A classless society is a society in which no one is born into a social class like in a class society. Distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience and achievement in such a society. Thus, the concept posits not the absence of a social hierarchy but the uninheritability of class status. Helen Codere defines social class as a segment of the community, the members of which show a common social position in a hierarchical ranking.[1] Codere suggest that a true class-organized society is one in which the hierarchy of prestige and social status is divisible into groups. Each group with its own social, economic, attitudinal and cultural characteristics, and each having differential degrees of power in community decision.[1]
Classless societies can be attained through numerous means, such as abolishing inheritance, establishing social ownership, and modeling after social structures as observed in MAREZ, Revolutionary Catalonia, and prehistorical tribes.
- ^ a b Codere, H. (1957). Kwakiutl Society: Rank without Class. American Anthropologist, 59(3), 473–486. JSTOR 665913