visible to the naked eye. The advanced countries are “advanced” not only materially but also
ideologically. The ideology of equality has taken deep roots there and has permeated every
sphere of life. Hierarchy which Marx described as the ideal form of feudalism, ceased to be the
ideal for Western societies a long time ago.
The countries of the Third World are said to be not only “backward” but also “traditional” in
their outlook. Contemporary India provides a good example of this kind of society. However,
Beteille clarifies that it is not as though the ideas of equality have made no impact on thes
societies. In fact, equality is often proclaimed more loudly here than in the West. The problem is
in the fact that lurking behind these proclamations are old values and old habits of mind which
see the pre-existing inequalities among men as a part of the natural scheme of things. Hence, in
these countries, a sociological discussion of inequality tends to cut too close to the bone and may
easily be represented as a defence of traditional values and institutions.
Andre Beteille attempts to see the problem of inequality through the sociological lens. HE argues
that historically, the first step towards a sociological understanding of the problem was taken
when a distinction was made between natural inequalities among men and inequalities in their
conditions of existence. It is customary to go back to Rousseau to trace the first modern
statement of the distinction which forms one basis of the sociological approach to the problem of
inequality. Rousseau maintained that the natural or physical inequalities among men were small
and unimportant. He instead focused on the moral and political inequalities such as those of
weatlth, honour and power. These he believed to be based on convention. Owever the
conventions could be changed to the greater advantage of men but it is not clear how far he saw
that it is in the nature of all conventions to create and sustain inequalities.
The main premise of Beteille’s argument is that society is inconceivable without conventions and
rules, and these constitute of what may be called social as opposed to natural inequality. While
the distinction between inequalities based on nature and those based on society is of fundamental
importance, it is by no means easy to apply the distinction consistently in practice. However, it is
important that even if we admit that there are differences everywhere in nature, these differences
are turned into inequalities only through a process of evaluation, and evaluation is essentially a
social or cultural process.
An important feature of the sociological approach is that it is by its nature comparative. Even a
cursory glance at existing patterns shows their extreme variability. It is only when we compare in
a systematic way the inequalities in our own society with those present in others that a
sociological approach to the problem is initiated. Systematic studies of inequality based on the
careful observation and recording of facts began to be made in Western societies from the
beginning of the nineteenth century. These studies however, were filled with several
inadequacies. Nevertheless, during the last 50 years, a vast body of empirical material has been
collected systematically covering almost every important aspect of inequality in Western
societies. Some of these studies, particularly some of those conducted in the United States, are
very detailed and technical. More recently some scholars have turned their attention to the
systematic comparison of inequalities in the two types of industrial society, the capitalist systems
of Western Europe and North America, and the socialist systems of Eastern Europe. However,
Beteille argues that if sociology is to be a truly comparative subject, then comparisons must
extend beyond the industrial societies of Europe and North America. The study of non-Western
societies has been left largely to anthropologists, ethnologists and historians, and the division of
labour between students of Western and non-Western societies has in practice tended to be rigid,
despite the acceptance in principle of a comparative approach to the study of society.
Beteille reiterates the fact that the clearest and the most visible forms of inequality are to be
found today not in the industrialist societies of the West but in some of the predominantly
agrarian societies of the Third World. In these societies, we see the interplay of divergent and
even conflicting rules and standards. Field studies of tribal societies by anthropologists have
thrown much light on the nature of social life in its simplest forms. It is no longer possible to talk
as in the past about either 'primitive communism' or 'primitive anarchy'. A sociological
understanding of inequality must take into account the insights gained from the study of tribal
and agrarian as well as industrial societies. Comparative sociology helps us to test our ideas
about the universal features of social life. It helps us to find out whether or nt inequalities are
inherent in social life as we know it to be.
Human beings as we know them live everywhere in association with other human beings to
whom they are related by a variety of rights and obligations. Althought he human kingdom is
quite similar to the animal kingdom, as seen through the forms of associations and division of
labour that animal ad insect species have among them, this analogy does not carry us very far.
