Beyond an Underclass: an Essay on Up-Front Politics
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Underclass, Overclass, Ruling Class, Supernova Class1
EIGHT Underclass, overclass, ruling class, supernova class1 Danny Dorling Introduction One man in his mid-thirties hoped that his six-figure income would grow rapidly, and admitted that his assets would be valued at nearly a million pounds. He held strong views about poverty. “There is no poverty. Now you can get money from the state. People don’t even have to go to work. You don’t have to put up with working in an unrewarding situation.” He strongly disagreed with the propositions that the gap between rich and poor was too wide and that the rich should be more highly taxed. He strongly opposed the idea of putting limits on “some people’s expensive way of living” to reduce poverty and disagreed with the statement that a lot of people entitled to claim benefits do not claim them. Finally, he strongly agreed that cuts in public services like health and education could be made without increasing the number of people in poverty and that, if there was any poverty, it was more likely to be reduced by increasing Britain’s wealth than by making incomes more equal. (Peter Townsend, describing the views of one of the new overclass of London, recorded in 1985-86; see Townsend, 1993, p 109) By 2010 one in ten of all Londoners had the wealth of the man who Peter had described some 25 years earlier as being part of a tiny elite 155 fighting poverty, inequality and social injustice (see Hills et al, 2010). The Hills inquiry into inequality revealed that one in ten Londoners now have wealth of nearly a million pounds, some 273 times the wealth of the poorest tenth of today’s Londoners. -
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Downloaded from https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537781400001444 474 Journal of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era / October 2009 Who Were the Gilders? And Other Seldom-Asked Questions about https://www.cambridge.org/core Business, Technology, and Political Economy in the United States, 1877- 1900 . By Richard K John, Columbia University Columbia University - Law Library Historians of the United States have for many decades termed the late nineteenth century the "Gilded Age." No consensus exists as to when this period began and ended, or how it might best be characterized. Most textbook authors place the origins of the Gilded Age around 1877 and its demise around 1900. Few would deny that this period witnessed a host of epochal , on innovations that included the rise of the modern industrial corporation, 03 Sep 2019 at 14:52:04 the building of large-scale technical systems, including the electric power grid, and the creation of governmental institutions that were conducive to rapid industrialization. Yet the significance of these innovations remained a matter of dispute. This essay contends that no synthetic account of the late nineteenth-century United States that aspires to be at all comprehensive , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at can ignore these innovations—innovations that have come to be known by various names such as the "managerial revolution," the "Second Industrial Revolution," and "modernization."1 It further contends that the reluctance of some of the most respected historians of business, technology, and political economy to embrace the Gilded Age construct raises questions about its utility as a periodizing device.2 'Robert J. -
Drainage on the Grand Prairie: the Birth of a Hydraulic Society on the Midwestern Frontier
Journal of Historical Geography xxx (2011) 1e14 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Historical Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhg Drainage on the Grand Prairie: the birth of a hydraulic society on the Midwestern frontier Samuel J. Imlay and Eric D. Carter* Grinnell College, 1118 Park St., Grinnell, IA 50112, United States Abstract The Grand Prairie of east central Illinois was notorious for a marshy environment that prevented dense agricultural settlement until late in the nineteenth century. While recent historicalegeographical scholarship has focused on innovations in drainage technology, drainage-related laws and institutions, and the ecological impacts of wetland reclamation, it has largely failed to account for the persistence of agrarian structure, and its key component, land tenure, on the Grand Prairie. Late-nineteenth-century reclamation efforts were not quite so transformative as previously believed. The same landed elite that dominated in the pre-drainage era quickly emerged atop a system of public drainage that held the key to the region’s economic future. In this paper, we extend Karl Wittfogel and Donald Worster’s theorizations about ‘hydraulic civilizations’ from the realm of irrigation to that of drainage. While drainage was indeed important in shaping the history of east central Illinois, we argue that a distinctive social order in east central Illinois emerged from, and was shaped by, an older agrarian structure that had developed in response to marshy, unpredictable conditions before drainage began in the late 1800s. The beneficiaries of the old order did not yield power easily, and instead skillfully capitalized on the new opportunities presented by drainage enterprises, to create a ‘hydraulic society’ on the prairie. -
Butterfly Effects: the Possibilities of Law Teaching in a Democracy*
