Stratification is a categorization of society into socioeconomic strata, based on their occupation and income, wealth and social status, or derived power (social and political). As such, stratification is the relative social position of people within a social group, category, geographic region, or social unit. In modern Western societies, social stratification is typically distinguished as three social classes: the upper class, the middle class, and the lower class. In turn, each class can be subdivided into strata, eg. The upper stratum, the middle stratum and the lower stratum. Furthermore, a social stratum can be formed on the basis of kinship or caste, or both.
The categorization of people by social stratum occurs in all societies, from complex, state or polycentric societies to tribal and feudal societies, which are based on the socioeconomic relationships between nobility classes and peasant classes. Historically, hunter-gatherer societies can be defined as socially stratified or if social stratification started with agriculture and common acts of social exchange, it remains a question in the social sciences. Determine the structures of social stratification arises from the inequalities of status between people, therefore, the degree of social inequality determines the social stratum of a person. In general, the greater the social complexity of a society, the more social strata there are, through social differentiation.
The world and the pace of social change today are very different from those of Karl Marx, Max Weber, or even C. Wright Mills. Globalizing forces lead to rapid international integration resulting from the exchange of opinions, products, ideas and other aspects of the world of culture. Advances in transport and telecommunications infrastructures, including the rise of the telegraph and its posterity on the Internet, are important factors in globalization, generating a greater interdependence of economic and cultural activities.
Like a stratified class system within a nation, looking at the world economy one can see class positions in the unequal distribution of capital and other resources among nations. Instead of having separate national economies, nations are seen as being involved in this global economy.
