- [Voiceover] So, in our society we have
quite a number of ways in which we tend to
break down society into different layers,
different social layers,
and one of the ways that we do that
is to break up society into different classes.
So, we can break society up into the Lower Class,
which basically consists of a lot of people
who do a lot of manual work,
laborious work, often low-pay jobs.
And then we have what's called the Middle Class,
so these are better paying jobs
often involving a lot of professionals.
And right at the top we have the Upper Class,
so these tend to be very wealthy businessmen,
heads of industry,
people with a lot of family wealth
and that occupy very prominent positions,
and these are called the Upper Class.
And one of the things that we know
is that your different class position often correlates
to the amount of income
that you get from your job.
So, I guess one of the things that we think about
when we think about these different social positions is that
can we actually have movement.
So, can an individual actually move around?
And the answer is "yes".
An individual can in fact move around
these different social positions,
and there's various ways an individual can move.
The first way I want to mention is
an individual can move horizontally.
That's to say, an individual can move within the same class.
So, take our gentleman with the blue hair in the middle.
So, if he works as an accountant
in one accounting company,
if he switches job to a different accounting company,
but he stays at the same level,
he's essentially experiencing horizontal movement.
That's to say that he's not either going up
in terms of social positioning,
and he's not going down in terms of social positioning.
However, you could experience
something called vertical movement,
which is either a move up or a move down
the social hierarchy.
And example of this would be
if he was, for example,
a manager at a restaurant,
and should he get a promotion
and then become the CEO of a fast food restaurant,
then he would then fast move
into a higher sphere.
However, should he get a demotion,
should he experience troubles at work,
and then get bumped down to just serving food
and going on minimum wage,
he may actually fall down from his middle class,
reasonably well paid job,
into the lower working class,
and in that case he would experience
downward social movement,
downward social mobility.
So, as we could see as we discussed social mobility,
we can have horizontal movement
and vertical movement as we have described here.
There are various different types
of social constructs that allow
for different levels of social mobility.
Historically, some societies have had
what's been called the caste system.
And in the caste system there has been
very, very, very little Social Mobility.
And you may ask why.
Because in a caste system
your role in life is really determined
almost entirely by your background,
essentially to what position you're born,
and to who you are married to.
So if we look at the hierarchy,
first the caste hierarchy,
you're really limited to the social group
to which you're born.
regardless of your actual aptitude and achievements.
What that does often provide
is a large amount of social stability,
because the social structures often do not change.
People's social position doesn't change
throughout their life,
so they remain in the same social situation
with the same social network.
The most common historic example of the caste system
was the Hindu caste system,
which was historically outlawed,
but some say it's still practiced
to some degree informally today.
Secondly, we go on to what's called the class system.
And this tends to operate in many countries today,
where we have the Upper Class,
the Middle Class, and the Lower Class.
And the class system is a step away from the caste system
because it allows for a degree of social mobility.
It is in fact a combination of a person's background
alongside their ability.
It recognizes somebody's ability
in terms of allowing them to go up
or even down the social ladder.
But what that actually results in
that results in less social stability
compared to the caste system.
People can really change
their social positioning throughout their life,
often by means of education for example.
Now finally, I want to raise
a rather idealized concept of the meritocracy.
And what a meritocracy is
is a concept that people achieve their social position
based on their ability and achievements,
and solely based on their ability and achievements.
So, in a meritocracy
someone's position is not really determined
by their place of birth,
their parental background.
So, this is a highly idealized state
that isn't really operating anywhere in the world.
Some people say the United States
may be turned to meritocracy,
but in an ideal meritocracy
what we have is actually extreme social mobility.
People are continuously going up and down
depending on their most recent level
of performance and achievement.
So, really now instead of background,
we're basically purely focused on
ability and their achievement.
As you can imagine,
there may not be as much social stability
because their relative kind of
the background organization of families and social groups
may be much less stable than the caste system
and the class system
and the purest form or meritocracy.
So, as we can see here,
in a meritocracy we have the greatest degree
of upward and downward social mobility
compared to the caste and class system.