This is because there are fundamental differences in the social phenomena observed among
human beings and among other members or the animal kingdom. The most obvious difference
between animal and human societies is that in the former the patterns of behaviour which express
and sustain the relations of association are transmitted through a genetic code, whereas in the
latter they are transmitted, in addition, through a cultural code. Now the cultural code has
enormously greater plasticity than the genetic code which appears by comparison to be fixed and
rigid. It is thus that we see enormous variability in the forms of association from one society to
another among humans. Thus what each and every human society has and what makes human
societies unique is a body of collective representations.
These are the ideas, beliefs and values held in common by the members of a given society. They
have, as it were, a life of their own, and it is by their means that the individual defines his
identity in relation to other individuals and to the universe in general. The great significance of
collective representations is revealed in the fact that individual modes of thought and perception
differ greatly from one society to another, and are largely similar within the same society or the
same sector of society. Man nowhere perceives the world around him directly; everywhere there
are elaborate cultural categories which mediate between him and his universe. These categories
act as filters through which objects, events and persons are perceived and evaluated.
Let us take first man's relations to physical things. Even in the most primitive societies physical
things are not simply things that exist in their natural form, but are invested with meaning and
significance. Birds, animals, trees and plants, moving and stationary things are all classified and
graded. Durkheim and Mauss have argued that man does not leave anything in nature untouched
but everything according to the principles of his own social organization.
The French anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss, has tried to examine the relationship between
nature and culture through a detailed and systematic study of customs relating to food. Many are
aware of the elaborate and strictly defined modes of food preparation developed in civilizations
such as the European, the Chinese and the Indian. Levi-Strauss has revealed the fact that food
preparation is an elaborate affair even among the most primitive of tribal communities. Not
everything that is edible is in any society regarded as food. Different food substances have to be
differently prepared, and the preparations have to be served in a certain order which is governed
by occasion, place and time. Thus, food is in every society made the object of more or less
systematic evaluation. In no society are all kinds of food accorded equal value. Different
varieties of food have different levels of social prestige. There also are items of culture like dress
and adornment which represent collective standards which govern their choice and use.
Having found that man applies standards of evaluation to all kinds of material objects, it would
be surprising if we were to find that he does not apply them to other human beings. We do find
indeed that individuals and groups are subjected to evaluation in every human society.
We shall take two aspects of the individual members of a society which, according to Parsons,
are everywhere subjected to evaluation: their qualities and their performances. In modern
industrial societies performance or achievement is generally given pride of place. But as Michael
Young pointed out some years ago, a meritocratic society is by no means the prototype of an
egalitarian society. What Parsons describes as 'quality' in contrast to performance is, as he shows
convincingly, not wholly irrelevant even in the most highly competitive and achievement-
oriented societies. Birth, family status and ethnic identity are taken into account in the ranking of
individuals even in modern American society. In other, e.g. preindustrial, societies--which arc
more static and have a greater historical depth – a large number of such qualities are recognized
and serve as criteria for differentiating and ranking individuals. Gradation in terms of quality has
been a conspicuous feature of the pre-industrial civilizations of India, China and Europe.
No doubt some carried it further than others, but they all differed in this matter from modern
industrial civilization. The qualities of men are viewed as being inherent in their nature and they
are believed to be generally though not invariably acquired by birth. Every civilisation has of
course its own theories of human nature, and even our modern scientific civilisation has not
succeeded in discarding altogether the view that human nature is to some extent unalterable.
Natural inequality is based on differences in quality, and qualities are not just there, so to say, in
nature, they are as human beings have defined them, in different societies, in different historical
epochs. What modern anthropology teaches us is that human beings create not only their own
'morality' but in a way also their own 'nature' by investing everything around them with meaning
and value.
