William Sumner And Jane Addams

In Class Matters, Bill Keller examines the meaning of the word class and how it plays on the life of the US citizens.According to Class Matters, a class is represented as four cards, one from each suit: education, income, occupation, and wealth. Based on your cards you are put into a class. Most people end up with the same cards as their parents. Keller explains how a class can be predetermined by a person’s upbringing or how they were raised. In this book, Bill Keller suggests that it is quite difficult to move into other social classes than the one we were born in, or a class we have been associated with for a long time. Based on the reading of this book along with other resources, moving into other social classes is exceptionally

Social inequality is a problematic phenomenon that occurs all around the world and affects both the developed and developing nations. It is defined as “the unequal distribution of social, political and economic resources within a social collective” (van Krieken et al. 2013, p. 205). Inequality is closely connected with social stratification, a system of social hierarchy that positions individuals and groups into categories according to social variables such as class or ethnicity (van Krieken et al. 2013, p. 485). This stratification has a significant impact on the opportunity that an individual may have to move up the hierarchy of inequality (Gill 2017a).

Mantsios writes about class in the United States. He covers the fact that people rarely speak about the existence of social class. As americans we refer to each other by their race, ethnic group, or geographical location. Mantsios states that we do not speak about class because it has been taken away from pop culture. The author is the one making the argument in this article. He has very outstanding credentials such as being the director of the Murphy Institute for Workers Education and Labor Studies at Queens College in New York. He is also editor of a New Labor Movement for the New Century (1998). The targeted audience seems to be the “upper class.” I feel like the “upper class” needs to help out the “middle class,” but I also think the middle class needs to be more aware of the situation. They could both work together. The authors main point of this article was to inform the readers about social

In the article, "Class in America", Gregory Mantsios (Myths and Realities 2000) shows us how what class a person is in affects his or hers life more than they think. This article is written sufficiently well however, it does have some weak spots. I will prove my thesis by examining his use of examples and showing factual data and statistics, but also show how this article could have been better.

Writer Gregory Mantsios in his article “Class in America”, talks about these things, and how wide the gap is between the rich and the poor and also discusses how the rich continue to get richer, while the poor continue to get poorer. Mantsios gives his readers the profiles and backgrounds of three hard-working Americans, two of them are white males, whose family background as well as education played a role in their success, while the other person is a black woman who is just above the poverty line despite her work as a nurse’s aide. Through these profiles, Mantsios article shows exactly how sex, race and shows how your parental and educational background of a person can play a role in the things that you achieve. Mantsios also talks about one’s performance in school and the level of school completed can suggest whether or not class that person may belong in.

Social class plays a major role in a society. A person’s social class affects his/her education, respectability, and ability to get a job. Most people in America’s society are born into their social class, but it is easier now to move up than it was in 16th century England. Although there are some slight differences in these two social classes, the social classes of 16th century England are shockingly similar to the social classes of modern day America.

The axis of inequality that will be focused throughout this paper is the social class. Social class is defined as a group of individuals who are categorized according to class (i.e. poor, middle, and upper) due to their income, wealth, power, and occupation. Social class is socially constructed by the way we view how much income and wealth a person possess (Ore, 20011a, 10). In reality it is much more than that. According to the text, poverty is not only the shortage of income, but it is the rejection of opportunities and choices that leads a person to a standard way of living (Ore, 2011a, 10). Stereotyping also contributes to it being socially constructed. These stereotypes influence us by defining who is who based on their principles in each class category. This can cause some to feel worthless.

Social class describes the different "layers" that exist in society. These "layers," or classes in society, are a division that civilization has been running on ever since the beginning of mankind. In most modern societies, our system of social class division is one of opportunity. We experience a good deal of social mobility, where people through generations or in their own lifetime can move up or down the social scale. By examining the many different perceptions of social class along with S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, it is illustrated that social class has an impact on people while they are growing up, and will usually deny them from rising above adversity.

