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Introduction: Durable Inequality

Durable Inequality is a book written by Charles Tilly in 1998, and explores social inequality and the systemic influences. Four mechanisms, opportunity hoarding, exploitation, emulation and adaptation are utilized to explain how inequality persists. Tilly argues that common differences in race, gender, and class often bring inequalities because we do not account for individual differences. It is also noted that inequality is heavily influenced by institutions and its views of certain groups with different identities.

Opportunity Hoarding      

Opportunity hoarding is one of the mechanisms that causes inequality, according to author Charles Tilly. Opportunity hoarding refers to members of privileged groups having access to resources that have inherent value which allows for progression. This act of opportunity hoarding benefits the privileged in terms of gaining wealth and income through their received resources thus creating inequality among groups. Tilly begins by distinguishing between interior and exterior categories and how they influence inequality. Interior categories are explained as connections or identities that are specific to an institution, such as your position in your specific company. Exterior categories are those that are specific to a person’s identity such as race or gender. While these two categories can remain separate, Tilly argues that they often come together because networks can merge. These different categories that people hold can serve as a way to make things unequal. Tilly raises the example of searching for and hiring employees in personal networks or networks of current employees. This example raises the issue of opportunity hoarding because personal network ties are benefiting from others who are often very similar to them. Being excluded from job opportunities (resources) because you are not involved in a specific network tie reinforces inequality in society.

Tilly utilizes the act of migration as a clear and classic example of opportunity hoarding. As people migrate to different places, they create social ties with others based on shared and common experiences. These ties could turn into niches which create economic opportunities in society. The created network ties allows the creator of businesses to provide opportunities for the community. Through the story of the Mamaroneck migration that Tilly tells, Italians migrated to America, creating communities and networks. The Italian-Americans gave opportunities and resources to their community members, but not to the increasing amount of black people migrating into the area. This act of opportunity hoarding reinforced the idea of community building and giving resources and benefits to those within your social network.

Tilly argues that opportunity hoarding is different from other efforts because often times when resources are valuable, people will create practices that will allow them to remain in control over that valuable resource. Those in power have the ability to hoard, and their motivations are often based on racial or ethnic biases. Being in a power position allows for one to exclude people from opportunities based on their own perception of identities. Opportunity hoarding is related to exploitation (another mechanism of inequality) but different depending on the context. Tilly mentions that opportunity hoarding can be exercised in large corporations with monopolies and in ethnic and kin groups. An important point made is that people often benefit from kin inheritance, but this is still a form of opportunity hoarding. Family services such as glassblowing have often remained within the family as they typically only hire a few outside people to work in the business. Not allowing more outside participants creates a concentration of glassblowing within the one family and opportunities are not extended to those interested in the specific service. Tilly points out that one of the characteristics of opportunity hoarding is that the resources are “subject to monopoly”. Glassblowing, as previously mentioned is a monopoly, and this allows for the exclusion of others from opportunities.

Opportunity hoarding is a form of inequality that bares harm to members of society, but does not seem to be ending anytime soon. As Tilly points out, opportunity hoarding is well ingrained in our society through things such as licensing for businesses and selective recruitment. The government also has a role in this reproduction of inequality as they continue to advocate for existing laws and values that promote the exclusion of others. Although social movements challenge opportunity hoarding (and the other mechanisms) its success is completely dependent upon involvement and commitment of social activists. It is only when they gain power that inequality can be addressed.

Exploitation

Chapter 4 of Durable Inequality focuses on one of the two primary mechanisms of inequality as discussed by author Charles Tilly: exploitation. Tilly illustrates this mechanism by examining the South African apartheid and gender inequality in the United States today. Exploitation generally refers to powerful groups obtaining returns not equivalent to their efforts through the exclusion of others. The South African apartheid is an example of how exploitation can contribute to long-term inequality for an entire nation. The South African government consistently used taxation, deprivation of land and compulsion to drive Natives into labor markets. The white Europeans in South Africa demanded black labor in cities, mines, and farms while continually excluding them from the full return of their effort, leading to a large gap in black and white labor earnings. This discrimination was legalized during the apartheid period, which further uprooted colored Natives from their well-established residencies. The South African state set out to create racial categories that would serve as the basis of these unequal rights and rewards. The “Ethos Theory” claimed that social life depended on the categorization of cultural roots, serving as a support for these ingrained inequalities. Tilly clarifies that opportunity hoarding and adaptation work together to reinforce categorical inequality. Additionally, Tilly outlines seven elements that can be discussed as a way to understand how exploitation promotes inequality in rewards from work specifically. These elements include understanding power holders, their coordinated efforts, deployable resources, command over those resources, returns from those resources, categorical exclusion and the skewed division of returns as compared with effort.