POTENTIAL INTRODUCTION FOR RACISM TOPIC The most obvious example in the
modern world of the way in which natural or physical dillcrences are invested with moral or
cultural significance i~,to be found in our attitudes to race. What is race, and how should we
view differences of race? Arc differences of race wholly an aspect of nature or are they also an
aspect of culture? As physical anthropologists discovered soon after they began to make
systematic studies of race, it is extremely difficult, some would say even impossible, to break up
the human species into a number of natural kinds.
I have argued so far that human beings everywhere discriminate among things and among
persons, and that some kind of evaluation is applied to both. Systems of evaluation differ greatly
from each other in their complexity and coherence, although there is always the danger that other
systems of classification and evaluation appear simple and naive in our eyes. It is only by
applying the comparative approach that we recognize the specificity of our own system of
evaluation and the universality of evaluation as a social phenomenon. It is perhaps fruitless to
ask whether we first categorize things and then apply the scheme to society or whether our
experience of society provides us with certain categories in terms of which we classify
everything else. What is important for our argument is that discrimination and evaluation are
inherent features of culture and perhaps of the human mind itself, and these processes are applied
in similar ways to the world of things and the world of persons.
Each society has a culture or a set of collective representations of which evaluation is an inherent
feature, and this provides a universal source of inequality. He further argues that every society,
as a set of interacting individuals, is characterised by some degree of organisation which
involves force, power and domination, and this constitutes a second universal source of
inequality.
There are several differences between the philosophical approach to the problem and the
sociological approach presented here. For one thing, philosophers like Hobbes argued about man
and the commonwealth from first principles on the basis of certain assumptions about human
nature; the sociologist, on the other hand, takes for granted the variability of human nature and
bases his arguments on systematic comparisons among societies of different kinds. Secondly,
political philosophers, while talking about the distribution of power, have almost always had the
powers of the state in mind; the sociologist considers in addition the distribution of power in
associations other than the state as well as in stateless societies.
In his conceptualization of power, Hobbes is referring to the power advanced by the state. If one
views the state as the sole source and locus of power, he or she can adapt either of two attitudes
to the problem of power in social life. One may argue that the state is essential to civilized living,
to order and progress, and that it should therefore be maintained if not strengthened.
Alternatively, one may argue that the state is a historically specific institution, that it arises in
particular times at particular places, that it can be negated, and that with its negation inequalities
of power will cease to exist. The sociological argument is that superordination and subordination
based on inequalities of power are inherent in all organisations of which the state is one but not
the only example.
Here also, as in the case of culture, the really decisive evidence comes from the anthropological
study of tribal communities. In the past people commonly held either of two diametrically
opposed views about the nature of life in what were called savage societies. One view was that
there was no law in the proper sense among savages. The other view was that in savage societies
custom was king, that the savage was such a slave to superstition that his life was automatically
regulated by a blind adherence to custom, leaving no room for force, power and domination in
this regulation.
However, Malinowski brought out the complex pattern of rights and obligations which bind
individuals to each other in tribal societies and in the process showed that social life there is not
self-regulating in quite the same mechanical way in which it is In the societies of ants and bees.
All men, whether in primitive or in advanced societies, have rights and obligations, but they are
not by that reason all equal: some have superior rights in defining the obligations of others.
His basic argument is that it is in the nature of a system of social relations that the rights and
obligations of people towards each other should be defined to some extent, and that it is in the
nature of a system of action that this definition should remain to some extent ambiguous. It is
thus that power and domination lodge themselves as significant features of social life
everywhere. Every local community has its own division of labour. If anyone violates the rules
within this particular condition, it becomes a matter of concern to the entire group as a whole,
which may then come together to arrive at a consensus regarding the course of action. However,
this is not how things work out in practice at all. Anthropological research has shown that in
every society there are persons who by virtue of their character and position play a more decisive
part than others in taking collective decisions. It is in this sense that we speak of these positions
as ones of power and authority, since it is by virtue of them that some can take decisions which
are considered to be binding by all.