Duke Law Journal VOLUME 41 FEBRUARY 1992 NUMBER 4 BUTTERFLY EFFECTS: THE POSSIBILITIES OF LAW TEACHING IN A DEMOCRACY* PAUL D. CARRINGTON** INTRODUCTION New legal institutions are being formed at an astonishing pace in 1992. From Cambodia to Croatia, from Pretoria to Bogota, in the for- mer territory of the Soviet Union, and the federation taking shape in western Europe, the work of constructing new polities proceeds apace. It would be far too much to say that all of these developments are proceeding along the lines of our American model; others, of course, think for themselves. Yet it is clear that many of the ideas embraced by Americans in the late eighteenth century are finding favor with many, perhaps most, of the plentiful founders of 1992. Political accountability of the governors to the governed and government limited by law seem, for example, to be generally accepted premises of contemporary govern- mental reform. The tradition of American law teaching had its origins in precisely these premises. It seems not unlikely, therefore, that the subject of legal education will reach the agendas of today's founders as well. This Arti- cle is therefore written to assist the thinking of those in distant places who may in 1992 or soon thereafter consider the possible role of law teaching as a foundation of restrained democratic government. * Some of this Article appears in a shorter piece prepared especially for English readers. See Paul D. Carrington, Aftermath, in ESSAYS FOR PATRICK ATIYAH 113 (1991). ** Chadwick Professor of Law, Duke University. The author is grateful for comments on earlier drafts by Francis Allen, Barbara Babcock, David Barnhizer, George Christie, John Frank, Walter Gellhorn, Martin Golding, Erwin Griswold, Stanley Hauerwas, Wythe Holt, Kenneth Karst, Richard Maxwell, Jeffrey O'Connell, Jefferson Powell, Thomas Rowe, Theodore St. -
Working Paper Series
WORKING PAPER SERIES THE CONNECTEDNESSOF IVORY TOWERSAND INNERCITIES CONVERSATIONSABOUT US AND THEM By Sharon E. Sutton, James E. Crowfoot, Mark Chesler, Edith Lewis, and Helen Weingarten PCMA Working CRSO Worlung Paper #46 Paper #527 April 1995 The Program on Conflict Management Alternatives at the University of Michlgan THE PROGRAM ON CONFLICT MANAGEMENT-ALTERNATIVES The Program on Conflict Management Alternatives was established in January, 1986 by a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and additional funds from the University of Michigan. These basic grants were renewed in July, 1988 and again in July, 1991. The Program supports an agenda of research, application, and theory development. PCMA also establishes links among other university research and teaching efforts relevant to conflict management alternatives, and maintains liaison and collaboration with similar efforts in other Universities and Practitioner agencies. The Program staffers own work focuses explicitly on the relationship between social justice and social conflict, specifically: (a) the use of innovative settlement procedures and roles for disputants and third parties; (b) the institutionalization of innovative mechanisms and the adoption of organizational and community structures that permanently alter the way conflicts are managed; and (c) the fundamental differences and inequalities between parties that often create conflict and threaten its stable resolution. We examine these issues primarily in United States' settings, in conflicts arising within and between families, organizations and commu'nities, and between different racial, gender, and economic constituencies. These specific efforts are supported by a variety of research and action ! grants/contracts with governmental agencies, foundations, and private and public organizations/agencies. The Program in Conflict Management Alternatives is housed within the Centerfor Research on Social Organization, College of Literature, Science and the Arts, Room 4016 LS&A Building, Telephone: (3 13) 763-0472. -
Indigenous Capitalist Class, Social Stratification and Life Chances in the Contemporary Nigeria Society
Public Policy and Administration Research www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-5731(Paper) ISSN 2225-0972(Online) Vol.4, No.7, 2014 Indigenous Capitalist Class, Social Stratification and Life Chances in the Contemporary Nigeria Society Oladele A. Adeleke 1* , Rasak Bamidele 2, Rasaq Omokeji, Ganiyu 3 1.Department of Sociology, Olabisi OnabanjoUniversity, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State E-mail: [email protected] 2.Department of Sociology and Psychology,Fountain University Osogbo, Osun State E-mail:[email protected] 3.Department of Sociology, Fountain University, Osogbo, Osun State E-mail: [email protected] Abstract The life styles associated with people in the same class categories include, among other things, particularly orientations to manners, speech, clothing styles, education and especially, ‘Success’. There is a tendency for people with similar styles to participate together in both formal and informal groups, to marry one another, and to choose activities that reflect their similar value orientations. Social stratification draws attention to the unequal positions occupied by individuals in society. Social inequality is found in all societies. Therefore, this paper is to examine social stratification, life chances in relation to indigenous capitalist class in Nigeria. This study will be guided by the Weberian perspective of social stratification. Keywords: Social Stratification, Indigenous Capitalist Class, Life Chances, Social Inequality and Social Mobility Introduction In every human society, there are inequalities even in the smallest culture, where variations in wealth or property virtually none existent, there are inequalities between individuals, men and women, the young and the old. A person may have a higher status than others because of particular prowess at hunting for instance or because he/she is believed to have special access to ancestral spirits. -
