Economic Inequality

Chapter 7 of Lisa Wade's Terrible, Magnificent Sociology

What is economic capital?

Financial resources that are or can be converted into money for things we want and need.

What are the variables in economic capital?

Income and wealth.

What do measures of central tendency try to describe?

Populations by referring to a midpoint.

What is the economic elite?

The minority of people that control a disproportionate amount of wealth.

What is social mobility?

The opportunity to move up or down in the economic hierarchy.

What caused the class system to emerge?

Industrialization.

What is capitalism?

An economic system based on private ownership of the resources used to create wealth and the right of individuals to personally profit.

Who was Karl Marx?

An early critic of capitalism who grew up during the industrial revolution.

What is the proletariat?

The people employed by others who worked for a wage and own only their labor.

What is the bourgeoisie?

The people who employ the workers and own the means of production.

What is Marx’s crisis of capitalism?

A coming catastrophic implosion from which capitalism would never recover?

What is socialism?

An economic system based on shared ownership of the resources used to create wealth that is then distributed by governments for the enrichment of all.

What was the Gilded Age?

A period of unusually high economic inequality.

Who took home about half the income during the Gilded Age?

The bourgeoisie.

How did the Great Depression disprove Marx’s crisis of capitalism?

It shifted society to welfare capitalism.

Why was the newly created middle class predominantly white?

The New Deals’ systemic exclusion of people of color.

Why didn’t the proletariat revolt during the Great Depression?

The middle class preferred to identify with the bourgeoisie.

What is the New Gilded Age?

The second period of unusually high economic inequality.

Why did the New Gilded Age begin?

A return to high economic inequality through dismantling of socialist policies enacted during the Great Depression.

Who are the most economically disadvantaged groups?

Young people and people of color.

What social groups make up the majority of gig workers?

Young people, people of color, and immigrants.

What is the precariat?

A new class of workers living economically precarious lives.

What is wrong with perfectly equal and perfectly unequal societies?

They leave no motivation to work.

What is Protestant work ethic?

The idea that one’s character can and should be measured by one’s dedication to paid work.

Who introduced the concept of Protestant work ethic?

Max Weber

What is the glass ceiling?

Social mobility restrictions for children born in the poorest class.

What is the glass floor?

Social mobility restrictions for children born in the richest class.

Why are women and racial and ethnic minorities more likely to be in poverty?

Wage differences between them and the status elite.

What is legitimation?

A process by which a potentially controversial social fact is made acceptable.