Why is it that most in our American society do not see it as their responsiblity to end class discrimination?

Question

We are building a bigger gap between the rich and the poor. Eventually the middle class will disappear and the majority of society will be in poverty. It seems many choose to stay "comfortable". With this I mean it seems those within the middle class as well as upper middle class and most wealthy seem to not think it is their problem to fix society. Others say there isn't anything we can do. But this is OUR country. Class discrimination and the concern of "prestigious" jobs over those in the jobs that are the fabric of everyday living are a major problem, that really do affect everyone, whether they choose to see it or not.

Answer 1

I think you are listening to hard to your Marxist economics professor. The gap between the rich and the poor is increasing? So what? If a poor person used to have 50 dollars and a rich person used to have 100, but now has 200 while the poor person has 90, the gap has increased, but the poor person is not worse off!
Ask yourself a deep and humbling question. If people in the middle class are comfortable, as you said above, then what is the evidence that they are being squeezed out? I think the only evidence you have is your assertion that it is so.
Listen comrade, I was born dirt-a** poor and I worked minimum wage jobs to put myself through grad-school. Now I make more than my mother and father combined. This is a great country that allowed such economic mobility, and alarmists like you will pass into history as you have been since Sacco and Vanzetti, one would think that after 100 years of such predictions, people would learn, who knew? For a real education, read this article from distinguished economics professor Walter Williams.

Answer 2

The only means of effectively combatting class discrimination and the rich-poor gap is through social mobility:

1) Education
2) Financial access
3) Health care access

Better question: how? There's a problem in the gap's widening, though I don't think the middle class will be wiped out, though it depends on how you define a breaking point between the classes.

You're trying to identify the root causes of the widening gap, but you're also including class discrimination (which is a related issue, but not causal to the gap). Perhaps if these are taken independently:

Class discrimination involves the disproportionate treatment of persons of a lower economic class. It can be hard to identify - did so and so not get a job because they are part of a lower economic class, or because they do not have a college degree (which can be part of the low class status, but also is integral to many professional jobs in the way that physical strength and mobility is integral to many skilled labor jobs)?

Steps have been taken to end class discrimination, most notably in terms of 'redlining' - when a finance company or mortgage lender is not allowed to differentiate rates based on ZIP code, for instance.

The gap between rich and poor is more a product of several institutional (in the Douglass North sense, ie the way the system functions rather than something institutionalized like Jim Crow) forces rather than class discrimination itself. It can be argued that attempts are made to prevent class mobility, although I think there is ample evidence against it (consider the granting of scholarships preferentially to lower-income students at the top tier of the educational system, while such scholarships are rarely granted to the middle or upper income classes).

The gap is partly due to the higher range of earning power at the upper levels, combined with the economic fact that the cost of living decreases on per dollar basis as income grows. An example of this is the 'millionaire next door' - the person who is worth seven figures but lives similarly to their neighbor who is worth 4 figures or less due to debt (remember, $1 million in assets doesn't mean $1 million in net worth if the person is leveraged substantially).

I applaud your efforts, but again I ask how? I would hope no one pose an idea such as income limitations (which would only decrease aggregate wealth) or a more substantial reallocation of income.

Answer 3

One of the biggest problems in America is our failure to realize that we do have a class system. Yes, it is not rigid and imposed formally by the government or religious authority. Yes, it is one of the most flexible in that people can work their way up from the bottom. However, this does not mean that people do not fall into different economic classes or that these classes do not affect a person's life.

Far too much of American efforts go to ending discrimination based on race, gender, religion or orientation. I am not saying that discrimination does not occur because of these issues, but economic class is a much better predictor of things that will affect a person. Think of it this way, take an example of three people: an African American professional, living in the suburbs, firmly set into the upper-middle class with a healthy investment income and kids in a private school; an African American living in the inner-city, kids in public schools, working in a service industry; and a Caucasian in rural America, working on a small farm, kids in public schools. Our current political landscape would aften say the African Americans would be the most in common but many of the things that affect their every day lives are completely different. Two of the people will be harder hit by rising fuel, food, and medical prices, those same two people will be more concerned to see that public schools have proper funding (especially since rural and urban districts tend to be the most underfunded). But what we see fisrt is that two of the people are the same color. This is why racial politics is doomed to failure. The only true divider in our capitalistic society is economic power. Yet we set up other constructs which allow manipulation by those in power, whether it is intentional or not is irrelevant.

