Day 13 (16-day format): Class

Class

Why do most americans think they're "middle class"?

Interrogating Inequality

Play Spent!

Watch PBS Frontline: TWO AMERICAN FAMILIES
+ other video
bill moyers article?




6:00 - Attendance, collect Daily Top 5 lists, facilitators confer

6:10 - Discussion lead by (???)






7:30 - Instructor-lead discussion 

What is Bill missing?  Why can't money buy you class, and why does he regret not getting more education? ---> 227

SocioEconomic Status

"Class" implies stratification and inequality...

Meritocracy and the American work-ethic as cultural values

Wealth vs. Income

The state of inequality in America (228)
Stratification determines how resources are distributed in a population. 
Paradoxically, the more resources a society has, the less equal this distribution is.
This short video explains this paradox that abundance causes inequality.

Hunter/gatherers - 1 calorie expended for every 3 calories gained, very little stratification
Horticultural and pastoral - 1:5
Agricultural - 1:50
Industrial - 1:5,000 

Industrial Revolution, Great Depression, WWII, post-war era, Information Revolution and globalization...

Marx and Weber (229)

Marx's dialectical cycle of historyComplications regarding Marx's simplistic view (stock, unions...)

Weber's wealth, power, & prestige dimensions (explains Bill's predicament)



Poverty/homelessness - "opportunities and life chances are not distributed equally" (231)?

Over 10% of Americans live in poverty < $23,000 for a family of 4 (Play SPENT?)
Kids are more likely to be poor than adults, and therefore lack opportunities, education, nutrition, etc... which then perpetuates the vicious cycle of poverty.

Check out the new Frontline special: Poor Kids.  It's the first Frontline made from children's point of view.Meritocracy -------- Class --------- Caste
(13)

CLASS IN THE U.S.A.

• We are becoming less of a “middle-class” society as inequality grows. A small minority have most of our wealth, better education, health, longer lives, etc.
• What are the classes?
  1. Upper class (about 5%)
     • upper-upper class gets their wealth through inheritance (i.e. old money)(a.k.a. "the 1%")
     • lower-upper class may have similar or even greater wealth, but they earned it somehow through their own efforts and abilities
  2. Middle class (about 35%)
     • upper-middle class are doctors, lawyers, engineers, businesspeople who are doing very well in terms of income; they have some wealth and investments that make additional money for them, too.
     • average middle class people tend to have white-collar jobs: they are managers, teachers, civil servants, and even some highly skilled blue-collar workers (tradesmen, contractors).  They usually have a bit of wealth, but it is almost entirely tied up in homes and retirement savings.
  3. Working class a.k.a. "lower-middle class" people (about 35%) are mostly blue-collar or service-industry workers with routinized jobs requiring little creativity.  They get few benefits and have little or no wealth, usually renting or perhaps owning inexpensive homes in poor neighborhoods. Their kids probably won't go to college.  They are vulnerable to illness and unemployment, since they probably lack health insurance and have no wealth to tide them over while looking for work after they lose a job.
  4. Lower class people a.k.a. "the working poor" (about 25%), half of them are in poverty.  If they have a job at all, their job pays very little, has low prestige, and certainly offers no benefits or job security.  They are extremely vulnerable to illness and unemployment, and often rely on social safety nets to meet basic needs.

Domination, Hegemony, and Resistance

Public/hidden transcripts?

Ideology and internalizing the values of dominators, accepting their "naturalness"

A stratification system also consists of the beliefs that support it.

• For example, India's caste system is accepted as fair and just because of belief in dharma (duty), karma, and reincarnation.
• The United Kingdom's old caste system was accepted as fair and just because of belief in predestination and the "divine right of kings."
• The beliefs that allow us to accept our American brand of stratification as fair and just are beliefs such as that people get what they deserve: "rich people are rich because they are smart and hard-working, and poor people are poorbecause they are lazy and foolish."  Social darwinism.

What factors determine resistance/??(236)

Discourse (236)

Brazil?

Do we have an ideology of equality? (238)

Brazil - who do you think you are? vs. do you know who you are talking to? (239)

poor rural whites vs. poor urban blacks?


Problems of identity politics for the poor... (242)

What about 1996 welfare reform?



FOR NEXT TIME :

• Read Chapter 14: Places and Spaces, and prepare your Top Ten list
• 3rd Diversity Encounter due (on the Discussion Board)
• ONLY: ??? prepare to lead a discussion on Chapter ??