In a detailed and meticulous survey of politics and government in tribal Africa, Professor
Schapera showed that the simplest and the most complex tribal societies share certain basic
features in common. All have territorial groups which may be small or large, loosely or tightly
co-ordinated. In the case of the most primitive tribes, the local group is small and the co-
ordination between local groups is limited: there is nevertheless some apparatus, often merely an
aspect of the kinship system, through which activities are organized, order maintained and
conflict resolved. Where the local group is only an extended kin-group, those in authority are
generally persons occupying senior positions in the kin-group. In other cases, and at higher levels
of territorial organisation there are chiefs of various kinds. The point to bear in mind is that the
differences between village headmen, titular chiefs and paramount chiefs are differences of
degree and not of kind.
Where the organization of a number of local groups in a larger system is weak, the apparatus
through which this organization is maintained and in which inequalities of power are rooted, is
likely to be weak or non-existent. Students of human society make a distinction between the
sphere of kinship and the sphere of politics, and this distinction is particularly clear in the case of
industrial societies. In tribal and also agrarian societies the sphere of kinship is quite large, and
some anthropologists have sought to distinguish within it the domestic domain from the politico-
jural domain. Even if we argue that there is no separate political domain among some of the
simplest tribes we must recognize that there are inequalities of power in the kinship group
through which social life in the community is organized.
To the contemporary Western mind the sphere of kinship is the sphere of equality. However this
is by no means the case universally. The problems of organisation, and of the inequalities of
power can be studied in diverse forms of association ranging from religious sects (often based on
egalitarian values) to social clubs (designed generally for companionship among equals). When
we move from simple, small-scale tribal communities to complex, large-scale industrial
societies, positions of power and authority multiply, and become more clearly defined and more
elaborately structured. Organization is a pervasive feature of industrial societies, whether we take
democratic or totalitarian regimes. His basic argument here is that even the simplest communities
are not free from inequalities of power, and if these generally appear small or negligible, this
may partly be because we assess them according to standards which are not always appropriate
to them.
The two criteria of evaluation and organization used by Beteille to explain inequality are rooted
in culture on one hand and power on the other. At the same time, these are also the factors which,
in the opinion of most, hold a society together and ensure its continuity as a living whole. In
other words, the very things which give coherence and order to society are also responsible for
maintaining inequality amongst its members.
One of the first sociologists to ask the question of how order in society is maintained was French
Sociologist Emile Durkheim. According to Durkheim, collective representations, shared ideas
and values, or culture are the fundamental factors that give unity, coherence and design to social
life. While he overlooked the role of force, power and domination in society this was taken into
account by other writers such as Parsons, Pareto, Mosca and Michels.
Andre Beteille follows a “pluralist approach” in his explanation of inequality. Corresponding to
the two principal sources of inequality are the major dimensions of inequality, or its two major
scales of gradation. These are commonly described as the scale or dimension of status on the one
hand and of power on the other. Status relates to the esteem and respect that are accorded to
qualities and positions which are valued in themselves; it is of the essence that esteem and
respect are here freely accorded. Power refers to the obedience and compliance that some more
than others are able to command by virtue of the positions they hold in society; here it is of the
essence that some are able to impose their will on others despite their resistance.
While power and status are analytically separable concepts, the scale of status is different from
that of power. It is true that the same person may enjoy both status and power, although not to
the same extent in every society. Some societies even take pains to keep the two separate in
principle. Example of Hinduism – Brahman and Kshatriya. It is also easy to see that whatever the
formal principle might be, in practice status and power can to some extent be converted into each
other in every society. Those to whom people show esteem and respect of their own accord can
and often do use their position to command obedience from the same people and from others.
Likewise, those who command obedience also enjoy some respect, if not from everyone at least
from their subordinates. In modern Western societies status and power are often confused
because under capitalism both are to a considerable extent associated with wealth. Wealth is
esteemed as a thing in itself and it also enables person to have command over others.
