Chapter 2: Class, Poverty and Econ. Inequality

Question 1

Economic inequality:

Answer 1

Differences in income and wealth across individuals and groups within a society.

Question 2

Classes:

Answer 2

Systems of ordering in society whereby people are organized into categories based on their socio-economic conditions and interests.

Classes, in sociological thinking, are groups of people who share a common economic condition, interest, or, as Marx described it, relationship to the means of production (i.e., to technology and capital).

In Marx’s logic there are two main classes: owners and workers. This binary—“have” and “have-not”—is fundamental to all social relations, since these two classes are forever locked in conflict.

Question 3

Class consciousness:

Answer 3

An awareness of one’s place in the social class structure, particularly as it relates to political class struggle.

Question 4

False consciousness:

Answer 4

An acceptance of the discourse and values of the dominant class and thus a willingness to believe arguments that promote individualistic solutions to problems.

Question 5

In Marx’s logic there are two main classes:

Answer 5

workers and owners, or haves and have-nots

Question 6

For revolutionary purposes, class formation requires the growth of class consciousness, which in turn demands four important changes in the thinking of workers:

Answer 6

(1) identifying themselves as members of an exploited class;
(2) seeing that the owners of the means of production oppose their economic interests;
(3) realizing that everything is at stake in the battle for equality; and
(4) recognizing that societal change is possible through class conflict.

Question 7

social mobility:

Answer 7

The movement of people from one social class to another during their lifetime.

Question 8

social mobility tends to be greatest in societies where…

Answer 8

the opportunity structure is open and barriers and advantages associated with people’s backgrounds are few.

Question 9

intergenerational income elasticity:

Answer 9

• The correlation between a parent’s and a child’s income.
• Higher scores indicate that mobility is less common
• Income mobility is most common in Denmark (0.14), Finland (0.20), and Canada (0.23) and least common in Great Britain (0.37), the United States (0.41), and Brazil (0.52).

Question 10

in countries with high income-mobility rates, economic prosperity—an abundance of economic resources and opportunities—has been:

Answer 10

Steadily rising.

(That mobility remains low in many countries implies that the benefits of economic growth are seldom distributed equally to all members of society)

Question 11

In our society, ______ ________ are the key to social mobility.

Answer 11

educational credentials.

*People who are more socially mobile are more likely to gain opportunities to interact with people of higher and lower social classes.

Question 12

absolute poverty

Answer 12

Lack of the basic necessities (food, shelter, medicine) for survival. Starvation is an example of the effects of absolute poverty.

Question 13

relative poverty

Answer 13

Survival, but far below the general living standards of the society or social group in which one lives; affects people’s lives in dramatic ways.

Question 14

Low Income Measures (LIMs) and its method:

Answer 14

A set of figures representing 50 per cent of the median “adjusted family income.” Actual incomes are compared with LIMs to determine whether a family can be considered low income.

Method:
The threshold is set at half the Canadian median adjusted household income. An adjustment is made for household size by multiplying the household income by the square root of persons in the household.

Question 15

Low Income Cut-Offs (LICOs) and its method:

Answer 15

A formal definition used by Statistics Canada for measuring relative poverty on the basis of the percentage of income devoted to daily necessities (food, shelter, clothing), determined both regionally and by population (size of city or rural).

Method:
The threshold is derived from the cost of a basket of goods and services for a household of two adults (aged 25–49) and two children. The basket includes the core necessities (food, shelter, clothing) as well as a number of social amenities such as movie tickets and charitable donations.

Question 16

Gini coefficient

Answer 16

The Gini coefficient ranges between 0 (total income equality) and 1 (perfect income inequality) and is used to define the gap between the “rich” and the “poor” in specified income contexts.

Question 17

Market Basket Measure (MBM)

Answer 17

A way of measuring income and poverty in absolute, non-relative terms that was added in 2003 to Statistics Canada’s methods of measuring income and poverty. It’s based on an imaginary basket of market-priced goods and services and on the income needed to purchase the items in the basket. The determination of what goes into this imaginary basket, however, is subjective and tends to exclude all but the absolute essentials of bare survival.

Method of calculating threshold:

The threshold is derived from the cost of a basket of goods and services for a household of two adults (aged 25–49) and two children. The basket includes the core necessities (food, shelter, clothing) as well as a number of social amenities such as movie tickets and charitable donations.

Question 18

Is the poverty line elastic or inelastic?

Answer 18

Elastic by responding both to changes in real income and to the success of advocates fighting to increase social welfare by redefining or remeasuring poverty

Question 19

What is the poverty line?

Answer 19

A threshold representing the lower limit of the usual standard of living, which differs across countries. The definition of poverty varies by society, within societies, and also over time.