While it is evident that the South African apartheid relied on exploitation to promote inequality, gender, and inequality of income is a current topic of debate that Tilly also explores with regards to the role exploitation might be playing. While this example is less extreme and perhaps controversial generally speaking, inequalities seen between genders in the United States rely on organized social relations and the exploitation of categories of people as opposed to individual based experiences.

Emulation

Tilly’s chapter of emulation of opportunity hoarding is descriptive and inquisitive. He discusses the effects of nationalism on opportunity hoarding and how it can force non-nationalist or refugee people into a challenging position in society. The nationalist view allows their dominance and prestige to continue to keep them at the top of society, whereas the people of lower caliber and social status get the short end of the stick. Emulation and adaptation feed off each other, according to Tilly. When one group brings cultural or social ideas into another group, they are copying, but also adapting to the changes brought upon them.

Emulation multiplies inequality and opportunity hoarding, and Tilly noted that the different organizational structures are often homogenous and reflect one another. Tilly strongly identified emulation in his book. Emulation provides a feeling of sameness across a lot of platforms and social norms, which is evident in a lot of aspects of opportunity hoarding. This is apparent in the realm of opportunity hoarding because a group of wealthy individuals holds resources for their children or acclaimed heirs, and others follow suit. It becomes a constant cycle of hoarding.

Opportunity hoarding happens through health care as well, shown by the nurses and physicians in Tilly’s sixth chapter. People have emulated the way these prestigious positions have come to use their power and authority to gain more money and wealth. This is where it becomes a concept that is detrimental to society. While the rich continue to hold onto resources and make their services harder to come by, the poor continue to struggle.

Adaptation

Generally, adaptation follows the mechanism of emulation, but they augment each other. They are broad terms, but the relevance of adaptation to social inequality is as the process of people accepting unfair conditions that have been brought about through emulation, according to the circumstances of their nation/area. These categorical inequalities can include worker benefits, government power, etc. Adaptation, along with emulation, aids in the effectiveness of exploitation and opportunity hoarding.

Since territorialism’s beginning, rulers gave prime concern to themselves and awarded elites with opportunities. Once an organizational model like this is in place in a nation or state, people are forced to adapt to their new circumstances from inside or outside the developing nation. Tilly brings up an example in World War I, as European internationalists accepted the nationalist structure but continued to work for more rights and a portion of the state’s resources, positions, etc. They adapted, that is to the inequalities that have been implemented through emulation of other states, by changing their norms to align themselves to the setup of the state. Also, he mentions how the American healthcare system was spread throughout the nation, but changes in its structure ensued to adjust categories and benefits, hence adaptations. Granted, they had nuances based on the different areas and people, as with the case in World War I.

Adaptation has a binding effect on categorical inequality. It takes the unfair conditions that have been imposed by a government system and expresses them to in a similar manner with the normalities of the nation at hand. Emulation causes unfair implementations of inequality such as wage differences, power positions, etc., and people adapt, making customary aspects of their everyday life. It is a process that takes place sometimes without the victims realizing, but once they become comfortable with the unfair conditions, it makes it that much harder for society to dig itself out of that hole.

Impact of Durable Inequality:

Although many of Tilly’s works have had much success, it took longer for Durable Inequality to reach its potential. At first, many sociologists could not grasp the true meaning of Tilly’s Durable Inequality; this is mostly because Tilly did not create this book with his usual style of reasoning. Much of his work was based on empirical findings, but Durable Inequality was not. He took more of a theoretical and logical stance. Tilly had planned for the book to impact the stratification system and its scholars, but the piece did not really influence that field. In fact, when Durable Inequality was first released, it was more accepted by anthropologists. It took years for Durable Inequality to be accepted and appreciated by sociologists. But finally, Tilly’s concepts and ideologies were being analyzed in order to attach the significance Tilly had hoped for since the beginning of Durable Inequality.

One of the first reactions to Durable Inequality was a project conducted by historians Michael Katz, Mark Stern, and Jamie Fader. Their goal was to analyze a century worth of data on gender inequality. Utilizing Tilly’s mechanisms and model, they showed how gender inequality in the U.S. reproduces itself. This was the start of new acknowledgement for Durable Inequality.

Next, sociologist Douglas Massey enforced Tilly’s ideas in Durable Inequality in his own book Categorically Unequal. The premise of Massey’s book covers a critique on America’s stratification system; it goes into detail on racial, gender, and class inequalities. In addition, it attempts to identify the origin of inequality in America. Massey’s work brought more focus to Tilly’s work and his book became a supplement to Durable Inequality.

To conclude, although Tilly’s Durable Inequality did not have the effect he had wished for in the beginning, as time progressed, sociology caught up to his great work. Now, many sociologists refer to the work in Durable Inequality and they begin to attempt to answer the research questions brought up by Tilly in his piece. Moreover, sociologists are expanding on the mechanisms Tilly introduced and continuing in the path paved by him.