Social Mobility:
Social mobility is one of the essential components in society. It is all about the certain class and where one lies in it. More importantly, it's the process of individuals ascending and descending from different classes through mobility.
This article particularly looks at some the statistics of men in England and Wales of their current and probability of of changing classes. The classes consist of working (blue collar), intermediate, and service (white collar). There is the idea of the inter-generational mobility of leaving behind or staying in the social class that one's family has occupied for generations. Overall, it kind of spoke for itself in the fact that they are not really any drastic movements in mobility and everyone will stay in their class their entire lives or by chance completely fall from grace or go on to glory.
It is also interesting to see that there is no information on women as well as minorities in this sense. I guess they obviously weren't of any importance in 1972 as well as not enough data to translate into some type of statistic, which I feel would make better research for this overall piece. The economy was slightly a little different as in '72 and in England and Wales in comparison to other parts of the World.
I was reminded of this article in looking at the American Dream, if you work hard you can achieve anything. On the contrary of the article, I feel statistics could show even less in the working class and higher amounts in the intermediate and white collar categories. Nowadays, individuals can make drastic leaps and falls in between classes. Currently with the economy, there probably and have been some drops in social mobility, but in the brighter side, in America there lies opportunities to make that leap or missed opportunities to fail.
Finding Work: Some Basic Results
This article looks at the ways in which people find and are hired for jobs. People can find jobs in some of the strangest ways as well as their motives in getting jobs that they want or need. The ways in which were discussed were formal means, personal contacts, and direct application. The purpose was to look at how people found jobs based off of level of job satisfaction, income, origin of job, age, religious or cultural background, and occupational category.
In the different tables, I could see why each came to their conclusion. In the first and third table, people were very satisfied with their method of obtaining their job as well as origin of their job and being directly replaced which can be the traditional approach. I would be as well and to be very fortunate that their method worked out for them.
I had never really thought about different ways to go about finding a job. There is always the typical job of looking for the qualifications that apply to you and pursuing the job. Formal means show the significance and respectability that an employer has when they are looking for employees. I believe that this is the most common way. Personal contact is not as prevalent as it used to be. I remember the saying, "it's not what you know, but who you know" to get you in the doorway of getting a job. It causes conflict that the qualified candidate gets sidestepped because someone who has a good relationship with the employer can get someone they know a job. Yet surprisingly in two of the tables, job finding by age and religious or cultural background, that was the highest percentage of methods used. I can completely understand the religious standpoint, due to the fact that may the employer and those that work there have certain feelings pertaining to this religion and if this friend of friend does not mention it, they couldn't be any reason to have in hiring. I have never know direct application to ever work.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Social Mobility & Finding Work: Some Basic Results
The American Jobs Machine
The American Jobs Machine compared expansions in the job market that occurred in two different decades. One of which occurred between 1963-70 and the other 1992-1999. The study mentioned in the article decided to categorize jobs into ten deciles based on similar salaries. The top five deciles would be known as “good jobs” and the bottom five would be the “bad jobs.” Furthermore, Wright and Dwyer decided to account for race and gender differences. For the 1960s, Wright and Dwyer had run into data limitations, so they distinguished four separate groups: white men, white women, black men and black women. For the 1990s, they separated the groups further: white men, white women, black men, black women with the addition of Hispanic men and Hispanic women.
Wright and Dwyer's analysis found that in the 1990s, the job expansion was very polarized. That is to say, there was a great deal of expansion among the top three deciles, but there was an unprecedented expansion in the bottom one as well. In contrast to the 1960s, there was an expansion that was more along the lines of “upgrading the employment structure.” Essentially, there was expansion that would allow somebody employed at the bottom decile to eventually move up to the third; the fourth up to the sixth; the seventh up to the tenth.
One thing that this study illustrated that I see almost daily is that the job expansion in the 1990s is highly racially polarized. For instance, the top three deciles had a predominantly white expansion, whereas the bottom docile had more black and Hispanic expansion than any of the white expansion at the top. I personally see this (at least the bottom decile) every time I go into a McDonald's restaurant because, depending on the location, the workers are predominantly African American.
Two public policies are suggested that would theoretically close down the “low road” and “help to pave the high road,” and those include raising the minimum wage and strengthening the labor movement. Personally, I do not see how raising minimum wage would do anything other than cause employers to let people go simply because they cannot afford them. However, Wright and Dwyer do mention that increasing the middle range of jobs could be done by making it easier to acquire job skills. The problem is not so much increasing the skilled labor population but also increasing the incentive for employing these newly skilled laborers.
The American Jobs Machine: Is the new economy creating good jobs?
The title asks the question pertaining to the state of the nations attempt at creating good jobs. The article also discusses the base fundamentals on which the so called “American” way of creating more work. Which is completely purposeless, it’s capitalism at its best. In a sense it’s what Wal-Mart does, just on a much larger scale. The American way of employment growth is by “flexible labor markets, which allows employers to hire and fire relatively easily, reorganize employment structure in response to market conditions, and adjust wages as needed, especially in a downward direction.
If the goals of America are to improve the economy and at the same time create better jobs then we as Americans must go about it by different means. The goal is to ride the capitalism train till things turn around. This will eventually probably work, but as far as now is concerned it will continue to send this nations economy in a downward spiral. It’s already hard enough for individuals to get a steady job, and once they finally get one then they can be fired on a moments notice for almost anything The goal of capitalism is to make profit off of other individuals , and the name of the game is to do that at the cheapest price available. Therefore, take Wal-mart for example, they are known for having the cheapest prices from electronics to milk.. There whole philosophy is to get there lower level workers to do more for less. For example, there have been stories about workers getting shorted up to five to six hours pay and if they complain there fired. There able to do this by instilling fear within the work force. A person has a decent job and is afraid to lose it, therefore, they accept the mistreatment in order to continue to support themselves and or their families..
Now let’s factor in race and gender with regards to the economy situation. Minorities in general already have this stigma that the so called “man” is out to get them at any cost. For the fact that minorities represent a large number of the nations poverty. The problem of poverty in America continues to concern the working poor for the fact that they are working, but there working full-time in those types of jobs that pay below the poverty-line. The fact that they aren’t creating many lower- level types of jobs limits there opportunities to improve there job status as well as social status. So it’s already hard enough for Caucasian men to get a descent mid to upper level jobs. Then on top of that, when you factor in that minorities aren’t even in competition with the Caucasians. In fact it’s the white women who have begun to make strides in the economy. They have closed the gap in pay sensationally within the past decade.