Answer 4

Oh "Lovely one" of the previous answer: What does "rightful place" mean??? How can you use that and still talk about equality for all?
Maybe the bottom line is really a mentality of "I got mine".
There is a myth in the US that at any level of the wealth distribution of the US, you can work your way up. It's much less so now than 20 years ago Paul Samuelson pointed this out last year in the Journal of Economic Perspectives as the single biggest risk of globalization to the US. So, since the standard belief is that if you are smart and a "good" person, which means you work hard and are honest, you MUST become succesful. As a result of this MUST, if you are not successful, you MUST not have been smart, honest, or have worked hard.
The Economist Magazine in June did articles on the diminishing American dream, showing that American class mobility is much less than France. All due respect to the French, but ...FRANCE???
Given the baloney about the "death tax", and the change in the GINNI index for the US, it is easy to see that much of this self congratulations for being successful is from those who had the accidental advantage of being matched with rich mommies and daddies.
To distract us from the class discrimination issue, it is played as a race issue. However, it is by and far a class issue, again given that few African Americans are members of the astronomical wealthy dynasties that exist, you can easily bet that all of the African Americans you meet have little need for a financial adviser, or a $1million+ real estate broker. When hiring an African American, you can also assume their uncle is not the chairman of a fortune 500 board of directors, so may not see the advantage of befreinding them over a Kennedy, Bush, DuPont, Rockefeller or any of the other elite social clubs that might afford you access to resources for yourself or your company.
Call it racism and these wealth hoarders can help us continue to fight over scraps and forget things like inheritance taxes which contrary to other taxes, do not induce people to die less. .Call it classism like it should and their grandchildren might have to compete with the rest of us since it is more likely that their "little" endowments might be re-distributed towards education and such.

Thanks for the question. This topic burns me to no end.

*****Rae: We can't contact you via Yahoo Answers since it says your email address is not confirmed. If you are interested in replies to messages, you might consider writing a correspondence email address with the message to keep your address private to everyone but the email recipient.

Answer 5

Because some people are selfish. The larger the gap continues and scarcity of goods and resources diminish, the more disastrous it will be. I don't think the very rich will stay powerful forever. Since only a very few people are rich and the large majority of people are middle class and poor, if the middle class and poor would not get what they needed to survive then an all out revolution is bound to occur. Eventhough this country is bounded by laws, I can bet that when it comes to survival it is one man for himself regardless of laws.

Answer 6

In my opinion the very word "class" is the beginning of the problem. Who's idea was it to label human beings into a class? It wasn't mine. Take a wild guess. This word somehow makes people believe that somehow they have more of a right to have than the havenots. Who always seem to be the havenots? Take a wild guess. Society cannot be fixed. When you are raised in middle class, and upper middle class households you've already been indoctrinated into what group is the right one for you. I think american minds need to be debriefed to understand that any upright moral citizen should care about the hungry,and the poverty striken. Class discrimination is a state of mind, and when the not so rich decides to take their rightful place in America we might have a better shot at equality for all.

Answer 7

Perhaps it's because most people disagree with your view that the middle class is shrinking and that the majority of people will be living in poverty. Maybe you should do some research to see if there is any evidence to support this notion.

Our classes aren't bad. They give something for people to aspire to and the US has a high class mobility, which isn't a bad thing. Quite the contrary, it means that if people find ways to add value to society they are rewarded for it.

You should read "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell.

Answer 8

Without discrimination capitalism would not work. Everyone has to feel that their hard work makes them better than someone. That is why there is so much animosity between blacks and whites. Society is yielding black millionaires by the truck load and to working class white Americans they feel that they are being treated unfairly. In Mississippi Burning Gene Hackman mentioned a true statement that the common belief among whites is that, "if you aren't better than blacks then who are you better then."

Answer 9

Look; back then, now and in the future you will always have this. Discrimination kinda makes us who we are I hate to tell you. It won't change. Sure you can get a person to change but not people. Sorry

Answer 10

Tough question. But to the point: Why? Because most people don't think past the near term, nor ever try to put themselves in other's shoes. And they always believe "that will never happen to me" or "that could never happen here..."