New Money Class Of The Middle Class

Despite the debates about social class, the United States is usually described as having four major social classes, the elite or upperclass, the middle class, the working class, and the lower class (Goldscmidt). Classes are generally differentiated by income, education, and occupation although other factors do have an effect. The upperclass consists of about 1% of the population making 750,000 dollars or more a year as investors, top executives, or heirs to large fortunes (Hughes and Jenkins). There tends to be no question about who is in the upperclass as they are pretty clearly isolated in their power and wealth. The middle class makes up about 40% of the population making anywhere from 40,000 to 749,999 dollars a year (Hughes and Jenkins). The large disparity in income and wealth have led to a further division of this class into upper-middle class and middle class in some circles. The middle class usually work white collar jobs as professionals and managers, however some highly skilled blue collar workers are included. Those in the middle class have usually obtained higher education degrees and place a high value on individual responsibility for one’s class (Goldschmidt). The working class is composed of about 50% of the population earning 13,000 to 39,000 dollars a year (Hughes and Jenkins). Some also divide this class into a working class and a

* The middle class lay in the middle and was the group of people in society that had bigger better houses on their own block of land and were quite well off when it came to money and resources.

The very poor class contains all citizens that have a very low economic status. Most have no economic security, are unemployed, and have no education after high school. American citizens in this class have just enough money to survive. The poor class includes any American citizen who does not have enough money to have basic necessities. The working class includes American citizens who have enough to provide basic needs for their family. They do not have some of the simple luxuries; if they do; they have to save up to buy it. In the middle class, most citizens go to college. People in the middle class do not necessarily live paycheck to paycheck, but have enough money to spend on leisure. The next social class in America is the upper middle class, whose citizens mainly attend private or charter schools. ( Hancock, 1998). They hold professions such as doctors and

It is a known fact that the Civil Rights struggles of the late 1950s and early 1960s apparently ended the Jim Crow era after the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The book illustrates, on the other hand, that the racial caste system has not finished; it has essentially been overhauled.

In Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow, Alexander ties the history of the United States with social issues that exist between races in the modern era including examples of the racial caste system, racial segregation, and white privilege. One of the social injustices followed by many in order to create a discriminatory barrier between those who aimed for superiority and others were the Jim Crow laws. These laws focused on sustaining the power and authority of those who thrived off their inferiors economically and socially. When reformists attempt to change living situations for the better and equality, the American history shows that chaos often follows after and elite whites rise to power to retake order and control over those who were

Many cultures have had “dark” pasts and histories. Some have had terrible wars, while others have had mass killings. Other cultures have had problems with discrimination towards diverse or dissimilar cultures and races. There are many reasons for this discrimination, but in the majority of cases, the most common reason is simply because of a difference between them. These differences can vary from physical appearances to cultural, traditional, or religious beliefs. Differences can lead to a culture’s social status of privilege for one race or group over another. One culture, or country, where this was apparent, was in the United States, specifically in the South. Slavery can be seen as one of the United State’s negative times in history.

Michelle Alexander in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, discusses the preservation of racial subordination in the United States. While the abolition of slavery following the American Civil War freed all slaves, the institution left an enduring impact on society, especially the impression of white male supremacy. Consequently, the development of Jim Crow Laws preserved the racial segregation of former slaves under a more “civilized caste system.” After nearly a century of fighting against the new system of subordination, African Americans were freed again upon the lift of the Jim Crow Laws. Despite the hundred years since the abolition of slavery, white resentment and wrath still remained which helped

Marx believed that, through class consciousness, the workers would eventually recognize they were being exploited, and put an end to privilege. That they would revolt against their oppressors and end Capitalism once and for all; and a new utopia of equality under Communism would emerge.

For example, it shapes the nature of religion, law, education, the state and so on. According to Marx, capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction. For example, by polarising the classes, bringing the proletariat together in ever-increasing numbers, and driving down their wages, capitalism creates the conditions under which the working class can develop a consciousness (or awareness) of its own economic and political interests in opposition to those of its exploiters. As a result, the proletariat moves from merely being a class-in-itself (whose members share the same economic position) to becoming a class-foritself, whose members are class conscious – aware of the need to overthrow capitalism. The means of production would then be put in the hands of the state and run in the interests of everyone, not just of the bourgeoisie. A new type of society – socialism developing into communism – would be created, which would be without exploitation, without classes and without class conflict. Marx’s work has been subjected to a number of criticisms. First, Marx’s predictions have not come true. Far from society becoming polarised and the working class becoming poorer, almost everyone in western societies enjoys a far higher standard of living than ever before. The collapse of so-called ‘communist’ regimes like the former Soviet Union, and growing private ownership and capitalist growth in China, cast some doubt on the viability of the practical implementation

Most people can determine what class a person is by just looking at the house that person lives in. If someone lives in a million-dollar home, then more than likely they are from the upper class. Middle class people usually own homes that are just big enough

Social class is defined as 'people having the same social or economic status' (Wordnet). In contemporary American society, social class is based on the amount of money and property you have and also prestige. Prestige is given to a person through the line of work or the family that they come from. For example, upper-upper class member Jennifer Lopez reeks of prestige not only because she has millions of dollars in her bank account, but she has very expensive luxuries, cars, and houses.

Marx's ideas on labor value are very much alive for many organizations working for social change. In addition, it is apparent that the gap between the rich and poor is widening on a consistent basis. According to Marx, the course of human history takes a very specific form which is class struggle. The engine of change in history is class opposition. Historical epochs are defined by the relationship between different classes at different points in time. It is this model that Marx fleshes out in his account of feudalism's passing in favor of bourgeois capitalism and his prognostication of bourgeois capitalism's passing in favor of proletarian rule. These changes are not the reliant results of random social, economic, and political events; each follows the other in predictable succession. Marx responds to a lot of criticism from an imagined bourgeois interlocutor. He considers the charge that by wishing to abolish private property, the communist is destroying the "ground work of all personal freedom, activity, and independence". Marx responds by saying that wage labor does not properly create any property for the laborer. It only creates capital, a property which works only to augment the exploitation of the worker. This property, this capital, is based on class antagonism. Having linked private property to class hostility, Marx

The first chapter, The Rebirth of a Caste, argues that after the Civil Rights movement and with the collapse of Jim Crow in the south, there needed to emerge a new caste system. Alexander argues that racism was created to fulfill particular ends; the profits of the planter class. “Deliberately and strategically, the planter class extended special privileges to poor whites in an effort to drive a wedge between them and black slaves. White settlers were allowed greater access to Native American lands, white servants were allowed to police slaves through slave patrols and militias, and barriers were created so that free labor would not be placed in competition with slave labor. These measures effectively eliminated the risk of future alliances between black slaves and poor whites. Poor whites suddenly had a direct, personal stake in the existence of a race-based system of

popular kids who are rich, elegant, and mostly known. The Middle Class is characterized as everyday

The philosophy of Karl Marx begins with the belief that humans are inherently cooperative with common characteristics and shared ends. To human beings, life is considered an object and therefore, humans make their “life-activity itself the object of his will and of his consciousness” (Tucker 76). In other words, humans are able to think, imagine, and “produce even when he is free from physical need and only truly produces in freedom therefrom” (p. 76). It exemplifies that idea that humans not only have the capability to create things for survival but express themselves in what they produce, within the standards of the human race or universally. When capitalist wage-labor enters the picture, it forces these shared ends and the freedom of expression in human production to cease, causing a rise of competitiveness among