THE PUZZLE OF LENSKI'S CURVE

Daniel H. Krymkowski

Rationality and Society, 2000, vol. 12, issue 1, 25-38

Abstract: This article responds to calls for more attention to theoretical issues in the study of social stratification and mobility. As a starting point, I reconsider Lenski's Power and Privilege , the last bold effort to create a general theory of social stratification. One of Lenski's most interesting assertions was that the amount of inequality would `vary directly with the size of a society's surplus'. However, the mechanisms underlying this relation were not specified and, as Lenski himself noted, direct portionality fails to hold when one moves from agrarian to industrial societies. Utilizing game theory and a rate of return model, I suggest mechanisms that account for Lenski's curve (the observed curvilinear relationship between the size of the surplus and the amount of inequality).

Keywords: inequality; Lenski; mathematical models; social stratification; sociological theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:12:y:2000:i:1:p:25-38

DOI: 10.1177/104346300012001002

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