Wealth has formed an enormous gap in the society. As a country, the people are as separated as oil and water. “The wealthy class is becoming more wealthy; but the poorer class is becoming more dependent. Social contrasts are becoming sharper” (Doc A), to distinguish the poor from the rich has become extremely effortless.
horizontal) reflects their consciousness of the diversity in societies they seek to uplift. On one hand, although Carnegie writes that “[h]uman society loses homogeneity” (“Wealth”), he only mentions the economic disparities creating a “problem of Rich and Poor” (“Wealth”). This binary understanding of the division of society is reflected by his repeated use of terms like “the masses” (Carnegie, “Wealth”), and offers insight into Carnegie’s vision of social uplift. Indeed, he doesn’t mention any tailored actions for subgroups of the mass, whose needs and existence are completely flattened by his
Economists believe that the hardships many poor people face like homelessness or slums are a result of a wealth gap that has been exponentially diverging the rich from the poor since the seventies. Studies show that “over forty
Poverty is a genuine issue in some parts of the world and social classes do influence poverty. However, Compos believes the old saying “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” In the article "White Economic Privileged Is Alive and Well" by Paul
But I totally disagree whereas many middle-class citizens are now lower class because many of them were never taught the important of finances which ultimately led to too much consumption. I believe that when living in poverty and in poor neighborhoods or areas it really pushes children to strive to be better. In retrospect, our upbringings do play a huge part in who we will be but not where we will be. It ultimately comes down to will we fight for happiness and financial success or be defeat by turmoil and poverty? Everyone has a chose to rise to greatness or tumble to
Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road … Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages’ ” (Luke 10:3-4, 7). Jesus sends 72 of His followers to tell people about His message, but he tells them not to bring any of their belongings. He tells them that they will receive their food as a result of their hard work in spreading the Gospel. Jesus teaches that hard work is to be rewarded, which is one of the main components of a capitalist society.
Groups and individuals with that hold these resources use them to maintain power and social control. The wealthy are the independent variables that hold the power to make decisions and control how society is ran. The lower classes are the dependent variables that have little to no control over how society is structured. Conflict theorists encourage social change. Instead of allowing the “well off” to force social order on everyone else, the general public should fight for social change even at the expense of a possible social revolution.
Langston Hughes compared America to a telephone book. A telephone book is grouped in alphabetical order, so it does not matter if you are rich or poor, everyone is in the telephone book and a rich person might just be listed
I have learned that the most influential people come from nothing. Oprah Winfrey, an influential speaker was in a low income family. Bernard Harris grew up in the 1960 's as an African American man and still managed to become the first African American to complete an extra-vehicular activity in space. Starting out with nothing is not always the worst thing. It shows you what you have and how to be grateful for it
People believe that being poor gives you an incentive to work harder, because the rewards are greater and more satisfaction of earning something you had to work for. Because if people just hand you opportunities and money, you wouldn’t treated the same way as someone who had to work for, it wouldn’t be no competitive for people to outwork others to make more money, because that’s what gives you the satisfaction and motivations to keep going when things get hard, the reward. Therefore if we didn’t have income inequality, the world would be different and even technologies wouldn’t be this advanced as it is now, because workers taking their jobs seriously and some even work harder to impress the boss for raise. In my opinion I favor income inequality but I’m against inequality at early age, because I experienced the struggle of inequality opportunities in the early age, and I believe no children should. Poverty in America are caused by two structural, one is by individual, people
Although there a few modern examples of people with a ‘rags to riches’ story, namely Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs, the masses of people born into lower income households don’t commonly rise to the middle class. A recent study by Pew Charitable Trust signifies how important family wealth is, as the “median family wealth of those who made it to middle class was $94,586, while the median wealth of those stuck at the bottom was just $8,892” (Hargreaves 1). The higher a family’s financial capital is, the easier it is to invest in opportunities such as education, which increases income. Winston in 1984 observes how the proles are intelligent in their daily tasks, stating how "even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory” (Orwell 72).
The Youtube video titled “Wealth inequality in America” that was shown in class provided a visual description of what our wealth gap looks like. I was absolutely appalled when the narrator stated that the the top 1% of wealth holds 40% of all wealth the bottom 40% only holds 7% of all wealth! He states, “Do you really think that a CEO is working 380 times harder than his average worker’s pay? Not his lowest paid employee, but the average earner in his company.” I found these statistics to be profound and it gives me an insight on how making it in this country is a little harder than
The United States was considered the land of opportunity for many generations, but the situation has now changed. America is no longer the country where all people can pursue their American Dream. The main reason why the lower class cannot achieve their goal of upward mobility is the fact that the top one percent of the population holds most of the wealth of the country. These wealthy Americans also have a better chance of increasing their wealth than the lower classes do. Wealth, or net worth, is not only made up of money; it also includes everything a person owns that is of value, such as their house and property.
Written by John Steinbeck, The Pearl is a story of many morals that also provides entertainment by mystification which keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. The main character of the novel is Kino, and he along with his wife Juana and their infant son Coyotito live among the other dark skinned civilians on the outskirts of La Paz. Unlike Kino and his neighbors, the whites have been living in the town with their wealth and commodities and have been shunning the darks for generations. Over time, the lack of respect and kindness given to the darks, left them with little or no money. After Coyotito is bitten by a scorpion, Juana and Kino look for the aid of the village doctor, but when they ask for help, the doctors replies the same way
The individuals classed in the higher strata of society are the ones who are better treated, and therefore, are the ones who get the most benefits from society. It is not the individuals’ fault that society is formed this way. All societies are formed in a way that some percentage of the population is ranked in the higher pay range as well as some portion is ranked of the bottom pay range of the scale. There is no way that the social stratification of a society could be present because of the individuals themselves. There will always be a percentage of homelessness in a society and that is due to the larger societal forces rather than being the individual’s
