Revision summary
Modernisation theory presupposed achievement and class in place of ascription. Marx’s class remains real; it does not erase caste, ethnicity, and race. Srinivas, Weber, Barth, and Du Bois explain persistent closures. These ranks organise marriage, votes, and labour inside markets. Predominance is empirical gating, not the death of class.
Model answer
Introduction
Modernisation theory expected industrial growth to replace ascriptive ranks with class in a market. Karl Marx made class the motor of capitalist society. Yet caste, ethnicity, and race still organise marriage, votes, and work. The presupposition was a hope, not a completed history.
Body
The presupposition
- Marx treated capitalist modernity as polarising owners and workers. Status leftovers would thin.
- Talcott Parsons and later modernisation writers expected achievement, universalism, and a class society of occupations.
- Max Weber already warned that status groups and ethnic honour can close the market.
Why caste persists
- M. N. Srinivas showed Sanskritisation and vote banks, not a simple melt.
- Endogamy, ritual rank, and discrimination in hiring keep caste as a property of the modern economy, as later census-blind markets still show in NSSO work gaps.
- Louis Dumont overstated holism, but he was right that rank did not vanish at the factory gate.
Ethnicity and race
- Fredrik Barth treated ethnicity as boundary, not as leftover culture. Urban labour markets reproduce those boundaries.
- W. E. B. Du Bois and later racialisation theory show race as a modern classifier of labour, not a pre-modern residue.
- Immanuel Wallerstein placed race and ethnicity inside the world-system’s labour hierarchy.
Predominance without the end of class
- Class still structures land, capital, and informal wage. Caste and race organise who enters which class slot.
- Yogendra Singh’s modernisation of Indian tradition is a mix, not a replacement.
- Political ethnicity and communal mobilisation use modern media and the census category itself.
Explanation
- Modernisation needs a class map to think the market. It does not dissolve ascription.
- Predominance means these identities still gate life-chances, as NFHS and education gaps show.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD MOD[Modernisation script] --> CLASS[Class society] REAL[Actual modernity] --> CLASS REAL --> CAST[Caste] REAL --> ETH[Ethnicity] REAL --> RACE[Race] CAST --> GATE[Gate life-chances]
Conclusion
Class society was the modernisation script. Weber, Srinivas, Du Bois, and Barth explain why caste, ethnicity, and race remain predominant as closures inside capitalism. Marx’s class is not cancelled; it is cross-cut. The factory did not finish the work of the varna or the colour line.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Compare and Contrast the contributions of Marx and Weber on social stratification in capitalist society
Next question in the 2019 paper (Q4). View answer →
-
Did Marx ignore caste?
He centred class in Europe. Indian modernity shows class working through caste.
-
Is predominance the same as unchanging tradition?
No. These identities are reorganised by parties, jobs, and the census.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2020 · Q2(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 15 marks
How are Hierarchy and Exclusion the major impediments in the transformation of societies ? Discuss. -
2020 · Q4(c) · Sociology GS 1 · 15 marks
Critically assess social mobility in closed and open systems. -
2019 · Q1(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Davis and Moore made it clear that social stratification is a functional necessity and also an unconscious device. Discuss -
2019 · Q6(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Why is gender dimension of social stratification ? How does gender intersect other dimensions of inequality based on caste, class, race and ethnicity ? -
2018 · Q1(d) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
What is the difference between natural and social inequality examples from caste and class dimensions -
2018 · Q5(e) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
In social mobility possible in closed systems of stratification ? Illustrate from research work. -
2017 · Q4(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
What is Weberian critique of Marxist notion of social stratification -
2017 · Q4(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Examine gender. Ethnicity and race as major dimensions of social stratification
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2019 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Discuss the historical antecedents of the emergence of Sociology as a discipline
Sociology
Sociology emerged when industry, the state, and revolution made society a problem. Enlightenment comparison and Saint-Simon–Comte positivism supplied permission. Nisbet’s conservative themes of community and authority also fed the field. Marx, Durkheim, and Weber turned the name into a discipline. Census offices made method a public craft.
Q1(b) · UPSC Mains 2019 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Davis and Moore made it clear that social stratification is a functional necessity and also an unconscious device. Discuss
Stratification and Mobility: Concepts
Davis and Moore: unequal rewards fill important roles; the device is unconscious. Tumin: importance is politically defined. Marx and Weber add exploitation, status, and party. Caste and gender close talent before sorting begins. Use the thesis for incentives; do not use it as a full theory of inequality.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2019 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
What is the Marxist concept of 'fetishism of commodities'?
Sociology
Fetishism of commodities: social relations among producers appear as relations among things. Exchange-value hides labour time as price. The illusion is socially real, not a personal superstition. Lukács extended it as reification. Gig pay and piece-rates still carry the appearance.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.