Lesson 14: The Have's and the Have Not's


Attention

Far more Americans now see their country as sharply divided along economic lines...

Click HERE to read a 2007 article on this topic...do you think that this is still true today?


Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Identify the impact personal social class has on your life
  • Explain the current viability of the concept of the "American Dream"

Teaching

Income and Wealth in the United States

Remember when we were discussing the values in American society.Individual success is a pervasive theme in these values and in our society.

Much of the American society is governed and controlled by economic forces.

Economics, which we will discuss later, has to do with the structures that partake in the process of the distribution of goods, services and wealth in a society. If Economics is such a major aspect of our society, it is not a surprise that individuals with great roles and wealth within our society are highly valued. 

When we consider inequality in the US we can consider the economic inequality. We can examine a person’s income and a person’s wealth.

  • Income is the economic gain derived from wages, salaries, income transfers (governmental aid), or ownership of property.
  • Wealth includes not only income but also property such as buildings, land, farms, houses, factories, cars, and other assets.

Our concern when looking at income and wealth in the US is its distribution, or the degree to which the total wealth of a society is shared by all its members. In the US the trend has been that the wealthy continue to be more likely to stay wealthy and get more wealthy while the poor tend to stay poor and become more poor.

Click HERE to view information on Poverty and the Culture of Poverty

This trend is even more pronounced when you take ethnicity, race and gender into account. Of all the industrialized nations, the US has the greatest disparity of income (the difference between the highest and the lowest income). Some of the reasons we tolerate such great differences in income have a lot to do with the values that are held in America.

The roots of American culture are grounded in hard work and Puritan ethics of saving and prudent living. This has fostered a culture that values individual achievement and rewards it handsomely while at the same time holding individuals accountable for their own failings.

If you consider this difference you will see a different value placed on ascribed status and on achieved status. We make heroes out of those that make it rich on their own, and downplay those who win lotteries or inherit money. On the other hand, we also view and judge poverty in the same way…if we see it as a result of some ascribed status (disability) we may be OK with it, however, if we see poverty as a result of achieved status (alcoholism…in most people’s view) then we do not value them.


Weber and Marx

Two earlier sociologists who had a lot to say about inequality were Max Weber and Karl Marx.

Max Weber Weber examined the interplay between wealth, power and prestige in society.According to Weber…

  • Wealth determined the Social Class in which a person lived.
  • Prestige is the respect or regard with which a person or status position is regarded by others.Those who share similar levels of prestige belong to the same status group regardless of income.
  • Power is the ability to carry out one’s own wishes and goals despite opposition from others.

As you might surmise, the interplay between these factors creates a situation such that wealth, power and prestige become concentrated among a few individuals. However, in a socially mobile society, it also provides for an instruction set in how to move. This concentration of wealth, power and prestige was of great interest to Karl Marx.

Karl Marx Probably most famous as the author of the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx can be called the Father of the Conflict Perspective.

According to Marx, class is determined by the kind of work one does and by one’s relationship with the means of production. Marx felt that people were either part of the bourgeoisie or Capitalist Class (the owners of the means of production…owners of factories, shops, hotels, etc.) or part of the proletariat or Working Class who worked within the means of production (factory workers, counter people and bell hops)

A basic conflict exists as the Capitalist Class wishes to exploit the labor of the Working Class at a profit.Each wants to maximize income to themselves, but increases in one leads to decreases in the other.Thus the basic mechanism for the conflict perspective is that it is unfair that individuals can own the means of production and exploit others. (Now you can probably see why Marx developed Communism as a social-economic order that would eliminate the ownership of the means of production in favor of collective ownership, thus there would be no exploitations.)


Contemporary Applications of Weber and Marx

Current Weberian models outline the US class structure along the same lines of wealth, power and prestige…creating the common labels for the class system here.

  • Upper class
  • Upper-middle class
  • Middle class
  • Working class
  • Working poor
  • Underclass

Our own access to degrees of wealth, power and prestige allow us some mobility (life chances such as health and family ties still play a major role) within this structure.

  • Current Marxian models outline placement in social class in the following manner:
  • The Capitalist Class: Inherited fortunes, own major corporations, are top executives, or own major amounts of stock in corporations.
  • The Managerial Class: Supervisors and professionals who do not participate in company wide decision-making, may supervise the work of others.
  • The Small-Business Class: Small business owners, craftspeople, some doctors and lawyers who may also hire some people.
  • The Working Class: Typically blue-collar workers, unskilled workers and laborers, and white-collar workers who do not own the means of production, do not control the work of others, and are relatively powerless in the workplace.


The American Dream

Below are some resources that you will use to engage in the discussion and class activities outlined below.

Background Essay on The American Dream


Assessment

American Dream Project

TBA