SOCIAL-INEQUALITY AND FUNCTIONAL-DIFFEREN TIATION - REOPENING A DISCUSSION

Sociology has two concepts for a comprehensive analysis of modern soci eties: the differentiation in strata according to criteria of social i nequality and the differentiation of orders according to functional cr iteria. Today these two concepts are used separately. This article sta rts with theses of Niklas Luhmann on the relation between stratificati on and functional differentiation. Like the discussion of the function al theory of stratification from the 1940 to the 1960s it criticizes t he claim of the more recent systems theory that there is a primacy of one mode of differentiation in modern and in premodern societies. A hi storical analysis traces the relation between the differentiation of o rders and the constitution of social inequality in the Middle Ages, in early modern times, and in the modem age. For none of these three pha ses is a primacy of one mode of differentiation shown to exist. Luhman n is not able to justify his primacy thesis in a theoretically satisfa ctory manner. In a final section the connection between these two form s of differentiation is explored.