So it is my belief that we are moving in the opposite direction of creating new jobs. In order to sucessfuly create new jobs we have to be willing to come half way. By coming half –way, one has to be willing to compromise. A comprise involves two or more parties each giving up something in order to come to an agreement. By that the people with the means of production would have to be willing to give up there get money by any means necessary mentality.So it is my belief that we are moving in the opposite direction of creating new jobs. In order to successfully create new jobs we have to be willing to come half way. By coming half –way, one has to be willing to compromise. A comprise involves two or more parties each giving up something in order to come to an agreement. By that the people with the means of production would have to be willing to give up there get money by any means necessary mentality. The whole capitalism theory is somewhat of a winner takes all system in which always shits on the “poor” guy. It’s pointless to create jobs in which hasn’t any job stability or anything of that nature. If a person with the means of production can hire and fire at will in order to get the most amount of work done at the lowest possible price without consequences then they are going to continue to exploit the system.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Changing Face of Poverty & What Does it Mean to be Poor in America?
If you take a look at the statements that Blank mentions at the beginning, it would seem as if the answer to all the questions is true. However, they’re all false. I think we all perceive poverty and “poor” people as the statements that Blank had stated. These were things that were true in the 1960’s and I think it’s something that our society is still stuck on. We have this idea of what poverty is and who is poor but real poverty in America is a very heterogeneous and mixed group. The way the economy is going now, anyone can be at the poverty level at any time.
Like I said above, we have this idea about poverty and what it means to be poor. This group is extremely diverse not only in terms of race but also with age. Surprisingly, whites have the highest amount of people in poverty but this is only because whites are a bigger proportion of the population. The poor are black and white and Latino and Native American and every other race you can think of. Although one race may have a higher amount of people in poverty than the other, we can’t just focus on one group. We have to think that every ethnicity has “poor” people. Age is also varies in terms of poverty. We fail to remember that families with children with married couples can also be poor (40%). Poverty still remains high for children. This is because of the rise of single-mothers. A single mother with children has the highest probability of being poor. I completely agree with Blank on this because these days you can’t really afford anyting without two incomes coming in the house. How is a mother that has children going to be able to afford everything on their own? It will be very hard to have a good job to pay for bills, the house, most of the time childcare, food, etc.
We not only care who is poor and why they are poor but how long it takes them to escape poverty if they are ever able to. Those families that experience short-term poverty, we are less worried about. The families that experience long-term poverty are who we are worried about. These families experience its most constant effects and feel trapped as if they won’t ever escape poverty. Taxpayers are also worried about these long-term poverty experiences because their tax dollars are going to help these “poor” people. We all know that everyone who is on welfare doesn’t really need it. People take advantage of the government and become greedy. Some of these people are just lazy and don’t want to work. I mean, if I could get free money and not work that would be great! However, I couldn’t bring myself to stoop that low that I have to cheat the system to take away from those who actually need it.
Approximately half those that are ever experiencing poverty, will only have to deal with it for one to three years. About 5% are poor for ten or more years. According to Blank, changes in economics create more poverty than changes in family composition. No one wants to be poor, we’d all like to have money for the things we need and want. Personally, when I happen to see a homeless person on the street I always wonder how they ended up in that situation. You never know if it’s because of a decision they made or if it was a major negative change in their life. Especially with the way the economy is these days, anyone can end up on the streets.
Blank does a good job to uncover the stereotypes and explain the real idea of poverty in America. This article was a good way to show us not to judge the poor because it can happen to anyone. No one plans it and no one wants it.
Maya Federman: What Does It Mean to Be Poor in America?
The answer to this question is simply having cash income below the official poverty line for a given family size. There are seven categories that describe living in poverty: income sources, spending patterns, housing, consumer durables and utilities, crime and neighborhood, health and nutrition, and education. In the first four categories the results are presented by family characteristics. In the last two categories, the results are presented by the individual. Crime and neighborhood has measures of both family and individual characteristics.
The average poor person lives in a family whose income is about a sixth as much as the family income of the average nonpoor person. The nonpoor person usually receives most of their family income from wages, salaries, and self-employment earnings while most of the income from a poor family is from public assistance and welfare.
The nonpoor people will obviously have more money for owning a house than the poor. Seventy-eight percent of the nonpoor people live in homes that they own while only 41% of the poor own their houses. The poor are at a greater risk of being evicted from their home or apartment. These days, this isn’t just true about the “poor” people but also the “nonpoor” families. The way the economy is going, families are losing their homes left and right.
When it comes to utilities both the poor and nonpoor families have access to utilities. Any home or apartment will come with a stove and refrigerator. The only difference is the paying of the utility bills. The poor will have a harder time to pay for cable, water, and electricity.
The neighborhood you live in also has an affect on your safety. Those that live in a poor neighborhood are twice as likely to be victims of a violent crime. Poor mothers have a higher chance than the nonpoor mothers to experience problems in birth and pregnancy. When it comes to education, poor kids are more likely to have repeated a grade and to be expelled from school. However, the poor and nonpoor students both have high expectations that they will attend and graduate from college. Poor students and nonpoor students that actually attend either a 2- or 4- year college is 48% and 70% respectively.
The Changing Face of Poverty & What Does it Mean to be Poor in America?
When reading the true/false statements in the beginning of the article I thought true for almost all of them. I perceive poverty like the 1960’s. The book also contradicted itself and later stated some of those false statements as truths. For example it stated that a majority of those who receive welfare (AFDC) are single mothers with children. This is true, that proportionally to those that are poor it is a small number, but Mrs. Blank worded her statement to her point of view.
People who retired in 1980 received back what they paid into the program in less then 4 years. The government increases in SSI successfully decreased the number of elderly that are poor but will run out in the early 2000’s. Many people including myself have a misconception that poverty is synonymous with welfare. Welfare goes primarily to single mothers with children which is approximately 65% but that is only 25% of the poor. There are more white people in poverty but this is only because whites are a bigger proportion of the population. African Americans are more likely to be chronic poor. Two-thirds of all black people are poor for at least one year. Africans are more likely to be and stay poor. Tax payers don’t like the chronic poor. They believed that there money is being used on lazy people or people that are taking advantage of the system. Most poor only remain poor for one to three years. A majority of poor don’t live in ghettos. Poverty is almost invisible unless you’re talking about panhandlers and homeless. Since these people are most visible we assume most poor live here. The article gave the example of guessing teenagers income levels inside shopping malls. 90% of poor people and 75% of African American poor live outside of ghettos. Most people are never poor. For those who do become poor there are many reasons how/why people get in and out of poverty. The largest for in and out is the earning of the head of the household. There isn’t another large factor for why family fall into poverty. Minorities still face discrimination that limits wages and employment opportunities.