Penned and published in 1883 during an era of widespread economic uncertainty in America, William Graham Sumner's What the Social Classes Owe Each Other stands as the seminal treatise on the purely democratic concepts of societal obligation and shared responsibility. Sumner's infamous assertions regarding the relative status of individual people, which essentially argued that human nature inevitably produces both poverty stricken and privileged classes, forcefully challenged the socially acceptable orthodoxy of compulsory altruism in an age when charity was lauded as the most virtuous of public acts. While Sumner argued eloquently that "a man who is present as a consumer, yet who does not contribute either by land, labor, or capital to the work of society, is a burden" (1952), his philosophical views were challenged by several contemporaries, including muckraking investigative reporter Nell Cusack and socialist paragon Eugene V. Debs. Both Cusack and Debs forcefully fought to protect and preserve the rights of those who occupy society's fringes, while Sumner chose to champion the advantageous positions held by the most affluent and ambitious among us. By conducting a thorough and thoughtful comparison of Sumner's statements and the work of his rhetorical opponents, modern readers are provided with the opportunity to assess such controversial and conflicted stances in the sublime light provided by historical hindsight.

The United States is often seen by many as a country of equal opportunity. A place where social classes do not exist. Unfortunately, thoughts such as these are wrong because the US is far from being the only country to escape this exception. When observed closely there are signs that each person manifests that distinctively show what social class they belong to. Although money is the most common marker of class, education along with health related topics such as heart disease and eating habits are strong inicators of class.

Social class is a topic of discussion that most Americans do not like to talk about. It can be harder to identify than racial or ethnic differences, yet in many ways is the most important indicator of what kind of financial and educational opportunities someone is granted. When money or success is talked about, people tend to favor the form of “meritocracy” which is the fair competition for success among all people no matter race, gender, or family history. Unfortunately, this is not the reality and there is a huge correlation between success, and factors such as race, gender, education level, and inheritance. With the odds being stacked against minorities, women, and those living below the poverty line experience obstacles that limit personal success. In his text, Class in America, Gregory Mantsios examines the myths and realities behind the truth about class in America and its universal influence on the lives of Americans. He argues that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer due to many different factors. Similarly, in her text, Serving in Florida, author Barbara Ehrenreich writes about her experiences working multiple minimum wage jobs to make ends meet after going undercover in the working class life. She argues that people working minimum wage jobs are treated very poorly, and receive pay that isn’t enough to get by. Ehrenreich’s essay effectively illustrates Mantsios’ claim by offering a personal account that showed how lower

As Peter Edelman writes in “The State of Poverty in America,” in the United States, 20.5 million individuals of the population are in poverty, including 6 million with no income (1). Numerous poor individuals are in desperate need of essential opportunities. In contrast, the rich in the United States are moving up and becoming successful in their livelihood. The differences in the opportunities given to the rich and taken from the poor are ongoing. Opportunities include difficulties in achieving proper education, medicine, and/or jobs.

The essay, “Richer and Poorer: Accounting for Inequality” by Jill Lepore, is an essay arguing the problem with inequality in America between the wealthy and less fortunate class in society. Lepore explains that the problem is not with how Americans treat their children, but how congress is the underlying problem. With the help of logos, pathos, and ethos the author shows how dissimilarity in social classes can be easily changed if adoptions of practices and ideas from other countries were accepted.

Many believe that there is no more class separation. To many people it almost appears to be classless. In the article Shadowy Lines That still Divide it says “At a time when education matters more and more than ever, success in school remains linked tightly to class…. At a time of extraordinary advances in medicine, class difference in health and lifespan are wide and appear to be widening”. Even today education is more available for kids with money especially collage. Many colleges have very high cost and most good college is very costly. Like education, health care is also another factor that shows the division between the social classes. Many lower classes can not afford health care and can not pay for medicines. The lifespan of the lower class would be lower than that of a higher class due to the fact that higher class can afford better treatments. The American dream would be easier for the upper class to achieve because they can get a better education and better health care. In the Great Gatsby, the class separation is demonstrated through the two sides; West Egg and East Egg. Only wealthy people with a social class live in east Egg

Through this book I have learned that this concept is often idealized, and the actual reality of the situation is more complex that agents of socialization like the media often portrays. Because of that, reading this book would benefit not only people who live in the U.S., but also people who like me had an idealized view of social mobility, and was not aware of the current social problems. Although Vance proved that with effort and perseverance he did indeed raise from his class and succeeded in his field, his case is very isolated from the life of his peers. Even considering that this phenomenon is strictly related to american culture, in different scales, it is something that many communities all over the world experience. Social inequality and class division is created by other socialization pertinent to a given