Chapter 7

 The unequal distribution of:  Wealth  Power  Prestige  Due to meritocracy or social stratification

 Structured Social Inequality  Criteria:  Race  Class  Gender  Age  Whatever is socially important

1. Characteristic of society 2. Persists over generations 3. All societies stratify their members 4. Maintained through beliefs (ideology)  Divine right of kings  White man’s burden  Work hard and you will achieve

 1. Slavery  2. Caste system  3. Social class

 Most extreme form of stratification  People are property  Can be bought and sold  Provide labor

 Status determined by heredity (birth)

 Social Class  System based on access to resources:  Wealth  Power  Prestige  Sociologists refer to it as socioeconomic status (or SES).

The Role of Social Class in the “Pursuit of Happiness”

 defining-the-american-dream.html defining-the-american-dream.html  Land of Opportunity  Rags to Riches  Anyone can become rich, famous, powerful  Jobs & education available to all

Born to poor Jewish parents in Brooklyn, New York. First member of his family to attend college. Worked his way up from a salesperson for Xerox Became CEO of Starbucks, and oversaw its rapid growth, leaving him a net worth of $1.6 billion by 2013.

Grew up in tough South Boston. Dropped out of school at age 14. Pursued a life of petty crime and drugs. Wake up call after serving time for assault, and decided to turn his life around. Estimated net worth of $165 million

 Raised by grandmother in poor rural Mississippi  Became a millionaire at age 32 when her talk show went national  Current net worth estimated to be $2.7 billion

 Richest people in U.S. keep getting richer.  Harder to join ranks of 400 wealthiest Americans  Price of entry to The Forbes 400 this year is $1.55 billionThe Forbes 400  Highest since Forbes started tracking American wealth in 1982  Last year it took $1.3 billion to score a spot.  Bar so high, 113 U.S. billionaires didn’t make the cut

 4/09/29/inside-the-2014-forbes-400-facts- and-figures-about-americas-wealthiest/ 4/09/29/inside-the-2014-forbes-400-facts- and-figures-about-americas-wealthiest/

 Core of “American Dream”  Movement of families up and down the economic ladder

 WEALTH  Valued possessions: cash, land, buildings, property  Passed generation to generation  Income=Money from employment, shares etc.  POWER  Ability to carry out one’s will, even if opposed by others  PRESTIGE  Respect given to people with valued positions or resources

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 Upper class:  Wealthiest people in U.S.  About 1% of the U.S. population  Most of the wealth of the country  How the very rich live   Playhouses 

 People’s opportunities to provide themselves with:  Material goods,  Positive living conditions, and  Favorable life experiences. (Gerth and Mills 1958)

 Life chances are reflected in measures such as:  Housing  Education  Health

 Occupying a higher social class improves your life chances and  Brings greater access to social rewards  In contrast, people in the lower social classes are:  Forced to devote a larger proportion of their limited resources  To necessities of life

 Relative deprivation is a measure of poverty based on living standards  People are considered poor if their standard of living is less than that of other members of society.  (Subjective measure)

 In the U.S., the federal poverty line (an absolute measure)  Used to determine who should be categorized as poor

 An objective measure of poverty defined by the inability to meet minimal standards for:  Food  Shelter  Clothing  Health care

  poor--in-america poor--in-america  What are the characteristics of the “poor”?  characteristics-poor characteristics-poor

 Karl Marx: Two main social classes in capitalist societies:  Capitalists (or bourgeoisie), who own the means of production  Workers (or proletariat), who sell their labor for wages

 Max Weber: Social Class has 3 components: 1. Class (Wealth: money, investments) 2. Status (Prestige) 3. Party (Power)

 Symbolic Interactionist Perspective  The way we use status differences to categorize ourselves and others  Erving Goffman: Social class indicated by:  Clothing  Speech  Gestures  Possessions  Friends  Activities

 Functions:  Motivates people to achieve  Allocates people into jobs  Poor provide jobs for others

Theory in Everyday Life