Attitudes towards inequalities, stratification legitimacy, and social experience during transition

This paper analyses legitimacy of poverty and wealth in six countries. In t he first part various theories about perceptions of poverty and wealth are presented. The theory of dominant and challenging stratification ideology h as been the most influential so far. The dominant stratification ideology i s promoted by conscious legitimacy-supporting behaviour of societal elites and operates with individual explanations of inequalities. Therefore, the d ominant stratification ideology should be shared by virtually all members o f society. This notion is then complemented by challenging beliefs stemming from personal stratification-related experience. Negative social experienc e (unemployment, economic insecurity, etc.) as well as influential socializ ing groups (unions, liberal political parties) promote structural explanati ons. Split-consciousness theory then predicts that both individual and stru ctural perception can coexist at individual level. Based on some previous research I argue that the latent structure of percep tions of poverty and wealth is more complex. Using data from International Social Justice Project I found that people distinguish between merited, unm erited and fatalistic types of poverty. Merited poverty corresponds to what researchers usually call "individualistic explanation" (e.g. loose morals, a lack of effort), unmerited poverty is due to discrimination, failure of the economic system, and lack of equal opportunities (so called structural causes), and fatalistic explanation operates with bad luck and lack of abil ity and talents. Moreover, people structure their explanations of wealth al ong three factors too. Wealth can be merited, unmerited, or based on social capital. Positive individual explanation attributes wealth to hard work, a bility and good luck. Unmerited wealth is a purely negative explanation (di shonesty and failure of the economic system) and social capital sees contac ts, unequal opportunities and good luck as reasons of wealth. Further, I elaborate theories about determinants of perceptions of inequali ties. I show how legitimacy of inequalities depends on individual stratific ation-related experience, group identification, education, and changing soc ial atmosphere, Empirical support for those theories is not unambiguous. It turns out that relating legitimacy to individual and collective stratifica tion experience is a fruitful approach. On the other hand the enlightenment effect of education is hard to generalize beyond the US where it was origi nally developed. Social atmosphere effects are hard to detect because of th e confusion of age, generation and period effects. Final section of the paper discusses strengths and weaknesses of dominant s tratification thesis, challenging beliefs and split-consciousness theory. F irst of all, the analysis demonstrated that perception of inequalities is m uch more complicated than has been assumed so far. Dominant beliefs are les s dominant than it is usually theorized and split-consciousness is by no me ans perfectly split. There is some positive evidence however. In post-commu nist societies we observed certain inertia of the old communist ideology, a nd also some successes in making up new individualism. Dominant stratification thesis fails to explain the struggle over legitimac y of inequalities within the political elite. It fails to acknowledge that poverty and wealth might be incorporated into political discourse and that their legitimacy might be openly questioned. My analysis thus calls for rec onsideration of the dominant ideology thesis. Moreover, post-communist expe rience also leads to a higher appreciation of individual stratification-rel ated experience. Economic development after the fall of communism heavily u ndermined the legitimacy of inequalities. The East-West differential impact of absolute and relative deprivation is also worth emphasizing.