What Does it Mean to be Poor in America? – Maya Federman
There are seven categories that define poverty including: income sources, spending patterns, housing, consumer durables and utilities, crime and neighborhood, education. Poor children have a limited number of books. Children five to seven years old with less then 10 books are considered poor. The poor are more likely to repeat a grade and three times more likely to be expelled from a school. 96% of nonpoor students continue education and 90% are expected to graduate compared to poor student rates of 90% attending college and 83% graduating. The percentage of students of poor families attending college is a lot higher then I expected. It’s common sense that families and individuals with more money spend more money. Families make a substantial amount more then singles do ($8,501 vs. $55, 394). Most people regardless of income have the same access to utilities. For example 98% to 99.5% poor people have access to refrigerators and stoves. Only 3% of students in poor families have computers at home. Nonpoor families are three times more likely to own the house they live in. Only 51% of families that live in houses with two-parents own them. Poor families have a five times higher chance of eviction on their housing. Individuals that live in poor neighborhoods are twice as likely to be victims of violent crime. Poor mothers have 5.5 per 1,000 more infant deaths within the first year. This is related to poor prenatal care. Children under 18 years old have no noticeable difference in how often they go to a doctor per year.78% of nonpoor have insurance compared to 24% of poor.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Gender Gap and I'd rather be rich
This will be divided up into to 2 sections, the first section will touch base on “The gender pay gap” and the second section will touch base on “I’d rather be rich.
The author bases its figures off of “average hourly earnings of full-time workers” from data collected from the current population survey. The questions that are raised are, what role does gender discrimination play in determining today’s wage gap? And what other factors contribute to gender differences in wages? I feel as if the author did a mediocre job producing and analyzing the statistics. Especially when the raw data was taken and variables were controlled for, such as human capital, race, industry and occupation. To get a better understanding of the wage gap I believe instead of analyzing “full-time workers” the author needs to narrow it down more.
Please note this is for hypothetical purposes and these figures are not even remotely close to be correct. Say if in the U.S there were only 4 job categories nationwide: Doctor, Lawyer, Nurse, Teacher. Let’s also say that each job position had only 4 people holding a position. The doctor category had a 2 males working and 2 females working. The mean salary for males was 200,000 and the mean salary for females was 205,000. For the lawyer category there were 3 males and 1 female working, the males mean average was 150,000 and the female mean average was 145,000. The nurse category there was 3 females working and 1 male working. The females mean average was 40,000 and the males were 40,000. For the teacher category there were 2 males and 2 females working, the male average was 45,000 and the female average was 46,000.
By breaking it down like this, I believe a person can get a better understanding of the wage gap, technically in some areas the females make more than the men. But then the author could then control for those variables. Now for the above variables given, lets combine all job categories together for males and females separately. I will do this by multiplying the average by how many workers of that sex are working, then add them up and find the mean.
Males- Doctor-200,000 X2= 400,000, Lawyer- 150,000X3=450,000, Nurse-40,000, Teacher-90,000. Females- Doctor-400,000, Lawyer-150,000, Nurse-40,000=120,000, Teacher-92,000. The average for the males is 122,500 and for females it is 95,250. See now a larger disparity can be seen. So I could conclude the gender wage gap is 27250.
I believe that if the author really wanted to get a hold of the gender wage gap, he would break down the job categories; I understand that he limited the income in his stats, 2 dollars to 200 dollars, but I don’t think that was enough. Or spend time investigating the disparities on why maybe females are not working jobs that pay a lot of money, or even the glass ceiling, then maybe that will explain his “unexplained” wage gap.
Now for this next section “I’d rather be rich” I understand what he’s trying to get at. He does a great job showing the stats, with the net worth, who owns the top part of the wealth. But his kind of stuff really does not interest me one bit. I really don’t care if someone is super wealthy and owns a shit load of things. I just want a normal everyday life. Also in this article I really don’t know what the author is trying to get at, sure he states that “the distribution is extremely unequal,” but I feel like he is talking but not really doing the walking so to speak. I was hoping for an explanation or a punch line somewhere, but I felt deprived of that. He also went into racial inequality of wealth, but failed to tell why that happened too. Or maybe this article was strictly for statistics and not to come up with a theory, but either way I found this one plain and dry.
Conley: Forty Acres and a Mule - Biskner
This article addresses the issue of African Americans problems with accumulating property through institutional racism in the housing market and stereotypes. Renting or owning your house plays a significant role in how much net worth a person can accumulate. This article presents all the problems that African Americans have in accumulating net worth because of institutional racism in the housing markets and stereotyping that has had a historical trend.
He begins to discuss how African Americans after they were freed were promised a mule and forty acres as part of reparations for slavery this did not happen. After the Civil War, white farmers in the south would refuse to sell their farms to blacks even if the whites were not able to plant crops themselves. This idea led to “sharecropping” for African Americans or working and running the farm but not owing any capital….the whites did. What were African Americans supposed to do walk out? They lived off the land and needed its resources to survive while the owners of the land took a percentage of their earnings. Sharecropping lead to black farmers unable to save any portion of their income or even buy some necessities.
Segregation caused by institutions still exists today. Most Americans attempt to own homes in order to accumulate equity. Renting a home or apartment does not allow a person to save as much money as if they owned a home and yet many African Americans live in the inner city where renting is a popular theme. Home ownership in the U.S. is determined by race and place. A large portion of minorities live in the inner city which is filled with abandon buildings, violence, and other factors that decrease property value. Property values often dictate how much money schools receive through property taxes. The place where a family lives determines their “life chances” which could have a long lasting affect on how successful a person can become. An example of this would be how crummy the Detroit Public School System is compared to Grosse Point.
Residential segregation leads to an uneven proportion of minorities living in the suburbs and a chance to own their own home which decreases their chance to accumulate equity. Housing in African American neighborhoods have low value increase compared to white neighborhoods. And if an African American family does manage to buy a home their home is worth less than that of a white family. The reason this occurs is because the dominant group in society (whites) determine the actually value of the house. This also leads to redlining in neighborhoods, stereotyping that leads to” white flight” and problems with acquiring loans in order to get houses in better areas.
I feel that Conley’s article speaks the truth on how housing segregation has a significant impact on the ability of African Americans and other oppressed minorities to accumulate net worth. He gives some interesting statistics about the tremendous gap difference between the incomes and assets of blacks and whites. Overall, I think that this article main point needs to be better known and not just dusted under the carpet.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Gender Pay Gap & I'd Rather Be Rich
Kahn and Blau wrote this article to explore the reasons why the gender pay gap exists but also why it has decreased over time. The reasons considered were: occupation, capital income, race, and industry. They brought up several different reasons that are rarely discussed. Couples may have the wife drop off of the labor market to take care of kids. Women are more likely to work-white collar jobs could have benefited women. Papers addressing the gender gap are always on the act and I found it very interesting that these theorists tried to say this helped women in the workplace.
The recession of 2001 is another reason why the pay gap has decreased. It makes sense that if the job market is decline, pay, and competition increases. A business would be more likely to pick the cheaper employee since this is a capitalist society.
Women are increasing attending college and graduate programs. For the first time ever, in 2000, over 50% of law school admissions were females. Even with all the controlling factors there is a 20% pay gap which is unexplained. I believe some of this is from discrimination but not all of it. In 30 years the gap has been cut in half which is a huge improvement.
