Alienation Theory

After reading Michael Zweig's “The Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret”, I read and was able to determine his own perspective of class. Zweig says that the United States is not a middle class society and that the majority of Americans today are part of the working class. He defines class as power, power in the workplace, cultural, economic, and political and in the larger society and not so much the income. I think he defines class as power due to the fact that we as people have the power to experience class in many ways. We are all born and raised differently and all come from cultural backgrounds. He briefly explains how there is a high class and low class depending how you were raised. I can agree with him on that statement to an extent personally due to the fact that sometimes the worst parents in the universe can raise you, but you alone can show yourself a thing or two about morals and life lessons simply by living them. That does not mean that your parents don’t play a

Marx's theory on Capitalist exploitation is an incredibly deep theory, but to explain it in a nutshell, it is that the working-class people are improperly compensated for their work. The rich, the higher-ups, they continue to expand their wealth by exploiting the working class, the Capitalist system not only allows but effectively demands that Capitalists increase their wealth, long-term or short-term, whether at the cost of the working-class or not. There are three “values” to take into consideration, the use-value, the exchange-value and the

Exploitation Theory- occurs when one social group is able to take for itself what is produced by another group. The concept is central to the idea of social oppression, especially from a Marxist perspective, and can also include noneconomic forms, such as the sexual exploitation of women by men under patriarchy.

We live in a very classless society, and when we feel someone is a high achiever we show or feel contempt towards them, which is commonly referred to as the 'tall poppy syndrome '. This idea is excluding wealthy or successful people in Australian society. Australian 's strong belief of egalitarianism and anti-authoritarianism are foregrounded with relationships to the discourse of class in society.

Connell & Irving (1992) identify ‘class structure’ in Australia with the ‘ruling class’ owning property/business, and the ‘working class’ in the way of labourers whom ‘act together in resistance to the capitalists’. This is relevant today in Australia with the privileged having majority of the power and wealth. Moreover, exploitation of the ‘working class’ continue to maintain less power within the workplace & less wealth. Connell & Irving offer an uncomplicated view of class structure, (1992: p 40):

While traveling to New York City, Victoria and her sister Tennessee met Cornelius Vanderbilt. He was appreciative of Victoria, so he helped them start the first women-run stock brokerage company. Along with her sister Tennessee, Victoria created a publication called Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly. With the publication, the sisters were able to give their opinions on women’s suffrage, social reforms and other rights that they thought women deserve. She spoke out publically, and even appointed the issues to congress. Although she tried to raise more awareness by running for president, some of her supporters alienated because of her remarks about sexuality and social

In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, society warrants alienation and isolation to remain a constant underlying effect of social conformity. Alienation is the “withdrawing or separation of a person or a person’s affections from an object or position of former attachment” (“Alienation”). The motif of alienation is shown throughout the novel in the characterization of the main characters, the relationships of the characters, and the consequences of the choices made by the characters.

Alienation can be more hurtful than any physical harm. It renders feelings of isolation and loneliness. Estrangement by your community confuses your ego and sense of self and leaves you wondering, “where do I belong?” Alienation and its effects were appropriately personified in both the late Leanita McClain and fictional character Arnold Spirit Jr. from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian.

Aldous Huxley creates a futuristic utopian society in his novel, “Brave New World”. Individuals have little to no freedoms, and are conditioned not question their superiors from birth to adulthood. Jobs are predetermined before birth as is being taught to belong to one another. John the Savage, however, provides an insight on this society told from an outsider perspective. Being born from a nonnative mother is unfortunate, as the civilization he belongs to heavily punishes those nonnatives, such as not being able to hunt as a group. John was born and grows up as a nobody with no one to talk to besides his mother, Linda. Shoved into the New World, John continues to realize he struggles to fit in the general population and experiences alienation

Inequality materializes the upper class, vulgarizes our middle class, brutalizes our lower class. In Australia, social class is a widely recognised concept, however some individuals, particularly the wealthy people, will argue that social class in non existent, that with hard work anyone can achieve, what they set their mind onto. The social stratification system, is based on objective criteria, including wealth, power, and prestige. The Australian notion of equal opportunity, insinuates that social class does not affect, the opportunities someone will have in life. However many sociologist, will argue that social class does create an underlying disadvantage, amongst groups in society, in particular education and health, of an individual is impacted. In this essay, I will strive to critically examine, the conflict and functionalist theories, behind social class. This will allow me to determine, weather some groups are constrained, or advantaged, by their current social status.

There is also a large number of the Australian population that believes Australia is a class-less society. It has been thought the theme classifying social classes is the social advantages, often having certain possessions reflecting the values of each different class. These advantages create a clear distinction between the social divisions (Emmison, 2003). Question 3 asks the participants to explain what they believe are the determinants of the different social classes, this question is important as it allows an understanding to be formed of why the participants identify with a certain class and what needs to be achieved to become a particular class. This questionnaire is intended to help with the understanding of what participants believe to be the defining factors between each social

British society is split into hierarchical categories with “higher” “middle” and “lower working” class. The British class structure is shaped like a pyramid cut into three

In life, there are many ways in which people are classified and put into different groups or levels. In school, students are classified by their chosen pathway through courses that are divided into Apprenticeship, College, University or AP levels. In George Orwell’s novel, 1984, the citizens of Oceania are divided into either the Proletarians, the Outer Party and the Inner Party based on the importance of their job in relation to Big Brother. A similar example of a classification system would be the social class system that exists today. Like the novel 1984, modern society has a class system that divides people into the lower class, middle class, and first class. In simpler terms, these classes indicate the poor, the financially stable and the rich people within a society. In Nancy Birdsall’s article, “Middle class heroes: the best guarantee of good governance”, Nancy analyzes the growth of the middle class and its relationship to the success and stability of modern societies around the world. Class systems may seem like just labels but, with the right components, they can create the structure to a better government, economy and overall life. However, by analyzing the size of the social classes in 1984, the lack of desire for change, and the control of the government, it is evident that the class system in 1984 prevents the citizens from escaping the totalitarian rule of the government of Oceania.

In the United states, social classes is a controversial issue in terms of defining the actual nature of the classes themselves. Many individuals have categorized the society into three elementary groups that is the “poor”, “middle class” and the “rich”. Additionally, a more complex system of social classes is derived from the three elementary classes. In this regard, a four-class system includes “the capitalist/upper class”, “the middle class”, “the working class” and “the lower class” (Thompson, 2005). Moreover, sociologists have expanded the for-class system into a six class system includes “the capitalist or upper class”, “the upper-middle class”, “the middle class”, “the working class”, “the lower-working class” and “the lower class”.

Traditionally Australians have believed in and conveyed the myth of Australia as a fair , egalitarian society without excess wealth or poverty, however we are definitely not a classless society. Australia's education system has been and remains one of the most unequally distributed social resources and could possibly be regarded as the main source of inequality in our society (Encel 1970; Anderson & Vervoorn 1983; as cited in Jamrozik, 2009). Now more than ever, Australia's education system is acting as a kind of 'sorting out' mechanism, allocating people to certain stations within