...Domhoff’s article, Wealth, Income, and Power, he examines wealth distribution in the United States, specifically financial inequality. He concludes that the wealthiest 10% of the United States effectively owns America, and that this is due in large part to an increase in unequal distribution of wealth between 1983 and 2004. Domhoff also states that the unequal wealth distribution is due in large part to tax cuts for the wealthy and the defeat of labor unions. Most of Domhoff’s information is accurate and includes strong, valid arguments and statements. However, there is room for improvement when identifying the subject of what is causing the inequality. The most important points made in Domhoff’s article are his statistics, the reason behind the unequal wealth distribution, and his closing statement concerning the top 10%. In his article, Domhoff cites many statistics regarding the distribution of wealth between America’s top and bottom percentiles. There is quite a bit of research to back up his claims, and his data is generally very accurate. However, when it comes to the cause of such gaps in wealth distribution, there is more to consider than simply tax cuts and labor unions. Domhoff begins with a broad overview of wealth distribution in the United States. He states that the top 1% held 34.6% of all privately held wealth, with 85% in the hands of the top 20%, leaving the bottom 80% in control of only 15% of privately held wealth. In terms of financial wealth, he states that...
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...Sociology Homework: Examine the sociological explanations of unequal distributions of wealth and income in contemporary Britain (24 marks) There are five main sociological explanations of unequal distributions of wealth and income in contemporary Britain that I will be discussing as well as explaining within this essay. One sociological explanation for the unequal distribution of wealth and income in contemporary Britain is because it is necessary for the maintenance of society. This is argued by functionalists such as Davis and Moore who suggest that inequality in wealth and income is very significant due to the fact that some jobs are seen as more functionally important than others. As well as this, they believe that meritocratic values such as wages need to be imbalanced in order for the most capable people to have the best and highest jobs. A prime example of this would be of road cleaners who would earn about 9,000 a year where as a C.E.O of a computing company earns over millions a year. This links to contemporary Britain because it portrays how income and even wealth is unevenly shared out between proletariats and the bourgeoisie and most importantly it indicates at how low-paid wages would be the result of poverty. This theory can be criticised because it infers to some jobs being more important than others which is not true as every job in society contributes in helping society progress and become better, in this case being a road cleaner would be just as important...
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...Britain is often described as an unequal society in terms of wealth and income. Social inequality from a sociological point of view means a lack of fairness between different groups of people living in society. The essay aims to explore the reasons behind the unequal distribution of wealth and income from a functionalist, Marxist and Weber point of view. From a functionalist point of view, the unequal distribution of wealth and income in contemporary Britain is necessary for the survival of society. They would argue that all aspects of society, even poverty, contribute to Britain’s overall stability. Functionalists such as Davis and Moore argue that those who perform the difficult and important jobs are therefore entitled to more power, prestige and money. This motivates the most qualified people to exercise their talents in the most important social positions. However, this can be criticised because it is too difficult to determine the functional importance of any jobs. Nurses are an example of people who are not highly compensated and do not have notably high prestige, but who work long hours and are essential to maintaining society’s health. The high stress of their job and low incentives to do it contradict the theory of functionalism. Another explanation of the unequal distribution of wealth and income is that the means of production is controlled by a small and powerful ruling class. Marxist sociologists argue that in a capitalist society, the bourgeoisies exploit the...
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...Giving Back Andrew Carnegie believed that the rich should come forward and take responsibility of their wealth. By saying this Carnegie means the wealthy should not be selfish and not just use their wealth to their own benefit. According to Carnegie those that have acquired great wealth generally have superior experience and wisdom; therefore it is those men and women that are best suited to distribute charity. The wealthy will have the intelligence and experience to know what to do with their profits to benefit others in the community in a virtuous way. Since a majority of wealth does in fact go to a small concentrated amount of people, the question is why are these people better suited to distribute charity? These wealthy people have money not just for competence, but rather a surplus of money that they can use for a greater good. Carnegie explains there are three different modes of distribution a man can put to use. The first mode described is to hand down their fortune to their first son. The second way is to simply hand over money to the underprivileged. The third mode is the best way of donating and according to Carnegie “Under (the third mode’s) sway we shall have an ideal state.” For the third mode the rich is to supply the less fortunate with the means to grow as people, to heighten ambitions, and raise their level of class through their own motivation. Carnegie believes that the rich must supply the poor not with money directly to their pockets but rather create institutions...