I’d Rather Be Rich: Keister set out to explain wealth mobility, whose is rich, how people become rich, and what behaviors help families to change classes upward. I believe she wrote this article to show that a small group of people control a majority of the wealth. That the distribution is unequal and that people are living above their means because of debt in attempt to gain wealth.Wealth is savings, investments, real estate, businesses, homes, and vehicles. Income is one’s salary and wages from work or government payments. Debt or liabilities are mortgages, consumer debt, student loans, car loans, home equity loans, and credit cards. It is easier for individuals coming from wealthy families to stay wealthy because they have inheritances, educational, and occupational opportunities. There are other factors such as occupation, marriage, children, education, and savings that interact.
Wealth also gives people financial comfort in case of an emergency or unemployment. A small percentage of people own most of the wealth. There are more millionaires now then there were in the past. The rich are only getting richer.
Families are becoming wealthier over time. Their net worth is growing from $239,110 in 1989 to $325,180 in 2001. The stock market has a role in wealthier for American households. It was uncommon for middle class families to have stock in the 70’s and 80’s but it is now common practice. Families owned more houses in 2000’s because mortgage rates were an all time low.
Debt has also increased. A large number of students have student loans. It isn’t uncommon to see people working to pay student loans off for five to ten years after college. People are living above their means buying a bigger house or a new car without thinking about the long term consequences. If people are really serious about gaining wealth then they should invest in getting a higher education rather then the newest car or clothing. People are trying to look and act like the upper class without the means to support it. This reminded me of Veblen and his leisure theory.
Too much of the total wealth is controlled by a small proportion. It is going to take determination and effort for people to gain the wealth they are striving for. Kiester didn’t give any suggestions or resolutions to solve this problem.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
What Americans Had: Differences in Living Standards
Claude Fischer and Michael Hout wrote, with impeccable evidence, about the differences in living standards of Americans. They wanted to see if the gap in living standards had improved or gotten worse over time. They looked at annual incomes, financial assets, consumption, and at their subjective evaluations of their own economic positions and the differences among race, region, and education. I found the statement, “Foreign visitors have long remarked on the political equality among Americans-at least, among free, white, male Americans” ironic, this is saying there is really no equality at all. Americans are more than just the white males.
One thing they talked about was the large physical gap between the very rich and very poor. They have almost zero contact with each other. The very rich live in their air conditioned houses, drive their fancy air conditioned cars to work, park in the air conditioned parking garage, take the air conditioned elevator to their air conditioned office until it is time to leave through the same air conditioned path as before. This population isn’t even breathing the same air as those who are begging for food or bus fair on the streets below their office. They are so close yet so far away. In addition to this, as Fischer and Hout point out, Americans live in class-segregated communities when you venture outside the big cities.
They show how the income gap has decreased and increased throughout the years in helpful graphs, and while this, like reading a book, helps a little to understand the “gap,” I feel a more impactful way of reading the gap is to actually get in the middle of it. This past summer I worked for Habitat for Humanity of Isabella Co and I was able to see people travel up in “status” just with home ownership. As Fischer and Hout tell us, “The single most critical “good” Americans own is also their single greatest investment, a home.” Home ownership rates have stayed relatively flat over the years, as opposed to the slight raise in income. Homes are both an investment and a consumption, which will make things tricky for new homeowners.
In conclusion, after reading What Americans Had: differences in Living Standards, I see that although other nations, and even ourselves, view the United States as being one of the nations as more equal than others, the truth is quite different. But we like to lie to ourselves now don’t we.
The Evolutions of Top Incomes AND Inequality of Wage Rates, Earnings, and Family Income in the U.S.
Both chapters, The Evolution of Top Incomes and Wage Rates, Earnings, and Family Incomes, deal with variations in incomes and inequalities associated with those incomes. First, The Evolution of Top Incomes, talks about the income and wealth distribution, mainly focusing on the top income earners and the fluctuations of their wealth. Most of the fluctuations on the top income earners was due to the top 1%’s fluctuations, which in turn effects the rest of the top. From 1916 until the 70’s, the top incomes (.01%) were made up of mostly capital income, with business income and wage income following. After that, salary incomes have become what is making people wealthy at the top. This is because of a decreased concentrations of capital income, not a decline in the share of capital income in the economy as a whole. In other words, the most wealthy is still the most wealthy, just from another source (salary instead of capital). This is explained by the fall in top capital incomes due to the war and great depression.
Income inequality dropped because of the shocks to their capital holdings from 1914 to 1945 (destruction, inflation, bankruptcies, and the effects of financing the wars). Top capital incomes also did not recover, which is attributed to the start of progressive income and estate taxation. So, the more you made, the more you were taxed. Add that into trying to recover from all of the things going on in the world, and things start to change. This also gave others a chance to rise up because of the increase of top wages. The working rich were then at the top of the income hierarchy. Top wages though did not increase in the entire world, but only in English speaking countries. Three ideas of why were discussed, but none of them were said to be convincing. I believe that when you take all 3 ideas (technological progress, impediments to free markets due to regulations and unions, and the increased ability of executives to set their own pays) and add them all together makes more sense in explaining this. Not one exact thing will change the entire economy and distribution of wealth. All of these feed off each other to make a certain marketplace unique.
The second chapter, Inequality of Wage Rates, Earnings, and Family Income in the Unites States talks about something a little different. Discussed is the changes in inequality of 4 distinct income concepts: (1) Individual Wage Rates, (2) Individual Family Earnings, (3) Family Annual Earnings, and (4) Family Income Adjusted for Family Size. Number 1 and 2 focus on labor economics, stating that changes in distribution of wage rates reflect changes in labor supply and labor demand. Also, public policy analysts were interested in changes in the distribution of well-being and changes in poverty, which has to do with family income inequality.
I think Gottschalk and Danziger made sense in what they explained through their research findings, but I think they made it more difficult to understand than what it was. While reading it, it would click at first, then when they went into their explanation of the research, it seemed like they just repeated everything over and over making it confusing, and then in the conclusion they then repeated what they originally said again. To summarize, there is inequalities in all of the 4 concepts listed above. Male wage rates inequalities were increasing because of technological changes, foreign competition, changes in wage-setting institutions, and changes in governmental regulations. This in turn, effects all of the other factors, such as family earnings and incomes. To counter these effects though, would be the hours of work the individual did. If he had a lower wage, then he would work more hours, which still made a high inequality in wage rates, but a lesser inequality in individual earnings. The same is said for the women. They had less inequality in wage rates, which made the family earnings inequalities lesser. And lastly, if the male had low wages, someone (the woman) could work more hours or simply begin working to offset the lower amount of money they earn. So one cannot rely on just one concept to explain inequalities, because they all influence each other. These rates of inequality also fluctuate durin recessions and recoveries, which piggybacks off from the previous chapter, explaining how the war and great depression effected incomes during that time.