Question 20

Human Development Index(HDI)

Answer 20

A combined measure of achievement in three areas of human development—life expectancy at birth, literacy, and GDP per capita—used by the United Nations Development Programme to monitor social and economic progress across countries.

Question 21

The world’s most developed countries do not use the HDI, they use the:

Answer 21

for these nations, population well-being is measured by the second variant of the human poverty index (HPI-2).

The HPI-2 assesses relative deprivation in these same dimensions:

1. vulnerability to premature death, as measured by the likelihood at birth of not surviving to age 60;
2. exclusion from reading and communications, as measured by adult illiteracy;
3. a deprived standard of living, as measured by the percentage of the population living below the income poverty line;
4. and social exclusion, as measured by the rate of long-term unemployment.

Question 22

The face of poverty and economic inequality in Canada is

Answer 22

“racialized, destitute, and young” (Curry-Stevens, 2004).

Question 23

What is a welfare state, how is it done, and what is Canada’s position on this?

Answer 23

A social system in which the government undertakes the responsibility of providing social and economic security to its citizens.

This is generally done through taxation and certain types of social programs, which include pensions, health care, employment insurance, child care, and various educational programs and subsidies.

Canada is considered to be a liberal social welfare regime, one that’s characterized by very limited social spending

Question 24

Structural Functionalism view on poverty

Answer 24

• Inequality and poverty serve important functions in society.
• Poverty and inequality motivate people to work harder to improve their life conditions.
• Those who invest the most time and effort receive the best-paying jobs and working conditions.
• Such a view is most applicable in situations where effort corresponds with reward

Question 25

Conflict theory view on poverty

Answer 25

The conflict theory of poverty and inequality relies heavily on ideas first developed by Karl Marx and Max Weber.

• The bourgeoisie, recognizing the proletariats’ dependence on the wages earned from work, exploit the labour of their workers as a means of maximizing wealth for themselves.
• There exists a structural power imbalance between capitalists and employees.
• Employees depend on wages for survival and are therefore vulnerable to workplace exploitation.
• By exploiting workers through poor working conditions and poor pay, owners amass more wealth for themselves.

Question 26

Symbolic Interactionism view on poverty

Answer 26

• This approach focuses on the labels attributed to the “wealthy” and the “poor.”
• Labels attached to the poor, such as “lazy,” are often unjustified stereotypes.
• However, widespread subscription to these stereotypes makes them real in their consequences.

Question 27

Alienation in labour under capitalism is:

Answer 27

Distancing of the worker from other human beings as well as from the product and act of their labour.

Question 28

relative income hypothesis is:

Answer 28

The proposal that income inequality alone (as opposed to absolute deprivation) is enough to bring on various health problems, including premature mortality, within a population.

Question 29

The best-known investigations of the relationship between inequality and health are the Whitehall studies, which involved 18,000 male British civil servants in the late 1960s and the 1970s. A major finding was that:

Answer 29

mortality rates, especially from coronary heart disease (CHD), were three times higher among workers in the lowest civil service positions (messengers, doorkeepers, and so on) than among workers in the highest positions (such as top administrators).

Question 30

social inequality contributes directly to poor health and social problems for two main reasons:

Answer 30

first, it increases social inequality and decreases social cohesion

second, social inequality, in the form of relative disadvantage, increases the experience of stress and other mental health problems.

Question 31

Malthusian Spirit is…

Answer 31

a state of mind characterized by the fear of excess—faced with two quantities that need adjusting, it tends to lower the highest instead of boosting the lowest. It is the opposite of courage and generosity.

• The Malthusian is the person who, at a dinner party with too little food for all the guests, tries to send guests home rather than find more food in the pantry.

Question 32

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848/1955) contended that

Answer 32

a revolution that would eliminate ruling classes forever by eliminating private property—by putting the means of production in the hands of the state—would bring better conditions for all.

With the eventual “withering away” of the state, communism would end history as we’ve known it, for it would end social classes and class conflict.

Question 33

Solving the Problems of Poverty and Economic Inequality has two solutions:

Answer 33

1. Individual solutions: in their own interest

2. Collective solution: co-operation of many people for their mutual benefit

Question 34

Individual Solution:

Answer 34

• Obtain a higher education to get the best jobs

- Cope successfully with the real scarcity by producing more of what people need

Question 35

Collective Solution:

Answer 35

• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels say that eliminating private property, and putting the means of production in the hands of the state
• Basically, communism would end social classes and inequality
• Michel’s Principle (iron law): every social grouping a dominant group will struggle to perpetuate its power (inequality in human groupings is inevitable). That is, inequality is inevitable in human groupings, whatever their size or their members’ ideology