Revision summary
Open and closed are poles, not photographs of whole societies. Caste and estate leak; markets still close by status, property, and gender. Marx, Weber, Sorokin, and Srinivas describe mixed mobility. Comment: name channels, do not choose an extreme type as the whole.
Model answer
Introduction
Open and closed name poles of mobility and membership. A completely open society would recruit every office by talent alone. A completely closed one would freeze every rank by birth. Empirical societies sit between the poles.
Body
Why complete closure fails
- Even caste and estate leak: conversion, conquest, adoption, and M. N. Srinivas’s Sanskritisation move groups inside a ranked order.
- Karl Marx noted circulation of persons beside persistence of class places. A closed idiom still has some movement.
Why complete openness fails
- Max Weber’s status groups close interaction and marriage even in markets. Education and property sponsor some and exclude others.
- Pitirim Sorokin treated mobility as a variable of systems, not as a switch to a frictionless contest.
- Gender and unpaid care, as Ann Oakley showed, close “open” labour markets. NFHS and work data still show that closure.
Comment
- The statement is a warning against textbook extremes. India mixes ascription, exams, reservations, and informal labour.
- Measure both the person’s move and the durability of the hierarchy.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD OP[Open achievement] --> MIX[Empirical mix] CL[Closed ascription] --> MIX MIX --> MOB[Some persons move] MIX --> STR[Structure may hold]
Conclusion
No society is a perfect contest or a sealed box. Weber, Marx, Sorokin, and Srinivas all describe mixed closure. The useful task is to name which channels open and which honour rules still shut.
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Is industrial society therefore open?
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It uses birth categories to open offices. That is mixed politics, not a sealed caste cosmos.
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