Another concept that was discussed was of family earnings inequalities. This to me was the most obvious. The authors describe the concept that family earnings depend on everyone working in the family, and males with high earnings tend to marry females with high earnings, increasing the inequalities in family earnings. This to me was stating the obvious. If a rich male doctor married an female gas station attendant, and then a rich female executive of a large company married a garbage man, their incomes would generally be more equal. But it doesn’t work that way, which is why there is that inequality in the first place. This also had to do with another obvious explanation that was given: increased wage inequalities of the 80’s reflected an increase in returns to education. Those who went to college were paid more than those who didn’t, adding to the income inequality. I just felt that a lot of the chapter was common sense, and it was made into a complex thing which made it more confusing, making me second guess what I already knew, just for them to tell me that was what they were explaining in the first place.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
De Beauvoir: The Second Sex (Facts and Myths)
The question that was raised in this piece was a very important issue. De Beauvoir brought up the issue about how men have always been dominant over women. He wanted to find out what caused this and why it has continued for so long. He goes into depth discussing what roles men and women have played over the years and what exactly it was that deemed men more powerful than women.
I don’t really think there’s any question as to why De Beauvoir wrote this. I think that it’s because it was a question that I’m sure many people have been curious about for a long time. He made very good points throughout and was very easy to follow. De Beauvoir makes the statement that men are superior because they are the sex that kills rather than the one that brings forth. Men remodel the earth, creates new instruments and shapes the future whereas the women just support the things that they do. I thought that when the author made the point that women have never really set up values in opposition to males and never really challenged what men have done. I agree with him when he says that there has never and still isn’t true equality between the two sexes. Society has proven this by giving men higher wages when they are doing the same jobs and are equally qualified for jobs as women are.
There was only one part that I thought De Beauvoir was off. He said that women have set off certain events throughout history but they were mere pretexts rather than agents. I felt as though this was kind of a bold and unfair statement. It makes it seem as though they may have put the ideas into the minds of men but it was the men who carried out the actions that solved problems. I think that it is unfair for him to take the credit away from women. They may be superior to men but a lot of women have accomplished huge things and it is unfair for him to take away that credit.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Ortner - Is Female to Male as Culture is to Nature
Is it true, fact or reality that women, even though society is suppose to be living in a age where they are equal, still are treated differently simply because they are women? I believe Ortner is trying to make a point similar to this. She is arguing that in all societies, cultures and within different world views the socially constructed view of a woman is as a lesser in society. Ortner uses two passages in the beginning of her article that I feel are powerful and helpful resources to use while looking alongside her article. The first states “the universal fact and the cultural variation constitute problems to be explained” which I feel sums up the argument Ortner is trying to make throughout her article (67). There is a huge problem within all societies when it comes to the treatment and reasons for the unequal treatment of women, even though women can now get good jobs, an education, marry who they want and can be proud to be a single career women at the age of 40, it does not guarantee equal pay, equal treatment or equal respect.
These are problems that are rooted in societies and that date back long into history. Still today a woman can work the same job, have the same or higher education as a man but yet is paid less for her ‘human resources’. I believe Ortner uses an example from Chinese society very well and it represents the second point of the problem. More than just using Chinese society she describes Taoism in Chinese society, which has been present for many decades, and how the yin and yang represent equal female and equal male working harmonies and as one (Ortner 68). Ortner examples that it seems simple, functioning and practical in society but one must look deeper to see what really goes on between inequality in society and the treatment of females compared to their male counterparts.
With that being said I can do nothing else but agree with Ortner and her statements about the problem being a universal and socially constructed way of viewing men and women; men and women simply will only be equal in theory but in practice the constructed differences will cause unequal treatment in all cross cultural societies. Because of that the problem may never be fixed unless we dig up the roots society has constructed and rework women into the picture. Ortner searches for an explanation to the problem above and explains how the biological point of view is there but is rarely used as sound proof because all though it is obvious women and men are different, can biology really cause the inferiority problem within society? My personal opinion is that Ortner is on the right track because biology can only make up so much of a person and the second half, the half I feel is used more often in society than the biology, is the learned nature of an individual. Without nature teaching individuals that girls play with dolls, cook dinner, clean and boys play with trucks, fix car and mow the lawn individuals would know and understand sexuality differently. Ortner states that “every human being has a physical body and a sense of nonphysical mind, is part of a society of other individuals and an inheritor of a cultural tradition, and must engage in some relationship, however mediated, with “nature,” or the nonhuman realm, in order to survive” this relationship we make with society is learned, taught and continuously spit out over and over again and has been for years (71). Like I mentioned before, I believe, this relationship will never change because society feeds off of creating differences among males and females. How would society look if we were never taught the differences between sexuality and only taught the biological differences that make up the male and female?
Agreeing with Ortner comes easy when you look out into the world and see first hand what she is talking about. She puts it perfectly when she talks about society devaluing the women, putting her down in a way that is hidden but obvious (Ortner 72). We socialize, make different social status and different social stratification between men and women by using nature to create culture and. By doing this, I believe, Ortner is trying to say we are keeping society pure yet complex. She is saying that the things we are taught in nature and see in nature reflect culture because we focus on relaying traditions, messages and patterns that keep culture strong while maintaining the status quo. Nature is so pure yet societies have used it to formulate their ideas of the world at large.
Not only that but Ortner states that women are closer to nature in the scene that their bodies were made closer to nature, perform more task like nature and their social roles of mothering and creating life reflect nature more so than males. She goes on to states that the males body is made to focus their creative energy in something other than being a mother and reproducing, like what is seen in nature, that is why it might be easier for society to devalue the women because she only uses, or should only use, her energy in the home or in the set roles of being a ‘housewife’ like society has taught her. The context in which a woman lives in society is different than a man as well; women focus on the struggle and conflict in and between home and family. Ortner argues that we as women see the social inequality that takes place, know that we are treated differently but do not do anything to prevent it so we are, in turn, creating the social struggle for equality because we keep dealing with the male driven bullshit that is feed to us as children. Culture and nature are two different realms within society and as long as that is true men and women will be described and represented differently. How do you place value on something that is so different yet so much the same? Society has separated the man and the woman for a reason and the gap is huge but at most only socially constructed so there can be more than biological reason that separates the two sexes (Ortner 80). Because of this separation women and men will value different things, have different morals and be responsible for different roles in society. Women will not be treated as equals until men and women are taught that the only difference between them is their biological background and until they only are taught that there is going to be conflicting problems when it comes to equality.
Women and men must be taught by society that they are equally the same within society and can do the same kinds of activities. Societies universally need to teach similar values, roles, morals to men and women. These new constructed views of the man and women will then need to be carried with them for the rest of their lives so they can teach it to the next generation and so on. Ortner clearly states that until that happens there is going to be a rift between society, males and females and it will keep causing conflict until the root problem is fixed. I end this with the last quote that I feel is important to the argument at hand and show that women are inferior but maybe only because they are different and misunderstood. Ortner says that “Yes, women have certain powers and rights, in this case some that place them in fairly high positions. Yet ultimately the line is drawn: menstruation is a threat to warfare, one of the most valued institutions of the tribe, one that is central to their self-definition; and the most sacred object of the tribe is taboo to the direct sight and touch of women” (70).
