Since the latter 18th century, the starting years of the Market Revolution in the United States, America has always been the country with the largest GDP in the world. The rise of the United States changed the country’s economy, likewise, it disoriented and coordinated the market of the whole world, expanding transportation, banks and money currency, business corporations, growth of cities, developing cultures, and so forth, basically stretching globalization. However, the growth of the country towards all the aforementioned changes in the economy constructed numerous changes in the society, in which social classes grew prominent as the social hierarchy. The film “Inequality For All” by Jacob Kornbluth, highlights income inequality that resulted and is currently resulting in discriminant stagnant social classes that are creating stratification in the society, reflecting the dark shadow of inequality in the United States of America.
The words ‘land of the free’ from the national anthem and the “equality” from the Constitution seem to have been missing in action for a few centuries now and probably losing their way. Diversity in America contributed positively to the country’s economy and reputation worldwide, productivity-wise, in entertainment, education standards, science, technology, and all others except social equality. In regards to Sociology, the country fails to build equality in society in terms of racial equality, gender equality, and the focus of this paper, income equality, and continues to do so as globalization expands. Income Equality does not signify the income amount of everyone, but the distribution of regulations and opportunities that should be equal to everyone regardless of their income. As presented in the aforementioned film, despite being the richest country in the whole world, only one percent of America’s population is considered wealthy, and the summation of the bottom 50%'s income is equal to the net worth of one of the wealthiest people in America. As highlighted in the film, it has been shown that middle, lower, and working-class families have paid a higher percentage of income tax annually compared to the millionaires and billionaires in the whole country. Moreover, it is the middle class and below that keeps the economy running, not the rich 1%. The corrupt system for the income tax is just one of the many ignored malfunctions in the society; like rubbing salt to the injuries of the people below the hierarchy.
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The government controls the flow of the economy through regulations, policies, laws, and other legislations related to managing the country’s market, the international market structure contributes to and affects the construction of the country’s market, called globalization. In sociology, globalization is not limited to the industrial market, but it also expands as it connects to politics, society, and culture of every unit of society, from the biggest to the smallest unit; family. However, the film highlights that the expansion of globalization, such as the rise of technology, has decreased the demand for manpower in companies and has caused some to close. The advancement of technology greatly changed the world of medicine, transportation, education, communication, socialization, et cetera in a good manner. However, the rise of technology, especially production-centered companies, continues to affect the employment rate. An example from the film, technology in companies has caused multiple job layoffs as they rely on production machines instead of production builders. In some cases, the companies that cannot afford the technology eventually go bankrupt, and then shut down, leading to a higher unemployment rate which is directly proportional to poverty.
This corrupt system has and is gradually bringing the high even higher and the low even lower, resulting in poverty. Poverty is not only about the absence of money, but it also includes the absence or, if present, an insubstantial amount of property, access to higher education, healthcare, shelter, security, and other basic life necessities. This may not be the definition of poverty for other people, but this is the reality of poverty. Rich people with wealthy family support have a great advantage to move forward in society, compared to the poor who have to work multiple jobs to supply their needs. Similarly, it also applies to good quality of higher education. Universities require a generous amount of financial support, therefore, only the families of the 1% of wealthy people in America can secure access to higher education, while others have to rely on student loans to have a chance to rise to the hierarchy. Moreover, even a degree can only bring you very few advances compared to a degree of a person with a good background and wide connections. This meritocracy in society has become the cage of the people with low status, attributes, abilities, and achievements, stuck to their place in the hierarchy.
In addition, meritocracy takes control of social mobility or the ability of a person to freely move from a certain social class to another. The social hierarchy, socioeconomic status, in the United States consists of four levels, the higher class, middle class, working class, and lower class, and meritocracy makes it hard for the people in the middle class and below which brings back the topic of poverty. Since the 1870s, children were made to work to supplement the family’s low income to support their daily essentials, which also brings the poor children in a marginalized position from their youth, mainly from education. Lack of access to education was and is the greatest hindrance to achieving the higher or at least the upper-middle-class lifestyle. And this social cycle of higher opportunity for the rich to get richer and the poor to be still poor, or goes poorer, still stretches through centuries up to the present. Meritocracy plays the character of a poisoned apple and cursed spinning wheel in every life story in the society, except for the rich people as they could willingly or unwillingly step down from their current high-class status, although seldomly happens for only a few would be willing to go from high to low.
In this century, the whole world has changed and is continuing to change daily, both positively and negatively. The hope that these changes would lead to a better future for the societies that are yet to come, where the life of people from the middle class and below would not have to go through an overtaxing obstacle course from the land, to the sea and to the sky to have something that a rich man could reach from an arm’s length away, or often are being handed to them. It is no secret that the government develops mistakes and has shortcomings in its country, and although the government has power over most things in the country, society does not consist of politics alone, but also of the cultural, economic, and social spheres, which includes the people. Even though the words ‘land of the free’ from the national anthem and the “equality” from the Constitution are currently lost, concerning the “Checks and Balances” in the Constitution, people's power have the right to speak and to be heard.
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