Professional stratification, economic inequality and social classes in late Nineteenth-century Brazil. Preliminary notes on the Brazilian imperial classes

ABSTRACT The article presents a panorama of socioeconomic hierarchies in late Nineteenth-century Brazil. Income analysis of social classes underpins these echelons. Within a theoretical and historical approach focused on social class, the article reckons that the Brazilian Empire was relatively egalitarian in terms of wages. A broad expressiveness of the lower classes, rather than a hypothetical robustness of the middle or the upper classes, explains this equality. The analysis of purchasing power and patterns of consumption made it possible to identify the degree of precariousness of the popular classes, as well as the existence of mainly urban middle classes. Lastly, salary data on the upper classes should not hide concentration of wealth, a main characteristic of the Empire’s decay, which was largely due to a polarized structure of slave property.