The Second Sex (Facts & Myths?) by DeBeauvior
I found this article to be at times intriguing and at other times I wanted to laugh at how stupid some of the information and reasoning was behind the viewpoints of the author.
I feel as though the general point of this article was to set up the understanding for the history of women in not only the United States, but the entire world from the beginning of history. More specifically, DeBeauvior tries to make excuses as to why women are subordinate to men in today’s world, and if there is some pinpoint reasoning as to why women are subordinate and how exactly they got that way. He discusses the history of women from the era of the cavemen up to women in today’s world and the issue of why women receive less pay on average than men for the same work.
TWhile in the first few parts of the article I feel DeBeauvior has validity in saying that men became superior in the days of the cavemen and the hunting and gathering tribes since men were much more apt to put themselves at risk in front of a wooly-mammoth and women obviously were unable due to the fact they were often times pregnant. Although on the other hand, part of me finds this to be an incredibly ignorant statement. Women cannot be pregnant their ENTIRE life, that’s just ridiculous. Let’s be honest, the article talks about infanticide as a common practice, so why wouldn’t the women just kill their baby and get on to providing for the tribe. So I am at a crossroad as to agree or disagree if this was a major turning point in the power struggle between men and women.
DeBeauvior goes on to talk about how the men must provide for the women in order for the women to reproduce. This is where the wording became jibberish to me and all I could take from the next few passages was that men chose to engage in the dominate activities such as hunting so as their status in their tribe would increase whereas women were bound to their bodies and childbirth and could not increase their status by giving birth and thus they were stuck in their current sucky position in society.
Going on, I found some interesting connections between DeBeauvior’s talk of feminism and the last class discussion from DuBois and slavery. I find that when DeBeauvior talks about women’s futures being “man-made” I feel as though it was true for the slaves. While women had a lot of the same privileges of men, they were unable to do anything with those privileges to be taken seriously. When the feminist movement for the right to vote came about, it was the women who started the rally, but the signature of a man who finally made it possible.
One point of this article that really irked me was the fact that the author continually was usuing names of women who I’m guessing are old as dirt since I had never heard of any of them, therefore, the article did little to tie together the ideas he was conveying to me. A name from the 20th century probably would’ve been helpful.
Another point DeBeauvior made that made me want to slap him was the point that he stated that women are good at “culture”. In my opinion, this was his sugar-coated way of saying that women are good at “pretty things” and just fabulous at making their homes pretty and that is what the men would turn to the women for. That was bullshit.
Finally, DeBeauvior finally makes a final good issue of comparing the men and women and putting them into the two castes that society has made for them. Women are still observed today as “spinsters” if they’re not married by a certain age or “questionable” if you’re a single mother. This is something that really irritates me and I was glad to see was still an issue to DeBeauvior. The constant stigma that is attached to single mothers is one that should be changed so that those women who made the choice to give another person a chance at life are venerated rather than shunned in society.
In conclusion, the article seemed a bit stiff, but made some valid points if you dug deep enough. Women do need to make a change for themselves especially in the area of receiving equal salary rather than simply becoming complacent with the inequality in society.
Is Female To Male as Nature is to Culture?
I thought that this was an interesting comparison between how males and females are perceived and treated and how that compares to the way that society acts towards nature and culture. It was something I had never thought about before but it seemed to make sense. What Ortner says throughout this article is that the way our culture and cultures all over the world think of women is all very similar and it is all in a subordinate (and negative) way. In the beginning of the article she talks about how in China the Yin-Yang is supposed to represent men and women in an equal way but the culture itself focus on patrilineal descent
One of the main points that she makes in this article is when she talks about nature and culture. She says that in almost every society people think of culture as being superior to nature. People believe that they can “socialize” and “culturize” nature. She then goes on to compare women to nature and men to culture. She says that women are more natural because women are involved in more activities that are natural such as giving birth and developing and baby inside of them. Because of this, in some cultures women are not allowed to do certain things during menstruation, because they are looked down upon at that time, whereas men do nothing comparable to that. Ortner also talked about one culture that placed special value and pride a doll that was not allowed to be handled or even looked at by women. Another way she said that women were more like nature was because they were involved in only very low levels of culture such as raising young children and maybe even formally teaching them up until a point. Something interesting that was mentioned was when she said that most teachers in younger grades like kindergarten and say… though elementary school are mostly always women but when you get to the college level they are almost always men. The same thing goes for cooking. Women are perceived to be the ones that stay home cook meals for the family because they are already home taking care of the kids, so its more convenient for them to do it, but when you get to the level of cooking in 5 star restaurants the top chef’s are almost always men. Women are involved in only low level cultural activities. Women are more “rooted” and they spend most of their lives involved in tasks that are really meant to benefit other people and not themselves.
She says that men are more involved in culture because they do not have the same ties to production of future generations or the rearing of children that women do. Because they are so free men they can be “generating and sustaining systems of meaningful forms by means of which humanity transcends the givens of natural existence, bends them to purpose, controls them with interest.”
She talks about how Chodorow says that men and women’s relationships are like nature and culture. Chodorow says that “woman’s relationahisp tend to be, like nature, relatively unmediated, more direct, whereas man not only tends to relate in a more mediated way, but in fact ultimately often relates more consistently and strongly to the mediating categories and forms than to the persons or objects themselves.
At the end of the article Ortner says that she thinks that men are women are equally as much like nature. Women aren’t more “natural” then men but she does agree that there are ways that women appear that way. She says that there needs to be social change from both men, women, and our institutions and society. Big changes need to be made not just little things here and there will clear up the inequality that women face in society today.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The Problem of the Twentieth Century is the Problem of the Color line
In this passage Du Bois elaborates on the problem with the color line in a narrator point of view. Which, in 1901 he was 32 years old, and noticed that the main problem in the 20th century was the color line. During this era Du Bois stressed that during that time, Negros looked forward to three things, 1) peace, 2)progress, 3) the breaking of the color line. Although, the only thing to ever come out of those wants at that time were, war, hate, the revolt of the colored peoples and the fear of more war. The 15 million citizens of the United States who are descended from the slaves, brought here between 1600 and 1900 formed in 1901 a separate group because of legal enslavement and emancipation into caste conditions, with the attendant poverty, ignorance, disease and crime.
There were 7 things Du Bois focused on, which were the 7 different wants. The wants were education, right to vote and civil rights; work with adequate wages; housing in a decent living area; a free press; and social equality. Education in 1901 was in perilous condition, despite what anyone said, civil rights were oppressed, there was NO right or opportunity to work at an income that would allow for one to live a standard life, living situations were typically in the slums or ghettos with high violence rates and disease infested areas, the press was poor, few papers, and there was no social equality, Negros were not even allowed to stop in a decent hotel, or eat in a public restaurant. They weren’t allowed to do the things that a white person were allowed to do.
