...Social Inequality What is social inequality? What are the sources of social inequality? For me, social inequality cannot be described in one sentence. Factors such as race, wealth, class, gender, age, among others all play roles into why people can sometimes be treated unfairly. However before I introspectively reflect on social inequality, there is one theory that suggests where today’s society is heading for me. Karl Marx is known as a prominent economic and political influence that lived during the 19th century. Marx’s theory of stratification is very applicable to where society, especially in the United States, is heading today. According to Marx, society would become divided into two classes, the dominant capitalist or the working class. Essentially the capitalists consist of the owners of production within a country while the working class consists of the laborers. This represents uneven distribution of wealth and resources, which creates a system of stratification. According to Professor Domhoff of the University of California, the top 20% of the workforce owned 89% of all privately held wealth in the United States as of 2010. There is already a large gap between social classes and will only continue to get worse if we continue down the same path as a nation. Whether through higher taxes on the wealthy or tax breaks on the working class, the gap needs to be closed. Money is king of today’s society whether people want to admit it or not. For me I think the uneven...
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...Economic Inequality in the United States According to the Gross Domestic Product, also known as GDP, United States was measured the “largest” economy in the world (Mahoney 10/27/2015). However, all Americans do not share the high standard of living in the U.S. Levels of income and wealth inequality have always been high in the United States. While it is ideal for a democratic country like the United States to have political equality, the reality shows that this is not the case; as economic inequality ultimately causes political inequality under the current system of government. Income inequality has not only been prevalent, but has been polarizing further since the 1970s. Currently, twenty-percent of the population takes home 50% of the total income and the top 1% takes home 25% of the income and owns 40% of total wealth (Mahoney, 2015 October 27). While CEOs of the Fortune 100 makes over $14 million a year, an average worker makes $45,230 a year; this is a clear illustration of the income disparity in the United States. Further, it is worth mentioning that such trends are not necessary common; the United States has always had higher levels of income and wealth inequality when compared to other rich democracies (Mahoney, 2015 October 27). The average household income is currently stagnant, which suggest that the average household cannot easily grow economically in the U.S and cannot help close the income inequality gap. In the movie Inequality for All, the manager of Circuit...
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...should race and gender matter? Holmes is trying to make people understand that our social inequalities are being perceived as normal when in reality they aren't. He talks about how migrant workers have been treated for years being looked down upon as something less in our society. The whole concept is that Holmes is exposing the harsh reality and that we need to change the way we treat certain people politically, legally, and symbolically. Moreover, another label society has imprinted as normal in the past, but has come a long way, is the ideal of men being better than women ultimately getting the upper hand. Gender inequality has made a major impact on our society throughout the years making changes in how our politics, culture (socially), and economics are handled and seen. We, as a society, need to keep encouraging people to look beyond stereotypes and recognize the contributions that each person, female or male, can make to the workplace and our social order. Furthermore, women have had to fight for equality in politics in the United States by winning the right to vote, as well as a seat at the political table. The Nineteenth Amendment in our Constitution gave women the right to vote in 1920. Although, gender stereotypes about female politicians and voters still exist till this day. Since gaining the right to vote, women have worked in many levels of government in the United States. For example, President Ronald Reagan named Sandra Day O'Connor as the first female Supreme...
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...Inequality begins its roots as long ago as humans started roaming this earth. Inequality can be described also as an imbalance, and with such an imbalance in terms of income, wealth, and class prosperity comes income inequality. Income inequality or economic inequality can be described as the imbalance between income of individuals or household within a country or class. When income inequality is brought up or mentioned, most people think about it in regards to the impoverished class and the ultra rich 1% but this is not the case. In a world that is becoming more and more integrated, economic inequality between the middle class and the top 1% is becoming much more relevant and much more of a problem that needs to be addressed. We live in a...
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...expected to act and behave. In American culture males are most likely to be observed as masculine role with strength and females to a way where they are associated with passivity, subordination and nurturing. In today’s modern society is easy to outfit an infant boy with blue and a girl with pink. It is amazing to realize that is not always been this way, but until the beginnings of the 20th century, “boys were more associates with pink and girls with blue illustrating how socially constructed these associations rally are”. Some major agents of gender socialization...