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...Name Instructor Course Date Justice and Economic Distribution Justice can be defined as living and acting within the law. This means that every individual should act in a right manner and that do not abuse other people’s rights. When one fails to follow regulations within a country or a community, then the rule of law can take its course. However, for justice to prevail, even the law breakers should be judged fairly without discrimination, prejudice or judging out of hunger. On the other hand, justice should not only be seen in terms of punishing the law breakers, but it also means treating people in an equal and fair way. For instance, in a family set up parents should treat their children in an equal manner. According to the family justice, parents should only punish their children in a way that correct the mistake but reward children when they do a positive thing. The laws or regulations that ensure every person practices justice have their roots may be in societal norms, religious ethics, and the constitution of a state. The primary goal of every rule of law is to ensure that all every member of a state or a society a gets just treatment. According to Maiese, M (210) what people see as injustice is capable of resulting into unrest, dissatisfaction, or even revolution. He goes on to claim that there are various types of justices, coming as a result of various ways through which guiding principles of justice are expressed by various levels. The term distributism is an...
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...warns that the love of riches leads men further from the Kingdom of God and into a false idolization of wealth. This monetary worship pulls man away from God, and tears the seams of brotherhood that bond men together. Today, this bond between men has never been so frail and apathy has never been so vigorous. Millions of people die every year from preventable causes, including hunger, disease and countless other conditions, all derived from poverty. At the same time the richest 80 billionaires have the finances to solve world hunger, substantially increase the prevention of AIDS and effectively eradicate malaria. Wealth in itself is not evil; however, when humanity places riches above its fellow humans’ lives, it has reached a sinful state. The world has accepted material wealth at the price of what has become a sacrificial morality and love for mankind. The goal of this paper is to prove that global trends of economic inequality are unjustifiable from an economic/social standpoint, Scripture, and the recent position of the Catholic Church. Financial inequality is no new concept to the world. Since the beginnings of civilization there were the rich and there were the poor; many would argue that this is the natural state of society. From the Roman Empire until today, there has been a gap between the two segments. While almost all major religions warn man of the dangers of wealth and support charity, this gap between rich and poor has never been eradicated. Even so, all modernized...
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...Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time Perspectives on Psychological Science 6(1) 9–12 ª The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1745691610393524 http://pps.sagepub.com Michael I. Norton1 and Dan Ariely2 1 Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, and 2Department of Psychology, Duke University, Durham, NC Abstract Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. We attempt to insert the desires of ‘‘regular’’ Americans into these debates, by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current distribution of wealth in the United States and to ‘‘build a better America’’ by constructing distributions with their ideal level of inequality. First, respondents dramatically underestimated the current level of wealth inequality. Second, respondents constructed ideal wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution. Most important from a policy perspective, we observed a surprising level of consensus: All demographic groups—even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy—desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo. Keywords inequality, fairness, justice, political ideology, wealth, income Most scholars agree that wealth inequality in the United States is at historic...
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...Egalitarian is simple terms means that all the people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities. In the report I will share my thoughts about the effects on the business because of interior egalitarian structure and exterior egalitarian society1, 2. Egalitarian Structure: In the recent times the egalitarian styles of management are gaining popularity in the both the developed and the developing economies. Traditionally most corporate structures are hierarchical. In a hierarchical corporate structure, there are various tiers of management and people from each tier are assigned specific roles and responsibilities. People from low tier will have to report to the people from the higher tiers. But in egalitarian structure there are no power tiers and all the employees sharing equal responsibility and power2. According to me, the best style of management is a blend of both the traditional hierarchical structure and the new era egalitarian structure. Hierarchical companies restrict the freedom of the employees and therefore curb the flow of new and innovative ideas into the organization. Flexible boundaries allow employees more freedom to collaborate with coworkers and introduce their own ideas while still remaining under the direction of a supervisor. In India, most of the start-ups follow egalitarian structure. The recent success of many firms can be attributed to this structure. Even IT giant like Infosys was started as an egalitarian company3. All the eight partners...
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...My position on wealth inequality is similar to Brandon King's in the sense that I do not believe raising taxes on the upper-class is the solution, since by raising taxes on the rich results in them being less likely to spend money and, therefore, cannot help the economy. King asserts this notion by stating, "money that goes to businesses helps drive the economy, and raising taxes on the rich would be counterproductive." More importantly, I agree with King's sentiment that the upper class should not be scrutinized for their well being, but instead aided in further growth in order to fix the economy. Assisting the upper class by giving them more assistance in their business has the potential to further stimulate the economy and it's growth, as...
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...applies best to the issues surrounding the movement. The Occupy Wall Street Movement began in Zuccotti Park in New York City. Being that the park was private police did not have the right to kick the group of protesters out. The pretest was the people’s reaction to cooperate greed, social inequality, and the power of big business over the democratic process. Their slogan was heard across America, “we are the 99 percent.” They believed that one percent of the population; the banks, the mortgage industry and large corporations were controlling all of the countries wealth and preventing the ninety nine percent from prospering (The Occupy Wall Street Movement, 2012). Thousands of people organized across the United States in major cites and college campuses. To get there message heard. They sought to expose cooperate greed and unethical business practices and put an end to the unequal financial distribution of wealth (The Occupy Wall Street Movement, 2012). The movement was supported by democrats and was critiqued by republicans, however both parties agreed that the movement was changing public debate. Now people were being exposed to the idea...
