Cross-Cultural Analysis of Stratification with Societal Taxonomies

Explanations about the common causes of stratification among societies often rely upon some form of classification of the societies being studied. Two prominent theories for classifying human societies used in social research are embodied by the works of Gerhard Lenski and Elman Service. Both explanations of differences and similarities between characteristics of societies are centered upon the organizing principles used to order societies. The organizing principle of Gerhard Lenski's ecological-evolutionary taxonomy of human societies is based upon the subsistence technology of a society and the nature of its physical environment. In contrast Elman Service's taxonomy of human societies is based upon a society’s social organization, including its population size and territorial scope. This paper evaluates the explanatory power of these two classificatory schemas in relation to dimensions of stratification systems of human societies using cross-cultural data from the Standard Cross Cultural Sample