Relational Studies of Inequality Author(s): Charles Tilly Source: Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 29, No. 6 (Nov., 2000), pp.

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782 Symposium

Relational Studies of Inequality

Columbia Universit)"

CHARLES TILLY

Let us beginwitha perverse, manifestly false, assumption: thatevery argument in my 1998 book,Durable Inequality, is correct. This brief paperwill thendrawinferences from suchan absurd hypothesis for twenty-first-century studies of inequality. The absurdity offers several advantages: It keeps mehonest, requiring meto spell outthebook's implications for future work. It forbids mydevoting precious pagesto repairs ofthebook'smistakes. Finally, it allowsme to showthatthe next generation of researchers faces vivid challenges. Iftheorists andinvestigators take thebook's teachings seriously, they will changethe direction of theirinquiries into Durable Inequality sketches a setofexplanationsforpersistent social inequality whenever and wherever it occurs.Its stipulations and explanations run as follows: * Inequality is a relation between persons or setsofpersons in which interaction generates greater advantages for onethan foranother (e.g.,a landowner letsout plots to multiple sharecroppers, who yield half oftheir hard-won product to thelandlord). * Inequality results from unequal control over value-producing resources (e.g., some wildcatters strike oil,while others drill dry wells). * Paired andunequal categories, consisting ofasymmetrical relations across a socially recognized (and usually incomplete) boundary between interpersonal networks, recur in a widevariety ofsituations, with theusual effect being unequal exclusion ofeachnetwork from resources controlled by the other(e.g., under apartheid many ofSouth Africa's Asians made their livings by running retail shops in black settlements where they hadno right toreside). * An inequality-generating mechanism we may callexploitation occurs when persons who control a resource a) enlist theeffort ofothers inproduction ofvalue by means ofthat resource, butb) exclude theothersfrom thefullvalueaddedby their effort (e.g., before 1848, citizens ofseverlnequa lty.
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al Swisscantons drewsubstantial revenues inrents andtaxes from noncitizen residents ofadjacent tributary territories who produced agricultural and craft goods under control ofthecantons' landlords andmerchants). Another inequality-generating mechanismwe maycall opportunity hoarding consists ofconfining useofa value-producingresource to members of an ingroup (e.g., Southeast Asian spice merchants from a particular ethnic-religious category dominate thedistribution and saleoftheir product). Both exploitation and opportunity hoarding generally incorporate paired and unequalcategories at boundaries between greater and lesser beneficiaries of valueaddedbyeffort committed to controlled resources (e.g., thedistinction between professionals and nonprofessionals registered nurses andaides, scientists and laboratoryassistants, optometrists and opticalclerks, architects and architectural drawers, and so on often marks just such boundaries). Neither exploitation nor opportunity hoarding requires self-conscious efforts to subordinate excluded parties orexplicitly formulated beliefs in the inferiority of excluded parties (e.g., mutual recruitment ofmigrants from a given origin to connected sets of jobs creates ethnic niches within firms). Emulation (transfer ofexisting organizational forms andpractices from onesetting to another) generallylowers transaction costsof exploitation and opportunity hoarding whenthe transferred forms andpractices install paired, unequalcategories at the boundaries between greater andlesser benefits (e.g., a merchant setting upa new delicatessen adopts thegender, age,andethnic division of labor and of corresponding rewardsalready prevailing in other delicatessens). Adaptation ( invention of procedures that ease day-to-day interaction, and elaboration of valuedsocial relations