THE USE of the FRENCH LANGUAGE in LEO TOLSTOY's NOVEL, WAR and PEACE by OLGA HENRY MICHAEL D. PICONE, COMMITTEE CHAIR ANDREW
THE USE OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE IN LEO TOLSTOY’S NOVEL, WAR AND PEACE by OLGA HENRY MICHAEL D. PICONE, COMMITTEE CHAIR ANDREW DROZD MARYSIA GALBRAITH A THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2016 Copyright Olga Henry 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT This study comprises an inventory and an analysis of the types of code-switching and the reasons for code-switching in Leo Tolstoy’s novel, War and Peace. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Russia were marked by multilingualism among the nobility. The French language, in particular, was widely known and used in high society. Indeed, French was considered expressively superior to Russian (Offord, Ryazanova-Clarke, Rjéoutski & Argent, 2015). Then as now, code-switching was a common phenomenon among bilinguals. There were subjects discussed specifically in French, and others in Russian, in Tolstoy’s novel, which represents the life in Russia between 1807 and 1812, and which was constructed to reflect the nature of the time period and its characteristics. In this paper, using the theoretical model proposed by Myers-Scotton (1995) based on markedness, an identification is made of reasons for using code-switching. This is correlated with René Appel and Pieter Muysken’s (1987) five functions of code-switching; and Benjamin Bailey’s (1999) three functional types of switching. A delineation is also made of the types of topics discussed in the French language by the Russian aristocracy, the types of code-switching used most frequently, and the base language of code- switching in Tolstoy’s novel. -
The Inheritance of Race Revisited
The Inheritance of Race Revisited: Childhood Wealth and Income and Black–White Disadvantages in Adult Life Chances David Brady,a Ryan Finnigan,b Ulrich Kohler,c Joscha Legewied a) University of California, Riverside; b) University of California, Davis; c) University of Potsdam; d) Harvard University Abstract: Vast racial inequalities continue to prevail across the United States and are closely linked to economic resources. One particularly prominent argument contends that childhood wealth accounts for black–white (BW) disadvantages in life chances. This article analyzes how much childhood wealth and childhood income mediate BW disadvantages in adult life chances with Panel Study of Income Dynamics and Cross-National Equivalent File data on children from the 1980s and 1990s who were 30+ years old in 2015. Compared with previous research, we exploit longer panel data, more comprehensively assess adult life chances with 18 outcomes, and measure income and wealth more rigorously. We find large BW disadvantages in most outcomes. Childhood wealth and income mediate a substantial share of most BW disadvantages, although there are several significant BW disadvantages even after adjusting for childhood wealth and income. The evidence mostly contradicts the prominent claim that childhood wealth is more important than childhood income. Indeed, the analyses mostly show that childhood income explains more of BW disadvantages and has larger standardized coefficients than childhood wealth. We also show how limitations in prior wealth research explain why our conclusions differ. Replication with the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a variety of robustness checks support these conclusions. Keywords: racial inequality; wealth; income; intergenerational mobility; stratification; inequality Citation: Brady, David, Ryan AST racial inequalities continue to prevail across the United States. -
X CONTRIBUTIONS to the THEORY of REFERENCE GROUP BEHAVIOR*
x CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEORY OF REFERENCE GROUP BEHAVIOR* T IS CHAPTER PROCEEDS on the assumption that there;s two-way traffic between social theory and empirical research. Systematic em pirical materials help advance social theory by imposing the task and by affording the opportunity for interpretation along lines often unpre meditated, and social theory, in turn, defines the scope and enlarges the predictive value of empirical findings by indicating the conditions under which they hold. The systematic data of The American Soldier,! in all their numerous variety, provide a useful occasion for examining the interplay of social theory and applied social research. More particularly, we attempt to identify and to order the fairly numerous researches in The American Soldier which, by implication or by explicit statement, bear upon the theory of reference group behavior. (The empirical realities which this term denotes will presently be con sidered in some detail. It should be said here, however, that although the term "reference group" is not employed in these volumes, any more than it has yet found full acceptance 'in the vocabulary of sociology as distinct from social psychology, reference group concepts play an im portant part in the interpretative apparatus utilized by the Research Branch of the Information and Education Division of the War Depart ment.) At two points, we deal briefly with related subjects which are not, however, part and parcel of reference group theory. We review the statistical indices of group attributes and social structure as variously adopted in these researches, and attempt to indicate, though very briefly and programmatically, the specific value of systematically incorporating such indices in further research. -
