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“While these hierarchies are not universal to all societies, they are the norm among state-level cultures (as distinguished from hunter-gatherers or other social arrangements).”

Why have I seen books that state that social stratification is universal? 69.221.229.125 15:50, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Many reasons...

1. Because most surviving societies are stratified. Non-stratified societies are rare--mostly because they're usually conquered by more warlike neighbours. It's likely they were once far more numerous for much of human history, before mass warfare became common.
2. Because not everyone who writes a book about human society knows what they are talking about. Everybody from Plato to Dr. Phil has had something to say about society, but most of the time they are speaking from opinion, not from objective study. Even objective social sciences like psychology and economics tend to overlook non-stratified, non-state cultures because...(see the next reason)
3. Because members of stratified societies have stratified prejudices, and don't pay much attention to non-state societies. If they don't have writing, architecture, money, and warfare, they don't count as civilizations as far as most people are concerned.
4. Hunter-gatherer societies can be stratified or non-stratified; but it's hard to tell them apart when they're all lumped together by many social commentators. It's easier to assume they're all stratified.

I'm sure there are other possible reasons. But does this address the question?--Pariah 06:27, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV External Link

The only external link provided on this page is essentially Marxist, and describes social stratification as inherently unjust. Someone should probably put up a link to a less ideological website to balance the external links section.

I don't think it's a problem. If you'd ever taken a sociology class on this kind of topic, you'd see that Marxist views ("conflict theory") pretty much dominate the topic. You could try adding another to balance it out if you'd like, but within sociology Marxism isn't at all controversial (and to be honest, it actually feels terribly dry after a while). Sarge Baldy 08:46, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article Is Taken Word for Word from Another Site

I think this is definitely a worthy topic, but I have a problem with lifting something from another website that is associated with a travel group. There is only one authoritative source to quote from. The article needs to be given a more sceintific treatment. Unfortunately, I am not a sociologist and would ask anyone in that field or in anthropology or archaeology to come to our aid. Here is the link to the straw-man article which doubles as a travel community [[1]] Prospero74 00:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the original article--several search engines have taken to copying wiki articles and posting them as their own.--Pariah 18:02, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] M.L.Tubo

I am cuirous about the reference to M.L. Tubo. Who is s/he? and where did this quote come from?

Not sure. It definitely should be referenced, or else removed from the article.--Pariah 22:18, 14 September 2006 (UTC)