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...more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.” -William J. Clinton The world works in a series of actions and reactions. Everyday something happens that occurs as a reaction of something else, which respectively was a reaction of yet another event. Looking at the world today, many global issues are prevalent and are affecting the lives of many if not all. What the majority of the population fails to realize, is that, every one of these issues is a repercussion of another and is most likely causing more repercussions. The justice system never over passes a crime without searching for the motive, reason and effect. So why is the grand scale different? Without searching for the cause, the issues will never truly be solved. The inequality of wealth distribution is a root of many of the world’s most principal issues, affecting the world economically, socially, and physically. Without proper distribution of wealth, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer causing extreme poverty among many nations. Poverty strikes up many social issues among countries and within countries, causing wars and revolutions to occur; only increasing violence. Without money, and in a world where nations thrive based on economy, proper means for planet health, are not up to the standards they should be if the world intends to last. As the human race progresses as it is now, it will become more and more impossible to reverse the effects of the inequality of wealth distribution and its sub parts. The...
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...economic state in America. One of the stances that Occupy Wall Street held was that 99% of American’s economic well-being was controlled by the top 1% of Americans. This economic truth would no longer be accepted by this group of Americans. This group also called for solidarity inside of the 99% of Americans defining this in a set of principles. These principles involved a direct and transparent engagement of participatory democracy, exercising responsibility on collective and individual levels, empowerment of each other against all oppression, redefining how labor is valued, the sanctity of individual privacy, that education is human right, and that all knowledge, technologies, and culture be open to free access, creation, modification, and distribution (Stone, 2011)). Together in this movements solidarity they came together in New York to speak out about the injustices that they have suffered at the hands of corporations. These facts were that homes had been placed in foreclosure without the original mortgages, bonuses have been given to executives after corporations have received bail outs from taxpayers, the constant outsourcing of labor and using that ideal as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay, and purposely keeping people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media to name a few. With these sets of principles and these statements of truths this movement set into motion to Occupy Wall Street. (Poppitz, 2011) This movement directly relates to the ethics...
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...America and coming in contact with the reality of the myth of his ideal society, Jurgis exposes the deeply rooted capitalism and the effects and problems that it causes. Because of this, Sinclair feels that socialism is the remedy to the capitalistic conditions he’s now a part of. Andrew Carnegies’ The Gospel of Wealth is a viewpoint of how beneficial capitalism is to American society and economy which is seen through the eyes of a high-class businessperson. Carnegie discusses the history of there being an equal society, the natural law of competition, and the capitalistic results and benefits. Sinclairs’ The Jungle and Carnegies’ The Gospel of Wealth are opposing viewpoints, therefore when it comes to the unequal distribution of wealth and ideas about capitalism and socialism both arguments are supportive and reasonable to a certain extent. In the 1920’s, the unequal distribution of wealth is evident and Americans start to see many cultural changes. America has now adopted the idea of conspicuous consumption which means Americans are competing with their neighbors and spending their income on luxury goods to show economic status. Sinclair’s views uneven distribution of wealth as unfair and cruel to the lower-class. Sinclair criticizes the capitalism by mentioning the social conditions of the people in city, the work environment of employees, and the impact capitalism had on...
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...Today in the United States, many citizens are blind to the wealth distribution within the country. Sociologists have recently become much more interested and concerned in further research on how wealth is distributed among Americans and if that wealth was more equally distributed how differently our economy would function. This inequality found within the United State’s wealth may be problematic because there is a very small percentage of people that hold such a large percentage of the nation’s wealth and such a large proportion of people that are right at or even below the poverty line. The problem of how to better distribute this wealth is often debated by many. One social effect that is causing this inequality could be that the wealthy are not putting their money back into the economy but rather keeping the money among the wealthy. This social problem would effect not only at the individual...
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...that created these wind developments and invited hundreds of local residents to invest $5,000 a piece, eventually raising $4 million to fund the turbines. In return, the residents became owners of the turbines alongside the farmers that owned the land where the turbines stood on. This was an example of shared ownership. A policy of no ownership exceeding 15% further strengthened that, resulting in equal wealth distribution among the residents. Rather then allowing the generated wealth to flow into major corporations, it remained local by first flowing back into the community through payments to local workers, investors, and suppliers. Shared ownership is especially important in regions like rural areas to prevent exploitation of natural resources and to help keep wealth local. These areas are often rich in natural resources that are vital to our economy. As the economy is rising in demand for sustainable agriculture practices, new opportunities are coming up for urban-rural partnerships. In conclusion, to benefit from all of our resources, we must learn that wealth is beyond just financial capital. The key to creating shared prosperity is by connecting all our resources together. In the long run, shared ownership enhances community...
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