Although, there has been advancements, and there is no question that progress has been made over time. Leaders like Booker Washington, Martin Luther King Jr, and Jesse Jackson have all helped and encouraged the positive outlook on things. The Niagara movement, which occurred in 1906 and the NAACP in 1909 were two things that really brought this issue to everyone’s attention. First off, education, today everyone gets the opportunity of education, and higher education. Secondly, civil rights was a great advance, violence was down. Third was the right to vote, the 14th and 15th amendments made sure that there were now laws in the constitution, not to be taken away. Fourth, was the work force. Although still pay wages are not completely equal, not just among African Americans, they are still down with women as well. Housing, still a little poor, but with time we have seen advancements, still not perfect though. The free press had improved greatly compared to 1900, news coverage and circulation. And finally, social equality, which is still the ongoing issue today. Although we have seen many advancements with laws and regulations to prevent social inequality from happening, it is still one of the largest issues the United States still faces today.
In modern day some of these issues have diminished, due to the fact that we are forced to come together, but those seven things that Du Bois really focuses on, still to this day do affect the way things happen in our everyday life and society.
Pecuniary Emulation - Veblen
The economic bears that character a struggle between men for the possession of goods is the result of private property, even in slightly developed form. This comes to show that man strives to better their status and life by looking to who has the better status and life, which happens to be the upper middle/upper class in society. Industrial efficiency is presently carried to such a pitch to something appreciably more than a bare livelihood to those engaged in the industrial process. Economic theory often talks about the struggle for wealth on this new industrial basis for competition for an increase of a more comfortable lifestyle. Private businesses make it more difficult to compete for higher/better wages, thus making it more difficult for people to try to make a better more comfortable living.
The end of acquisition and accumulation is normally held to be the consumption of the goods accumulated, whether it is by the owner or the household attached to him. Consumption may be conceived to serve the consumer's physical wants and comfort. The latter class of wants being served indirectly by an expenditure of goods. The possession of wealth insists on honour. In a community where nearly all goods are private property, the necessity of earning a livelihood is a powerful and ever-present incentive for the poorer members of the community. Veblen is expressing the fact that wealth equals power and if you do not have wealth you do not have honour.
Exceptions to the rule are met, especially among people with strong religious convictions. As possession of property becomes the basis of popular esteem, it also becomes a requisite to self-respect. In any community where goods are held in severalty it is necessary, in order to his own peace of mind, that an individual should possess as large a portion of goods as others with whom he is accustomed to class himself; and it is extremely gratifying to possess something more than others. As this happens though, the standards of wealth and living change, and forces individuals to keep having to upgrade and obtain more and more wealth to stay content. As long as the comparision is distinctly unfavourable to himself, the normal, average individual will live in chronic dissatisfaction with the present lot. People will always need to have more.
Under the regime of individual ownership the most available means of visibly achieving a purpose is that afforded by the acquisition and accumulation of goods. Among the motives that lead men to accumulate wealth, the primacy, both in scope and intensity, therefore, continues to belong to this motive of pecuniary emulation or in other words the jealousy of money.
Of Our Spiritual Strivings/ The Problem of the 20th Century
W. E. B. Du Bois begins his essay Of Our Spiritual Strivings with a question “what does it feel like to be a problem?” Du Bois is referring to the everyday struggles of African Americans during slavery and in the years following. African Americans were treated as property not people and because of this struggle Du Bois says that American negroes learned to adapt a double consciousness. The African Americans in early United States history were essentially two different people, an American, and a Negro. They learned to look at theirs elves through the eyes of others and they were constantly battling with the conflicting views of Americans and Africans. For the negro has much to teach the American and the American has much to teach the negro. One of the main differences between African Americans and whites was that whites did worship freedom they way that African Americans did. Du bois said that slavery was the “ sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrow, the root of prejudice.” The white man could not respect freedom the way that a negro could because he never had to strive for it. Emancipation was the only aspiration that a black man could have and even after it happened segregation and racism flourished throughout the states. Negroes had to attempt to compete in a white dominated culture with little to no resources. The striving for freedom even after emancipation is what fueled the African American spirit.
The next passage by W. E. B. Du Bois was entitled The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line which explains some of the main struggles for African Americans after emancipation. Du Bois says that there are 7 different problems that they faced when trying to assimilate into a dominantly white culture. The first was education, in 1901 only one third of African American children were attending school. This was breeding a ignorance amongst the negroes, without education they could not obtain work or literacy and would not be able to compete with whites. The next problem that Du bois wanted addressed was civil rights and voting privileges. Negroes did not stand a chance in the judicial system and had no way to sway politicians views because they had no right to vote. Another problem was that African Americans were not paid equally and therefore could not work for a modern standard of living. They were also desperate for freedom of press so that they could establish a paper that would help them express their concerns to members of society. They also wanted equal housing oppurtunites that were free of segregation and lastly they wanted overall social equality. He says that this is the main problem of the 20th century. Even today there are still social inequalities that exist for people of color and these social problems stem from the idea that there really is a difference between black and white people. Racism is a social creation that exists because we let it exist.
Du bois says that these problems have begun to fade because of modern democracy because it forces people of different backgrounds to come together on political issues, but there are still indifferences in integration. He says that we must turn the idea of individual profits into welfare of the mass citizen and that that is the only way we can save the world.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Class, Status, Party - Biskner on Weber
Weber built off of Marx's idea that social stratification was a result of ownership of the "means of production" or economic ability but added a social and political dimension to the economic dimension. He moved away from viewing society as a object and viewed it as a series of social interactions. Weber's social stratification in society involved three dimensions which include class, status, and party. Each of these components play a role and are interrelated with each other and helps determine the opportunities an individual will have in society.
Class is the economic dimension in Weber’s formula. Class is made up of people who share three things, “(1) a number of people in common a specific causal component of their life chances, insofar as (2) life chances given by their economic interests in the possession of goods and opportunities for income, and (3) is represented under the conditions of the commodity or labor markets.” In other words, Weber believes that a person’s class is determined by the opportunities available or as he calls "life chances" of the individual or group in order to survive comfortably. This just means that a person working the cash register at Kroger is not going to hang out at the country club that and executive from Ford golf’s at.
Money and capital play a role in determining class, but also the idea of people who own property and those who lack property played a bigger role in determining class. Since people who own property possess large amounts of power because the supply is limited and is the most profitable. Weber then describes the "market situation" which is the class relationship between those who own the goods, rent the property, and those who do not own property. To put it in today's terms the people who own property are upper-class, people who rent are middle class, and those who do not own property and cannot rent are lower class. Weber believed that the class a person belongs to then influences their person's status and power.
