Of All the sociologists, Marx Weber is the most difficult to compartmentalize in perspective terms as he is neither interactionist nor structuralist. Weber is best defined as a conflict-structuralist viewpoint since much of his analysis is focused on how the structure of an individual’s relationships affects how individuals behave (George & Wilding, 2013). In Marx’s perspective, inequality was viewed in terms of the control and ownership of material possessions and wealth. One critique of this, however, is that it is an oversimplified view ignoring all the forms of inequality in society. Weber explained that it was more complex than that. He alluded to power as the ability to bend individuals to one’s will and it was sourced from social status, education, the strength of the physical, capital and land ownership (George & Wilding, 2013). He came up with a triadic relationship to explain stratification between status, class, and party (Agneessens & Wittek, 2012). Class links to inequalities sourced from market place and capitalism. Party connects to political concepts in a broader sense while status is related to inequalities arising from how people relate and judge each other. Weber explains that organizations are continually formed based on self-interests hence, reproducing social inequality. According to Weber, significant class’ elements include economic and wealth advantage. The increased bureaucracy that comes with capitalism results in status differences between the working class and service providers to capitalism by exercising professional skills like the middle classes (Agneessens & Wittek, 2012).

Weber says that the tendency for individuals to judge others is what leads to status- we value some features and despise others. Doing this to other social categories’ members then we accord a social status. Therefore, status comes from self-affirmation of their social group and denial of another. A group may benefit from a high social status but at the expense of the other. For example, belonging to certain racial groups implies one is worthy, but this disadvantages those from minority groups. Disadvantages may be in the form of meager wages, low occupation status with slow to none development (Pulcini, 2013). Hence, to Weber, status is not a mere personal matter but is something dependent on group attachment.

The culmination of rationalization and industrialization, for Weber, is what he calls the “iron cage” where individuals are ensnared by the same efficiency systems made to ensure humanity’s well-being- rational organizational forms termed as efficient are indispensable (Pulcini, 2013). Even if Marx’s envisioned revolution was to happen, these rational and bureaucratic structures of organization would never seize to exist. Marx believed that social classes would dissolve leading to capitalism’s demise with the gap between the rich becoming so large that it caves in eventually. Weber dismisses this saying more social classes would erupt in a society embracing capitalism (Pulcini, 2013). The class would be dependent on lifestyle and life chances. Characterization of the class would be based on education, accents, leisure habits, locality, and spending; an afterward characterization as “Habitus” by Bourdieu (Susen & Turner, 2011).