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The Lower Class In The 1920s

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The upper classes are more conservative and the lower classes are more radical on economic, political and social issues as these terms are normally defined. The greater the wealth and the higher, the social standing, the stronger, the desire to present change. The occupational progression from conservative to radical is large business, small business, professional, white collar, skilled manual, semi-skilled manual, an unskilled manual. This attachment of the upper and middle classes to the status quo indicates a general satisfaction with existing political and legal processes for gaining desired ends. Lack of such attachment on the part of lower class is an equally clear indication of doubts about the effectiveness of the processes of their own purposes.

In fact, the 1920s was a money-based society as Malcolm Coweley justifies it in The stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. He states:

The twenties was an age when gold was melted down and became fluid; when wealth was no longer measured in possessions-land, houses livestock, machinery, but rather in dollars per year, as a stream is measured by its flow when for the first time the expenses of government were being met by income taxes more than by poverty and exercise (194-195).

In short, the American Dream of attaining fortune and happiness was the central idea in the mind of most Americans of the 1920s. The influence of the industrial revolution motivated people to fulfil their ambition, either honesty or dishonesty. In so
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