Reflect on the above points of view, try to correlate them with real socio-historical processes.
In their totality, social communities form the social structure of society. Sociologists have long tried to determine the main element of this structure. Many of them considered classes to be such an element. The very concept of «social class» appeared a long time ago. Initially, two classes were identified the poor and the rich, i.e. only economic differentiation was taken into account. Later there was a division into classes of oppressed and oppressors. The emergence of classes was associated with political violence. In the XVIII century. distributive theory appeared (economist A. Smith, historian F. Gizo), according to which three main classes were distinguished: 1) owners of land (feudal lords) who receive rent; 2) owners of capital (bourgeoisie) who receive profit; 3) workers who have their labor, who receive wages. In the Marxist-Leninist theory, the main feature of the division of society into classes is property relations.
In modern Western sociology, the concept of «class» is also used (for example, there is a middle class, a class of managers).
But the concept of «strata» (Latin stratum layer) is more universal. The division of society into strata is based on many criteria: income, profession, education, etc.
The social structure of society looks different through the prism of classes and strata. Lets turn to the examples. The two main classes are the workers and the peasantry, and the social group is the intelligentsia. This was the structure of Soviet society from the standpoint of the Marxist class approach. And here is one of the variants of the social stratification of the Soviet society of the 80s. (the groups were distinguished taking into account the following characteristics: power, income level, prestige, education, lifestyle, consumption standards): the ruling class (0.7% of the employed population); management specialists (about 3.5%); creative intelligentsia (1.8%); skilled knowledge workers (18.8%); non-specialist employees (about 5%); industrial working class (22.3%); workers in various non-industrial and social sectors (19%); service personnel (about 13%); agricultural workers and peasants (15%) and other groups.