Foreword: One Generation Away Oren Cass Home Building Survey, Parts
READER FEBRUARY 2021 Foreword: One Generation Away Oren Cass 11 Home Building Survey, Parts I & II American Compass Research 18 Let Them Eat Daycare Wells King 39 A Family Benefit Oren Cass, Wells King, and Sean Speer 45 Policy Proposals Samuel Hammond, Neil Gilbert, and Michael Lind 133 Family Foundations Helen Andrews, Kay Hymowitz, Patrick T. Brown, and Lyman Stone 189 Our Mission To restore an economic consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity– REORIENTING POLITICAL FOCUS from growth for its own sake to widely shared economic development that sustains vital social institutions. SETTING A COURSE for a country in which families can achieve self-sufficiency, contribute productively to their communities, and prepare the next generation for the same. HELPING POLICYMAKERS NAVIGATE the limitations that markets and government each face in promoting the general welfare and the nation’s security. AMERICAN COMPASS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with headquarters at 300 Independence Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20003. All contents Copyright © 2020 by American Compass, Inc. unless otherwise noted. Electronic versions of these articles with additional footnotes and sourcing are available at www.americancompass.org. 3 Home Building American family life has long been associated with the “white picket fence,” a symbol of twentieth-century, middle-class nostalgia. Such ideals are better reflected not by the fence but the home it surrounded, in which families found shelter and security, parents raised children, and wealth was built up and passed down. That home has fallen into disrepair. Fewer people are getting married; fewer children are being born; and they are more likely to be raised by single parents. -
International Relations and Change: a Kuhnian Interpretation
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND CHANGE: A KUHNIAN INTERPRETATION A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY of RHODES UNIVERSITY by JACOBUS SCHOEMAN November 2005 ABSTRACT International Relations and Change: A Kuhnian Interpretation Using notions of change developed by Thomas Kuhn, the thesis argues that the rise of globalisation and the end of the Cold War presented the Westphalian or state-centric paradigm of international relations with a Kuhnian paradigm “crisis”. As a result, both the theory and the practice of international relations are in the midst of (what Kuhn calls) a “paradigm shift”. Emerging from this shift is (what is described in this work as) “Access World” and “Denial World” – a particular global configuration of the practice of international relations. Kuhn’s idea of “incommensurability” seems to typify the relationship between the two components of this bifurcated configuration of the international. Both intellectual risk-taking and political courage are required if the ontological struggle raging between “Access World” and “Denial World” is to be settled. This will pave the way for a new paradigm to emerge. Kuhn provides us with the insight that, to achieve this ontological breakthrough, a fundamental change in our vision of the discipline of International Relations, but also of the world of everyday international relations, is required. This entails recasting the study of International Relations as an emancipatory project and by recognising the centrality of ii human beings in the practice of international relations. Only if this is done, will we be able to arrive at a cosmopolitan political bargain that is appropriate for the 21st century. -
A Contextual Definition of the Underclass by Martha Van Haitsma
A contextual definition of the underclass by Martha Van Haitsma Spatial concentration of poverty in and of itself need not constitute a problem distinct from general poverty. The neighborhoods in which people live do alter the mix of Martha Van Haitsma is a graduate student in the Department opportunities and difficulties they face, but not everyone in of Sociology at the University of Chicago. This article is the an area of concentrated poverty belongs to the same socio- revised and edited section of a paper presented at the 1989 economic class. Spatial concentration cannot be ignored, Midwest Sociological Association Meetings in St. Louis, however, as it constitutes part of the mechanism that links Missouri, April 5-10, 1989. nonnormative3 patterns of income generation and family formation to chronic poverty. When an area is largely popu- lated by chronically poor persons, the opportunities for climbing out of poverty are dimini~hed.~Residents of such Assessing whether or not an underclass exists, how it came areas have weak links to job networks, and therefore find to be, and what policies are likely to affect it all turn on how alternate means of generating income. Higher rates of infor- the term "underclass" is defined. The underclass has been mal and illegal means of accruing income, as well as welfare variously defined by any or all of four characteristics: use, strengthen networks of information tied to these ave- chronic poverty; nonnormative behavior with respect to nues rather than to formal work. With few visible career income generation and family formation; spatial concentra- prospects and few "marriageable" (i.e., stably empl~yed)~ tion of such poverty and/or behavior; and intergenerational men, young women are more likely to opt for single mother- transmission of such poverty and/or behavior.? The manner hood as a route to adulthood.