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Symposium783
around existing divisions) usually stabilizes categorical inequality (e.g., enlisted men build valued friendships inthepresenceof mistreatment and danger, thus committing themselves to the army despite their shared resentment ofofficers' privileges). Local categoricaldistinctions gain strength andoperate at lower costwhen matched withwidely available paired, unequal categories (e.g., hiring women as workers and men as bossesreinforces organizational hierarchy withgender hierarchy). When many and/or very influential organizations adopt thesame categorical distinctions, those distinctions become more pervasive anddecisive insocial life outside those organizations (e.g., inmin1ng towns, dlstlnctlons among eng1neers, hewers, andhaulers pervade a wide range ofsocial life). Experience within categorically differentiated settings gives participants systematically different andunequal preparation forperformance in new settings (e.g., police who treat people differently according to raceand ethnicity predisposethose people toward different relationswithauthorities elsewhere and later). Mostofwhat observers ordinarily interpret as inequality-creating individual differences are actually consequences of categorical organization (e.g., gender differences in schoolperformance result largely from cumulative effects ofdifferential treatment ofmales andfemales by parents, teachers, andpeers). Forthesereasons, inequalities byrace, gender, ethnicity, class, age,citizenship, educational level, and other apparently contradictory principles of differentiation form through similar social processes and are to an important degree organizationally interchangeable (e.g., in different hospitals of thesamecountry and period divisions of laborresemble each other, butwhich socialcategories predominate among physicians, nurses, technicians, cooks, cleaners, and clerks varies greatly from locale tolocale). Mistaken beliefs about categorical differences play little part inthegeneration of inequality, indeed tendto emerge after
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the fact asjustifications of inequality and tochange as a consequence ofshifts in the forms ofexploitation oropportunity hoarding as well as in the parties involved (e.g., when substantial numbers ofwomen enter previously male-dominated trades, beliefs and practices generallychange rapidly as a result ofthat entry rather than preceding andcausing that entry). * Changing unwarranted beliefs about categorical differences haslittle impact ondegrees anddirections ofinequality, whileorganizational change altering exploitation and/or opportunity hoardinghas a large impact (e.g.,a given investment of energy insensitivity traininggenerally hasmuch lessinfluence overorganizational inequality thana comparable investment of energy in recruitment from previously excluded categories) . Of course, it took a whole bookto clarify, amplify, illustrate, andconnect this argument. Thebook itself applies different elements ofthe argument to example after example. Examples occupying a pageor more include statures of English youths around 1800, disputes generated byHerrnstein andMurray's BellCurve, monetary transfers in thetwentieth-century United States, family feeding patterns, stigmatization of paupers in latemedieval Europe, ethnic relaS tions inSouth African mines, categorical divisionsamong the nineteenth-century Tshidi, South African apartheid andits transformations, Rosabeth Kanter's Indsco, treatment offemale cadetsat the Citadel,Italianmigrants to Mamaroneck, migration ofmy mother's family to the United States, European nationalism since 1559,professionalization of American medicine since1850,oppression of African Americans, Catholic Emancipation in Great Britain (1688-1829), anddevelopment ofcitiS zenship inwestern countries. Dozens more occupyless than a page. Eventheschematic summary offered here, however, suffices toshow that thebook's argument depends ona dynamic, relational account ofinequality-generating mechanisms. It differs from prevailing accounts ofinequality, inwhich powerful agents or institutions employers, rulers, schools, the market, andsoon sort individuals whose attributes andperformances vary significantly into positions whose rewards differ

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784 Symposium

greatly. In such standard accounts, sorting prin- Controllers ofvaluable resources who are pursuciples vary among merit, marginal product, per- ingexploitation oropportunity hoarding comsonalcontlection, symbolic value, andagents' monly invent or borrow categorical pairs, prej udices . But theyall operatethrough installing them atdividing lines between greater individual-by-individual triage. Such individualandlesser beneficiaries from products ofthose istic accounts have done usthegreat service of resources. Explanation of inequality and its specifying whatanalysts of inequality must changes must therefore concentrate onidentifyexplain, especially when itcomes towaged work ing combinations andsequences of causal mechincapitalist firms. They havenot, however, so anisms notablyexploitation, opportunity far yielded compelling explanations, especiallyhoarding, emulation, and adaptation within with regard to other forms ofinequality than episodes ofsocial interaction. wages, andother settings than capitalist firms. Thisaccount of socialinequality also has Static individualism sets serious limits to their implications for studies ofsocial mobility. We explanatory power. should notimagine mobility as taking placein Mycounterargument is notonlydynamic anabstract two-dimensional space, with the verand relational, but also weakly functional.ticalaxisrepresenting hierarchies of income, (Strong functional arguments saythatsocial wealth, power, prestige, and/or well being, and arrangements exist because they serve overarch-the horizontal axisrepresenting social locations ing systems. Weak functional arguments say that atvarious distances from each other. Instead, we social arrangements exist because they simulta-should be following theanalogy ofmigration neously serveparticular actors and produce streams, with specific flows ofpersons from site effects that inturn reproduce the social arrange-to s1te, eac n stream havlng a dlstlnctlve strucments.) Exploiters, runs thecounterargument, ture and modifying continuously as a conseexpend some ofthegains from exploitation on quence both ofitsinternal dynamics andofits reproducing thecommand structure that main- lnteractlon Wlt n envlronments atorlgln ancl clestains theexploiters' positions. Similarly, oppor- tination. If we construct origin-destination tunity hoarders invest some of their weshould gains in matrices, recognize that eachcellof maintaining boundaries that separate them from such a matrix contains a distinctive set of causal other persons who lack access tothe processes andlife opportunihistories. ties inquestion. Neither exploiters nor opportu- What agenda follows for twenty-first-century nity hoarders needextract gains or reproducestudies ofinequality? Let*1S continue the absurtheir structural advantages self-consciously. Nor dity, assuming notonly that thearguments just need they hate, condemn, orpersecute thedis- reviewed are true, but alsothat they amount toa advantaged. Alltheargument requires isdiffer-comprehensive explanation of all inequalities entialgainsfrom production by meansof everywhere. Whatshould future students of controlled resources, plusfeedback reinforcing inequality do?Without filling inall thenecesthecontrol system. Both can occur through a sary connections, letmelay out the program asa taken-for-granted division of labor as wellas serles ot lnJunctlons: through deliberate design. Through emulation Conduct separate studies ofdifferent combinaandadaptation, indeed, exploited andexcluded tions among mechanisms, settings, andcategories. persons oftencollaborate in reproducing For example, examine how emulation transfer lnequa lty. of existing organizational forms and practices Here isthe sort of causal story this account of from one setting to anotheroperates with inequality implies. Broadsimilarities exist respect togender relations when the settings are between inequality-generating processes and religious congregations, retail stores, military conversation: Parties interact repeatedly, trans- units, andcollege dormitories. Makethesame ferring resources in both comparisons directions, indistinct bargaining times andplaces. Both out provisional agreements and contingently similarities anddifferences will specify what we shared definitions ofwhat they aredoing. That have to explain and clarify to whatextent interaction responds partly to available scripts,exploitation andopportunity hoarding canplaubutinteraction sibly modifies figure inour thescripts themselves, explanations. and only works atallbecause similar participants impro- With controls, examine variation inthe viseincessantly. Nevertheless, available scripts operation of mechanisms by scale of social relations. crucially include paired, unequal example, categories.For askwhether therelations ofemu. . .. . . . . . . r . .

