Introduction
The Social Classes and their political organization, to speak of social classes, I gave myself the task of looking for the origin of what was the word "Class", thus meeting the Latin definition "Classis", which in ancient times was used to name the different groups into which taxpayers were divided depending on their economic capacity. It is from here where we are going to break down what is understood by Social Classes, their classification, the role they currently play in our Country and their impact as a form of Political Organization, using in this essay an Approach from The Situational Theory.
To talk about social classes we are going to go back a little to History and background, since the first tribes were formed, human groups were grouped according to the characteristics and corresponding geographical location, that is, they were already forming what is called “ Tribes ”, with the evolution of civilizations, made way for various forms of human organization, which generally went according to their needs, ideologies, and in search of a common good. With the formation of villages, the first forms of government appeared, in which the first cells that formed a society already appeared. Referring to the cultures of our country, we can find what was the first form of stratification of society, or called the basis of all political organization,social and legal, I am referring to the figure of Calpulli, who likewise had a social organization, where we could only observe two types of classes that were the dominant or leader who received the name of "pipiltin" and the great working mass which had the name "macehualtin".
Main Exponents
To Posterity and already on the other side of the world, Europe to be exact emerges, a historian, sociologist, economist, jurist and political scientist, who is considered as the founder of the Public Administration, better known as Max Weber. It gives us a definition about the concept of class that is defined as the group of like-minded people in their economic possibilities, on the other hand it also tells us about who are the classes, which are basically those people who are going to be located in an analogous situation in which various factors will intervene to carry out the coexistence between these individuals, such is the case of profession, education, race or religion.
On the other hand Eduardo Andrade Sánchez, talks to us about the existence of factors that will determine the social stratification and I took on the task of listing them as follows:
a) Wealth: thus denominating the possession of assets, whether acquired by individuals or given by virtue of the figure of inheritances.
b) Occupation: the activity carried out by the individual, which may be a manual or intellectual activity, in some cases and due to the professional activity in which the individual operates, may take a mixed form, sometimes the intellectual area exceeds in a matter of economic remuneration, manual activity or what is commonly called labor.
c) Education: referring to the status that an individual manages to achieve within the sphere of academic preparation, to greater knowledge, referring in a common way to the studies completed, the individual acquires an added value, which results in the recognition of society.
d) Power: those activities that lead the individual to be immersed within the political structure of a country, which consequently gives recognition of a political life and a situation highly recognized by society.
e) Exceptional skills or qualities: in this case we refer to all those activities carried out by the individuals who make up a society, but who have a plus, which is what leads other individuals to recognize them, this is due to skills such as those of high performance athletes, artists, sculptors, etc. That obviously, as it is not a characteristic that is developed in a common way in the other members of a society, this makes them earn recognition and enjoy a situation of social admiration, since the income obtained from carrying out these activities in their For the most part, they get to the top of the social class pyramid, faster, and not by experiencing work done in other professional development activities.
Situational Theory
We are going to give way to the Situational Theory approach, which in its simplest definition, we come across the following: “ It is that Theory that states that there is nothing at all within organizations, everything is dependent on some factor, so general environmental conditions. " As far as we are concerned, it is how this Theory influences the issue of Social Classes, and we will understand that all classification comes as a consequence of various factors, as we have already stated in previous lines. For our country we are going to manage it in a simpler way without entering into so many technicalities, and we are going to observe that we find that our country has a class classification in 3 levels mainly:
A High Class, in which are the owners of the means of production, who have a select group and hardly include in their guild new members, “The Elite”.
Middle Class, to which the guild of managers, directors, professionals and the commonly called bureaucracy belong mostly, are those who do not own the means of production, but tend to imitate the behavior of the Upper Class.
Lower class, considered as the working mass is the one that to a certain extent serves as a support for the two classes that are above it, so to speak in some way, it includes all those who are in charge of labor, peasants, workers, miners, informal traders, etc. They are now called as the Great Majority in our Country because they do not have a fair salary that can currently satisfy, the basic needs of a Mexican, in his case access to services such as medical care, food and education, are lacking and terrible quality.
About the Situational Theory, the investigations were developed by: Chandler, Burns and Stalker, Lawrence and Lorsch, Joan Woodward, Thompson.
Those who generally define us as Situational or contingency theory as that which takes place with the exercise of observation from the inside out of the organization and emphasizes the environment and the environmental demands on organizational dynamics. In general, situational theory aims to teach those interested in the study of organizations, in this particular case, the "Social Classes", in which there is nothing absolute in organizations or administrative theory: everything is relative and always it depends on some factor, whether internal or external.
The situational theory is born from a series of investigations carried out to verify which are the most effective models of organizational structures in certain types of companies. In the case that concerns us, which is that of the Social Classes, and as I mentioned above, we must cast ourselves, as it is colloquially said, at the bottom of the stratifications of the Social Classes, on the basis that at present we can denote who belongs to a certain stratum or not, since we cannot continue to think or with the paradigm that the greater the purchasing power or accumulation of goods, it can be classified at the top of the typical classification, since that classification has always been given according to the power that is concentrated in some individuals, leaving aside knowledge,Who could play a duality in these classifications, in the clear example: Not because you have more economic resources you have more knowledge, and vice versa.
The Term Contingency
It means something uncertain, which may or may not occur. It refers to a proposition whose truth or falsity can only be known by experience or evidence, and not by reason.
Situational theory proposes that there is nothing absolute in organizations or administrative theory.
Everything is relative and depends on a factor, in the specific case of the Social Classes, we repeatedly speak of an unequivocal factor, which is purchasing power and is always closely related to that "Elite" who in some way are those who manipulate to society in general, resulting in the Social Classes below.
Now, Situational Theory tells us about the conditions of the environment and is in a way what makes us see that the factors that lead to a stratification of social classes, in the case of our country and the situation that currently it goes through, it makes you observe a constant change in the social classes that were pre-established, and compared to a wheel of fortune everything is in constant motion, I think that currently we only encounter a reorganization of social classes, not like the that has already been mentioned, I can see that the Middle Class is decreasing and has come to merge with the Lower Class and not in order to belittle, at all, in itself with the form and processes that we currently live, the Upper Class has been decreasing or concentrating on itself, in minorities,consequently we speak of a Middle / Lower Class and a new appearance of what is called Extreme Poverty, which is itself what can be counted as the new class or where the Majorities are concentrated.
conclusion
I consider that we cannot speak social classes in a matter of their stratification in an inflexible way, and as I have commented above, if I consider that a modification is taking place in a matter of the appearance of subclasses, that is, although it is true there are factors that force us to be in some way within a classification, there are other factors that can be combined and not necessarily take into account what is common to place a person in the class to which he belongs, how many researchers and / or scientists, who do not are the owners of the means of production have more potential than those found within the Upper Class and this only in reference to levels of knowledge, without other factors such as cultural. From my point of viewI think that the classification of levels of social classes is already out of habit rather than conviction, but it is only made in reference to the capital in money that they may have, although it would be interesting to evaluate or classify based on knowledge, trajectory, professional performance, in order to give way to a true classification or location within society.
Bibliography
- Sovereigns Fernández José Luis. History of Mexican Law. Theme The Indigenous World (El Calpulli and Social Organization). Porrua Publishing House. 9th edition Mexico 2002.Weber Max. Economy and Society. Theme Classes and Classes. Editorial Fund for Economic Culture. 13th Edition.Andrade Sánchez Eduardo. Politic science introduction. Topics The Social Order (social stratification). Harla Publishing House. 2nd Edition Mexico DF 1990.Riascos González José Antonio. Essay Focus and Theory. Situation of the Administration.
