Exam 10: Class and Inequality

The concept of the American Dream emphasizes and promotes the notions of meritocracy and social mobility as central to both national identity and the experiences of U.S.citizens.These notions assume that all citizens have equal opportunity for upward social mobility regardless of current class position.What is meritocracy,and how does it relate to social mobility? Are both concepts experienced equally by U.S.citizens today regardless of class position? What are three examples of how class can affect individuals' experiences with meritocracy and social mobility? Given what you have read in the chapter on class and inequality,do you believe the American Dream is equally attainable to all U.S.citizens? Why or why not? Do you think the American Dream will become more equally attainable in the future? Why or why not?

What is the real irony behind the relationship between Peter Angelos,owner of the Orioles,and the day laborers who staged a hunger strike as it pertains to stratification and inequality?

Why is Karl Marx considered an important theorist in the study of class?

The theory of poverty that considers poverty as pathology-the "Culture of Poverty"-suggests that it is a result of an individual's personal failings stemming from a combination of dysfunctional behaviors,attitudes,and values that make and keep the poor person poor.Anthropologists have strongly challenged this idea,instead arguing that poverty is a structural problem resulting from

When a chief in a ranked society performs an act of gift giving that serves as a form of sharing accumulated wealth while also enhancing the chief's prestige,it is a form of

As a ritual ceremony,the potlatch serves to establish social status not by wealth and power but by the prestige earned via a person's capacity for which of the following?

What is the characteristic of the Hutterite society that runs counter to present day social structures?

How do distributions of income and wealth reveal the way power is distributed in a society?

In a ranked society,one distinguishing characteristic of high-prestige positions,such as a chief,is that they are

Since the mid-1970s,class inequality in the United States has

Economists clearly reveal that both the income and wealth gaps in the United States are widening substantially.What is the difference between income and wealth? Can an individual have high income but little wealth? Which households tend to be at the bottom of the income and wealth gaps,and which households are at the top? What are some of the reasons for the income and wealth disparities that exist in the United States today? Why are the U.S.income and wealth gaps widening despite increased globalization and access to educational opportunities? How do one's income and wealth affect his or her social mobility? What other systems of social stratification affect an individual's income and wealth and in what ways? How does Pem Davidson Buck's work with poor white people in rural Kentucky reflect how income and wealth are affected by other forms of social stratification?

Which of the following members of a ranked society do NOT accumulate great wealth,despite their high prestige?

Why was Karl Marx's argument that capitalists increased their wealth and not their money by extracting surplus labor value from workers a correct analysis?

Karl Marx,Max Weber,Pierre Bourdieu,and Leith Mullings are four theorists who have examined class as a system of stratification in societies.Which of the four theorists' approaches do you find most convincing? Describe the theorist's general approach to examining class and discuss how this particular approach differs from the approaches used by the other theorists.What makes this approach more convincing in your opinion? Do you think this approach is still an effective tool in examining class in societies today? Given the increasingly global nature of societal interconnections,do you believe this approach will continue to be useful in examining class systems in future societies? Why or why not? Do you think additional approaches will be needed to more fully examine class systems in the future? Why or why not?

According to Marx,why were the proletariat unable to develop a political awareness of their class position while the bourgeoisie were able to do so?

Leith Mullings argues that class cannot be studied in isolation but rather must be considered together with race and gender as interlocking systems of

According to Karl Marx,the bourgeoisie consisted of a capitalist class of individuals who owned the

The increasing concentration of wealth into the hands of a smaller number of persons is in part due to globalization and is part of the accelerating process of

For a chief in a ranked society,his or her rank and status are reinforced through reciprocity and

People who lacked land and tools,did not control sufficient capital to build workshops,and sold their labor were considered which of the following classes of people,according to Karl Marx?