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Symposium785 lation andadaptation toexploitation work dif- giouscategories a) homogenizes experiences, ferently when allparties areintimately connect- propensities, andcapacities, b) governs inequaled to one another (as within households) or ity-generating interactions with members of othwhen most do notevenknow theothers (as ercategories, andc) thereby affects subsequent within transnational firms). performance and rewards forperformance in Conduct mobility studies bytracing site-to-site ostensibly open competitions. channels andtheir social operation. Forexample, Trace interdependencies between political sysexamine howspecific sets ofhouseholds place tems andnonpolitical inequalities. Forexample, their children in particular schools, then how study how much material inequality iscompatithose schools channel their graduates tovarious ble withmaintenance of democratic institueconomic niches. tions, under what conditions, andwhy. Within organizations, compare mobility systems Integrate studies ofinequality andofpolitical andtheir barriers with daily social relations. For contention. Forexample, compare andcontrast example, determine to what extent sociabilitytheforms ofbargaining that occur within relaclusters within job ladders, andhowthepres- tions ofexploitation with those that occur in enceofmobility barriers among interacting co- legislatures. workers (e.g., mobility barriers between nurses Crack the problem ofhistorical-cultural particuanddoctors) itself affects thequality ofsocial larism. Forexample, establish whether distincrelations among them. tivemechanisms andprocesses generate racial For hierarchies posited a priori, substitute matri- inequality asa function of variation inracial catcesof relations among positions derived from empir-egories' previous histories orembedded beliefs, icalobservation. Forexample, study mobility, andpractices. social interaction, andflows ofresources among representations, Informed readers willimmediately complain jobstoidentify closely connected orstructurally that this program doesn't look very new that equivalent jobs. Letasymmetries inthese regards students ofinequality have been pursuing oneor measure 1nequa 1tles among Jo Ds. ofthese concerns for more than a cenMove studies ofinequality away from wages to another tury. They will be both right and wrong. The other varieties ofadvantage anddisadvantage. For program actually returns to major concerns of example, document andexplain inequality in such old-time greats as Adam SmLith, Karl Marx, nonmonetary perquisites, health, information, Simmel, andMaxWeber, all ofwhom security, nutrition, material possessions, land, Georg looked at inequality in categorical and relationpolitical influence, andfinancial wealth. Then al terms. In that sense, the program is reacinvestigate causal connections (in both directionary. It reacts to the static individualism of tions) between these advantages andwages. more recent work on inequality, andyearns for Study creation and transformation of boundaries long-lost dynamic, relational thinking. Let us andcategories directly. Forexample, investigate itdialectically: That earlier body of thought how effective boundaries among racial andeth- take as our thesis, theindividualism ofrecent niccategories are changing indifferent republicsserves investigations as ourantithesis, a renewed relaofthe former Soviet Union. tional realism asour synthesis. Searching for just Clarify causal relationships between individual syntheses, students ofinequality canmove and categorical variation in performances and such more confidently intothe twenty-first advantages. For example, inquire towhat degree much andhow membership indistinctive ethnic-relicentury.
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Inequality in Social Capital

Duke University

NAN LIN

Recently, social scientists haveused notions of (Schultz 1961;Becker [1964] 1993;Bourdieu capital (e.g., human capital, cultural capital, and 1980;Lin 1982;Coleman 1988;Burt1992; 1998). Thile the basic definition ofcapsocial capital) as organizing concepts tounder- Portes employed inthese theories isconsistent with stand the mechanisms that affect life chances of ital that in Marx's "classic" analysis (Marx1867), individuals andthewell-being ofcommunities

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