Nevertheless, status groups are as it were by their nature exclusive; the symbols of status are
exclusive and, if they are to maintain their superiority of status, people must pursue exclusive
styles of life. On the other hand, democratic politics, which is one of the important avenues of
power in modern societies, requires aspirants to power to define their identity in inclusive rather
than exclusive terms. Thus it is clear that while status and power are to some extent mutually
convertible, one cannot be wholly reduced to the other. Status and power are based on different
principles which appear beyond a certain point to be incompatible. No general study of
inequality can be regarded as truly sociological unless it places due emphasis on the almost
endless variety of the actual forms of inequality. Given the fact that all societies apply schemes
of evaluation, one can think of many such schemes since the criteria of evaluation are many. One
may perhaps think of each culture as selecting from the total stock a limited number of criteria
and using them in the discrimination and ranking of groups and individuals.
Clearly there are attempts within each culture to bring about some consistency between the
different criteria of evaluation, and one obvious way of doing this is by placing the criteria
themselves in some kind of a hierarchy. Here again, one may say that a single, unified hierarchy
of all the criteria of evaluation recognized in a society is more an ideal than a reality. The
problems of organisations likewise vary greatly according to the size, location and distribution of
the population, the history of the people, their social and cultural diversity, the material resources
available to them, and the technological apparatus at their command. Just as human beings have
in different places and times created a variety of schemes of evaluation, they have in the same
way devised a variety of forms of organisation. As a consequence, the distribution of power, like
the gradation of status, varies from one society to another.
Since we have argued that the gradation of status and the distribution of power vary to some
extent independently of each other, we must examine each of these separately and in their mutual
relationships in order to form a proper understanding of the systems or social inequality. In its
detail the system of inequality in each society is a unique combination of a number of different
factors. This does not mean that societies cannot be grouped together for purposes of
comparative study. However, we must remember that the number and complexity of the factors
involved make all classifications to some extent arbitrary. There is no danger when we use a
classification as a rough guide in the systematic study of reality; the danger arises only when we
begin to regard it as a fixed and unalterable scheme.
Inequalities of status and of power are universal features of human societies. It is true that
hierarchical values have been developed much more elaborately in some societies than in others
just as centralized states have been organized much more efficiently in some countries than in
others, but the logic of hierarchy and of dominance is in its fundamentals everywhere the same.
Class is the term most widely used in the modern world to describe the inequalities among
groups or categories of persons. It is so widely used, not only by scholars but by people in every
walk of life that it may appear futile to try to fix a single, specific meaning to it. Underlying the
variety of meanings given to the term, there is the view, often explicit and almost always
implicit, that class is based on economic factors. As is well known, Marx linked the concept of
class to the institution of property or private ownership of the means of production. This in my
view is the most fruitful way of looking at class: but if we look at it in this way, we see it as
being historically specific, manifest in some societies but not in all, unlike status and power
which arc universal features of social life.
In studying property and class, we examine as it were the interplay of status and power in a given
institutional field. Property, wealth and income give access to things that are valued; income is
valued in itself and, under capitalism, it has a tendency to become the measure of all values.
Property, or the private ownership of the means of production, also gives one control over
persons. It is in this dual role that property becomes the most important marker of inequality in
many societies. Differences of race do not relate to social inequality in quite the same way as
those of property. For one thing, they are not manifest in all societies or even in all complex
societies. For another, even when they are present they do not necessarily become significant
bases of social inequality. Two major historical developments, colonialism and slavery, have
mainly been responsible for structuring inequalities of both status and power along the lines of
race or inherited physical difference. A consideration of these raises questions about inequalities
in the international system over and above those present within national societies to, which
sociologists have mainly confined their attention.
Inequalities are maintained through common values as well as the monopoly of power.
Competition for status through emulation, and competition for office through participation do not
necessarily remove inequalities; in fact they often serve to maintain them and to give them
legitimacy. Societies differ on the whole according to the degree of disharmony between their
existential and normative orders. When the normative order is built on the premise of equality,
inequalities in the existential order are bound to be a source of tension, conflict and change.