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...historical context in which it unfolded. The legacy of slavery, followed by the imposition of Jim Crow laws and practices, institutionalized racial segregation and inequality in the United States. The 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the constitutionality of "separate but equal" facilities for African Americans, further entrenched the segregationist system that affected African American citizens. The Civil Rights Movement reflected a social problem in the United States due to the pervasive social injustice and inequality experienced by African Americans. The denial of basic civil rights, such as...
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...1) Derived demand is used in economics to describe the demand that is placed on goods or a good or service as a consequence of changes in the price for some other related good or service. It is a demand for some physical or intangible item where a market exists for both related goods and services in question. The derived demand can have a significant impact on the derived good's market price. The concept of derived demand helps to control the demand for labor through one product needing the use of another product. (Tejvan Pettinger, November 28, 2012) 2) The factors that govern the source of labor in a market are buyers and sellers. Most markets we come across individual people such as you and I and groups of people such as families that needs goods and services and the firms which supply goods and services, such as stores. The labor market works in a parallel way, except the roles are reverse. This market, mostly all firms require labor and individuals such as you and I supply their requirement for a wage compensation. By looking for a job, you are participating actively in the market of labor. The labor market works much like other markets. There are buyers and sellers and they both interact with one another to determine a price of an item. In this case, the "good" being bought and sold is labor and the price for that good is the wage compensation mention earlier. That is, in the labor market, employers are willing to buy more hours of labor at lower wages than at a higher...
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...described the philosopher’s views on topics such as the division of labor and productivity, and how each played a role in the implementation of laissez-faire economics. Smith believed that the adoption of this type of system would create an ideal society through supply and demand enterprise. Karl Marx once prophesized that a working-class revolution was inevitable due to effects of capitalism and free-markets. Drawing his ideologies from his observations during the Industrial Revolution, Marx realized that social inequality existed between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie....
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...that independence would bring democracy and prosperity. However, at this moment most former colonies are fail states. Why decolonization has not delivered on the hope of prosperity and democracy? I would suggest that most decolonized states are still being exploited by the international system. Even though most (developed) countries lost their colonies, they still have a monopoly on their former colonies commodities. They use multi-national companies as a mean to control these commodities and other resources. As a result, most of the profit (generated) by the natural resources in underdeveloped countries, in fact goes to more develop countries. This caused the economies of former colonies to cripple. Furthermore, these states are still suffering from the legacy of inequality and ethnic tension which also prevent them from developing. Whereas, developed countries have used direct military threat to protect their multi-national companies interest. For instance, the United States had orchestrated the overthrown of the Guatemalan government in 1954 to preserve the monopoly of land of an US owned multinational company. A majority of ex-colonies remain under-developed because the economic international system still disfavors them. They are still serving the interest of core countries. (What interests) As a result, it is becoming increasing difficult for them to generate economic growth. Hans Singer, the father of the dependency theor argues poor countries are treated like colonies. For...
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...jobs. In addition, according to the Economic Times "without competition there would be no market” (2010), therefore it is crucial that there is economic movement in the market. There will be three features of the labour market discussed within this assignment in order to highlight the inequalities. It aims discuss the inequalities amongst the gender factor, the concept of child labour and the links these factors have with unemployment. The argument which explains the gender inequalities within the labour market originates from the 1970s. However, it is fair to state that a lot has changed within society in particular the labour force since then. It is difficult to identify the particular factor that clarifies such segregation but many conclude on the basis of pay discrimination. Other factors to explain gender segregation could relate to comparative biological advantages, underinvestment in human capital, differential income role and entry barriers....(Bettio and Verashchagina (2009) Examples of gender inequality within the work place are common amongst contemporary society and this is because there are continued obvious biases in the labour market. There are hidden practices within the procedures of such institutions. According to Bettio and Verashchagina (2009) organisations lack to identify females’ skills and this inevitably leads to the ‘poor visibility of female skills’. These key thinkers argue that due to these female-dominated roles are often seen to lack such professionalism...
