Why are modern societies characterized by social, political, and economic inequalities?

Question

Its a question from Cultural Anthropology.

Answer 1

Modern societies are divided regardless profession,trade,community, economical status to get into their own gropings for the purpose of showing their strangeth, to bargain their demands(weather right or wrong) or claim prominency. However one wants to be with anotherone  who understand each other. I t used to exist in old societies too. It shows selfishness of society(made up of induvidals).

Answer 2

I basically agree with the above, I just can't vote yet because I have to be level 2. Essentially, all's fair in love and politics.

Answer 3

I think Rico said it well - as soon as people got together in groups larger than tribes or villages, what we find in history is some kind of hierarchy which implies inequality of some kind.

Still, we could ask, isn´t modern society based on the ideals of freedom and equality, which the enlightenment thinkers thought did not exist in medieval feudal society?  And why weren´t those ideals achieved?

My answer to that would be that freedom and equality are actually purely formal ideals in the domain of law - meaning freedom of contract and equal rights =  the same laws for all, which are the basic values of private law (contract law).

Formal equality of rights leads to material (economic) inequality because if you apply the same rights to different individuals, they will have different effects.

Also, modern capitalism is based on competition, which always creates winners and losers;  and we know that in modern socialism, some people also were "more equal" than others (ie, had material advantages due to their position in the party etc.).

So maybe instead of asking, "why do we have inequalities" we should ask, "what specifically would it actually mean to have "equality"?"  Who is supposed to be equal with whom with respect to what, specifically?!?

I hear a lot of complaining about inequalities, but I seldom hear someone specify what "equality" actually is supposed to mean to them.

It would seem to me that for those complaining about inequalities, it usually means, "take away something from someone else and give it to me" (ie, gimme free lunch)?

Answer 4

Modern societies have so much more products from food to luxury items.  Even our poorest have more than other non modern societies.  Some would suggest that this inequality is somehow unfair.  That is ridiculous and is more about making people envious of others for political reasons.  The question is fraught with misconceptions and bias IMO.  There are economies of scale where people who have good ideas and work hard can produce product(s) that others want and these people become wealthy.  There are other routes to wealth but generally it is because someone took risks.  T

Answer 5

It depends on what you mean by Modern.  All large societies have been characterized by those ills.  Any time we organize ourselves beyond small family or tribal units, we start to run into hierarchies and all the troubles they cause.  And yet, in order to do great works, like build a 3000 mile long wall, or create great technical innovations, we need to come together in large groups.   The US was an attempt to try and address some of these ills, yet even as it was being created, a large portion of its export economy was based on slavery.

Modern archeology says our best current evidence is that the people who built the pyramids weren't slaves, and were possibly quite proud to part of such an important project.  Even so, all these people and the resources they were using could have been much more reasonably used than just to build a giant tomb for one man.