Status is the social component in Weber's theory. Status can be related to how respected a group or individual is in society but it is not always linked to property or economic wealth. He believed that the class a person belongs to will shape their status in society. It is common that a person in the upper class will have the highest status in society but this is not always true. In some communities or societies the people with the highest status might not have the most wealth but are respected by others for different reasons such as age, position in the church, or length of residency in an area.
Party or power is the political dimension in Weber's formula. The party dimension is designed to bring people together who share similar ideas or to change or deal with problems from the opposing class as in the dominant and subordinate group model. Power can also be defined as how a person can obtain resources despite being challenged by others. An example of someone who may have a large amount power could be an executive of a large business who has committed a white collar crime but avoids jail time because of his ability to hire a team of lawyers to influence the court system that he is not guilty and eventually gets off. A person with little power would be an a poor individual who lives in the inner city and is charged with a petty crime that ends up getting the maximum sentence.
The point that Weber is trying to get across from this essay is that social stratification involves more than just a person's economic status or wealth like Marx believes. It involves a formula which brings together economic, social, and political dimensions which he calls class, status, and party.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Open and Closed Relationships- Max Weber
Weber talks about how there are different types of relationships. One type is open and he describes this type of relationship as being open if it does not deny participation to anyone that would like to be a part of the group or relationship. On the other hand a relationship will be considered to be closed to the public if participation of certain people is excluded or limited. He also states that the way to determine if a relationship is open or closed can depend on factors that are traditional, effectual, or rational in terms of the values of the relationship.
It is likely for a relationship to be open if the members expect that by letting others join it will lead to some type of improvement of their situation. The same is true if they expect the improvement to occur if the relationship is closed to others, meaning they are interested in having a closed relationship.
Weber goes on to talk about an economic determinant that can frequently be seen in deciding whether to have a closed or open relationship. This factor is the competition for livelihood, most often clients. When the number of competitors increases for the resource people are interested in reducing the amount of competition. This is usually done when one groups takes some characteristic of another group, like race, language, or religion, as a way to exclude them from the competition. They then form what Weber called an “interest group” towards outsiders, which means that although they are in competition with each other they work together to limit the number of others that are able to compete with them. This can lead to the emergence of monopolies. The appearance of these types of monopolies, which are economic, is what leads to cooperative organizations which are closed monopolistic groups that work together to exclude things from outsiders.
These types of relationships, monopolistic, can then take on specific forms when they are formed by people that have shared qualities attained through shared upbringing, education, and experiences. This suggests that what Alan Rudy was talking about in class is true that people with social connections are set for life. That all the people that grow up together, go to the same private schools, and then go on to attend the same prestigious colleges have in an for the career that they want or to be allowed to join these closed relationships. But only a selective few are allowed to join these groups. The ones that are admitted to these groups have to meet these requirements: 1) have completed the proper training, 2) have proven their qualification, and 3) have gone through further waiting periods and met additional requirements. This type of pattern can be seen from the most juvenile groups to the most sophisticated.
With these types of groups, where closed relationships are involved, it is the priority of the individuals that are in the group to do what is in the best interest of the group as a whole not the individuals.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The German Ideology: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Marx is, in this section of the German Ideology, talking about the division of labor into the typical of all society, two classes: the ruling class and the working class. The ruling class is both the material force and intellectual force of society according to Marx. This class has the means of material production and control over the means for mental production as well. The result of this combination of controls is ultimate dominating power of the ruling class over the working class.
The division of labor has been one of the main forces of history up through today. This is manifested in the separations of mental and material labor. One part of this division is seen as thinkers; active, conceptive ideologists who come up with the ideas for the class. The other side is viewed as more passive and receptive, and in reality the active members, who do the material labor, have less time to make up ideas and illusions about themselves and the class. This difference and division between these tow parts develops into opposition and hostility. Also, the existence of evolutionary ideas in a specific period presupposes the presence of a revolutionary class.
Marx goes on to propose that some may separate the ideas of the ruling class itself and attribute them to an independent existence, saying that the concepts of honor and loyalty were dominant during the time of aristocracy (people considered to be in the highest social class in society, who traditionally have land, money, and power) and that during the dominance of the bourgeoisie (social class which owns the means of production) concepts of freedom and equality were the main ideas. He says that abstract ideas are beginning to take on the form of universality, for each new class that takes the place of the ruling class before it is compelled to represent its interest as the interest of all members of the society. This is the ideal form, however, and unlikely.
The making of a revolution included the whole of society against the ruling class. Common interest between all members of the non-ruling class brings them together in unity against “the bad guys.” Revolutions of this type offer opportunities for members of other classes, which although they are not in a dominant position, are no in a position to raise themselves into the ruling class. For example, when the French bourgeoisie overthrew the aristocracy, it made it possible for many proletarians (working class) to raise themselves higher in the system.
In conclusion, the main point I think Marx is trying to make is that ideas for how the society is run come from the ruling class. The rule of a certain class is only the rule of certain ideas, but as soon as the class rule in general stops being the form from which society is organized, this comes to an end. Once the ruling ideas have been divided from the ruling individuals and from the associations which result from a given stage of production, it is easier to understand all the different ideas and concepts as “forms of self-determination” in concept developing in history; “the idea” as the dominant force in history.
The German Ideology - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The class which is the ruling material force of society is also it's ruling intellectual force. Which ever class that has control of material production also has control of the mental production. These ruling ideas are just ideal expressions of dominant material relationships and so the relationships which makes one class the ruling one and the ideas become dominant.
In a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are fighting for control, and where control is shared, the dominant idea has proven to be the doctrine of the seperation of powers and is expressed as an "eternal law"
The division of labour, which is one of the chief forces of history up till now, has been manifested into the ruling class as the division of mental and material labour. So basicly this class has one part that is the thinkers and the other part of the class that are more passive and receptive to the first half of the class and tend to be more active. Inside of this split class can create and develop opposition to one another.
In the course of history, we tend to split the ideas of the ruling class from the ruling class itself and attribute to them an independent existance. During the time that the aristocracy was dominant, concepts of honour, loyalty, etc were dominant. During the dominance of the bourgeoisie the concepts of freedom, equality, etc were dominant. This comes to show that the ruling class itself on the whole imagines this to be so. Each new class that replaces previous classes that ruled before them are compelled and are merely in order to represent its interest as the common interest of all the members of the society.
The class that is making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a class, not as a class but as the representitive of the whole of society. The whole mass of society is essentially confronting the one ruling class. It can do this because, to start with, its interest really is more connected with the common interest of all other non-ruling classes.
When the French bourgeosisie overthrew the power of the aristocracy, it thereby made it possible for many proletarians to raise themselves above the proletariat, but only insofar as they became bourgeois. This whole semblance, that the rule of certain class is only the rule of certain ideas, comes to a natural end as soon as class rule in general ceases to be the form in which society is organized. The conclusion has been reached that history is always under the sway of ideas, it is very easy to abstract from these various ideas, the notion, etc, as the dominant force in history.