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...October 29, 2014 IS 206GENDER ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT THE IMPACT OF INEQUALITY Box 1: COMPARATIVE STUDIES ON INEQUALITY AND SOCIAL MOBILITY ACROSS OECD AND LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES Presented by Del Mundo, Maria Naida Box 2: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL COHESION, SOCIAL TOLERANCE OF INEQUALITY Presented by Gutierrez, Cherry Lou THE IMPACT OF INEQUALITY ABSTRACT October 29, 2014 There is growing evidence and recognition on the powerful and corrosive effects of inequality on economic growth, poverty, social mobility and political cohesion. This paper finds that the real and potential impacts of inequality in relation to economic growth, poverty, social mobility, social stability and cohesion. KEYWORDS: Inequality, Economic Growth, Poverty, Social Mobility, Political Cohesion, Gender I. INTRODUCTION In relation to the worldwide gender gap, in so far as inequality also exist in political imbalance in the Philippines distinguished through the partisan move of a party, wherein, such intent, policies and term of their advocacy is their ultimate road map and reluctantly to engage in the opponent’s adherence. Colonial mindset, attributable to the Spanish era wherein their colonial stay in the country portrays the strictness and conservative ways in precluding to whom or to which is one’s belief will end up to, and upon the continuance of the American regime, where westernized ways has gotten in the minds of the Filipinos, that every choice of an American decision draws correct conclusion...
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...University, Durham, NC Abstract Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. We attempt to insert the desires of ‘‘regular’’ Americans into these debates, by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current distribution of wealth in the United States and to ‘‘build a better America’’ by constructing distributions with their ideal level of inequality. First, respondents dramatically underestimated the current level of wealth inequality. Second, respondents constructed ideal wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution. Most important from a policy perspective, we observed a surprising level of consensus: All demographic groups—even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy—desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo. Keywords inequality, fairness, justice, political ideology, wealth, income Most scholars agree that wealth inequality in the United States is at historic highs, with some estimates suggesting that the top 1% of Americans hold nearly 50% of the wealth, topping even the levels seen just before the Great Depression in the 1920s (Davies, Sandstrom, Shorrocks, & Wolff, 2009; Keister, 2000; Wolff, 2002). Although it is clear that wealth inequality is high, determining the ideal distribution of wealth in a society has proven...
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...Park Avenue Alexis Ashmeade Kristen Brown Principles of Sociology November 4 2014 Park Avenue is a documentary that focuses and reveals the social inequality currently consuming the United States’ economy. It shows the audience the behind the scenes networking and deals that are made behind the government’s curtain. How the wealthy or the one percent increase their own wealth through monopolies and lobbyist strategies. Social mobility in the United States was only 0.47 as stated in the documentary. Social mobility is the availability of individuals to move within or between social classes to different social statuses. More specifically the documentary talks about 740 Park Avenue in Manhattan which is home to the wealthiest people in Manhattan, it is also home to...
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...generally. The focus on poverty reduction reached a high point perhaps with the articulation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and with the extensive analytic work that has accompanied the MDGs.[2] Yet, much of the discussion of poverty reduction and economic development in low and middle income countries has either ignored the issue of income distribution or has tended to view income distribution only in terms of its impact on economic growth. Poverty and inequality, however, are intimately bound up with one another.[3] Both as an analytic issue and as a policy issue, there are severe limitations in attempting to deal with poverty – or, more broadly, with economic well-being – without also examining income inequality. Indeed, it is questionable that we can even define poverty independently of income distribution. In this essay, I want to develop the argument that economists and economic policy-makers should focus much greater attention on inequality as measured by the distribution of income (and wealth). The traditional focus simply on absolute levels of income as a measure of poverty and economic well-being is fundamentally flawed. My argument here has thee parts: • Poverty or, more generally, economic well-being cannot be effectively defined as distinct from income distribution. • Income distribution is fundamental to our understanding of justice (fairness) and human rights, and relative...
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...Introduction Income inequality means that the income is distributed in an uneven manner among a population. It generally refers to a society which the income gap between individuals or groups and also the international wealth gap. The percentage of income to a population is often presented by income inequality. It’s also considered as the gap between the rich and others and has been obviously growing for recently years. There have measures for income inequality. It’s important to view this data sets and measures as it can show the differences of a country, especially the advantages and disadvantages. Income inequality should have a clearer data or picture to explain the differences and can be also obtained by using those measures. The “Gini Coefficient” can measure income inequality. Gini Coefficient is the way to measure the distribution of nation residents’ income. Corrado Gini (Italian statistician and sociologist) is the person who developed and published it. The among values of distribution will be measured by Gini coefficient such as income levels. If everyone has the same income, it will be shown as Zero (perfect equality) in the Gini coefficient. Conversely, if Gini coefficient shows one mean that only got one person have the income, as know as perfect inequality. In the United States, there has been growing obviously for income inequality and the gap between rich and others. According to the report of Gini coefficient, united States have the high income inequality and continuously...
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