Sociology Study Guide Unit 2 Class & Social Stratification

Class & Social Stratification Key Terms: ● Class/Social stratification - A social order system in which people are divided into sets based on perceived social or economic status. ● Upper class/First Class - Income of one million or more, investors, heirs, and top executives. They have the most money out of everyone in the country and sometimes the world. ● Upper middle class - Income of $125,000 or more, professionals, and upper managers. They make more than the average middle-class person but not as much as the upper class. ● Lower middle class - Income of about $60,000. Lower managers and craftspeople. ● Middle class - Combination of both upper and middle class. Are solidly in the middle as far as economic status. They make much less than the upper class but much more than the lower class. ● Working Class - Income of about $35,000. They work in factories and retail sales. ● Working Poor - Income of about $17,000. Laborers and service workers. ● Underclass - Income of under $10,000. Unemployed and part-time workers. ● Capitalism - An economic system in which individual citizens own and run companies. Usually, a company has an individual owner that makes most of the money while their low-level workers are paid minimum wage. ● Communism - A political ideology in which all resources and industries are communally owned or owned by the government who redistributes to the citizens according to their needs. The aim of communism is to eliminate class. ● Socialism - The transition period from capitalism to communism. In a socialist society, there is a mixture of public and private ownership. The government owns most of the means of production, but some businesses can exist. In addition, a socialist government redistributes resources according to how productive a citizen is by contributing to the economy. ● Means of production - The facilities and resources for producing goods. Communism: ● The father of the modern concept of communism is a German philosopher and economist Karl Marx. His ideas concerning communism can be found in his book The Communist Manifesto, which was co-written by Friedrich Engels. ● Marx formed communism out of a belief that capitalism was a flawed system in which the upper class reaped the most benefits (wealth) from the labor of the working class. ● He believed workers were being exploited because they were being offered low wages in exchange for long hours. The aim of communism is to eliminate class so that no one is being exploited. ● The issue with communism is that it's good as a concept but bad as an implementation. No country has ever managed to successfully turn communism into a reality. Those who have attempted, turned into dictatorships because the state had too much power. This was the case for the Soviet Union and Cuba. ● Communism’s flaw is that it fails to take into account how people are or become corrupted with greed once given power. Therefore, they will not redistribute the resources to the people and will instead use their power to silence dissent. Capitalism: ● Capitalism has thus far been the most efficient economic system. While communism doesn’t allow citizens to accumulate wealth, capitalism allows some to do so. ● The main problem with capitalism is that, as previously stated, workers gain the least from their own labor. They are compensated with low wages while their bosses get to accumulate wealth. ● Another issue with capitalism is that it promotes generational wealth and generational poverty. This means that if someone is born into a rich family, they are likely to maintain that wealth because of inheritance and access to resources. Meanwhile, those born into poverty are likely to remain in poverty. The children of company executives have the most to gain while the children of the working class have the most to lose. Does less pay mean less value? ● It might be easy to think that some jobs are paid less because they don’t offer much value. This couldn’t be farther from the truth being that every job contributes to society in some way and thus has value. ○ For example, teachers, despite being notoriously underpaid, are the backbone of society. Without them, nearly every other career would cease to exist because no one would be teaching the necessary skills. ○ Another example is janitors and garbage people being needed to keep areas clean. Every job has its purpose. How does one end up in the lower class? ● Besides generational poverty, people can end up in the lower class as a result of an economic recession (a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced). During a recession, it is hard to find a new job if one can get one at all. Once a new job is secured, the pay tends to be low or the person cannot be employed full time. ● Other factors include: not having a college degree, being disabled (physical or mental), not being financially stable enough to pursue other options, etc.