Exam 11: Class and Inequality

Which of these is stratified in a ranked society?

The potlatch is a redistribution ceremony practiced among Native American groups, such as the Kwakiutl people of the Pacific Northwest. The potlatch serves both a practical and ceremonial function in that it helps redistribute resources for the benefit of the group and it establishes social status and prestige via one's capacity for generosity. As a gift-giving practice, the potlatch is an important ceremony for some ranked societies. Do similar types of gift-giving practices occur in your own society? What are two examples of ceremonies in your own society in which gift giving takes place? What is the function of gift giving in these two examples, and how does the act of gift giving benefit the giver, the receiver, and the social group generally? What happens if an individual does not give a gift in the two examples you highlight? What influences may be changing the way in which gift-giving practices are occurring in the ceremonies you mention? Do you think gift giving will remain a practice within these types of ceremonies in the future?

The review of economic data in the text underscores the growing inequality in the United States, and yet it remains true that class is rarely discussed. To what factors does the author attribute this, aside from media?

The culture of poverty theory suggests that poverty is the result of an individual's dysfunctional behaviors, attitudes, and values. Anthropologists have strongly challenged this idea, arguing that poverty is a structural problem. What do they say this results from?

What do we call the movement, both upward and downward, of one's class position in a society?

The text tells us that a few modern societies such as the Amish have successfully forged an egalitarian society. Based on the information in the text, we can attribute this success to what aspect of human interaction?

Which of the following is a system of power based on wealth, income, and status that creates an unequal distribution of a society's resources?

Which of the following members of a ranked society may not accumulate great wealth but enjoy high prestige?

Leith Mullings's work using intersectionality emerges out of a long history of anthropological fieldwork. What characterizes this variety of fieldwork?

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

Other than reciprocity, how is the rank and status of a chief in a ranked society reinforced?

The poor of Mumbai, India, must find ways to access the city's water system. What is the fundamental reason that they must develop covert approaches to water access?

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?

The dramatic increases in debt and student loan costs have helped perpetuate what aspect of life in U.S. society?

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

How did Karl Marx refer to the group of people who lacked land and tools and sold their labor?

Of all the systems of stratification and power in a society, which of the following is often considered the most difficult to see clearly and to discuss openly?

The advent of agriculture as a primary means of subsistence signaled a change in what aspect of human social structures?

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

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