Topic 1e - New Right explanations for social class inequality.

brief introduction to New right ideas - New right ideology stems from Neo-liberalism which was important in the 80s.

1) Marsland: “culture of dependency”

Marsland believes that the government should not provide so much help through welfare, says it leads to a dependency culture. he believes that people who are on low income are a result of the state being too generous whit their benefits and services rather than an individuals inadequacy to work. Marsland states that individuals should be encouraged to take responsibility for themselves.

Lewis, says their is a ‘new paternalism’ where there is an underclass of infantilised people who are unable and unwilling to help themselves. the ‘marshmallow’ test where children are left alone in a room with marshmallows and are told they must not eat it and if they down they are rewarded with two more marsh mallows. the children from lower class backgrounds were most likely to eat the marshmallows than wait. Lewis called this ‘present time orientation’ and criticises the underclass for failing to see ahead.

Criticisms - Jones criticise Marsland for failing to recognise that the government is responsible for class inequality but its not because they are too generous, he believes that its because capitalism is an economic system which allows one social class to exploit the other.

2) Murray: “the underclass and the culture of poverty”.

Murray argues that single parent (female-led), who live on benefits are at the heart of the underclass. he believes that illegitimate children are more likely to run wild and demonstrate poor behaviours. according to Murray the new generation are quite happy to live off the state and engage in criminal behaviour to assert their masculinity. Boys with absent fathers are more likely to imitate older male role models and take up criminal behaviour.

Michael Gove, a conservative minister, wrote a paper suggesting that children in the underclass were beyond hope and that compensatory schemes in education were pointless.

Criticisms - Marxists criticise Murray’s view that the key explanation for worklessness with the underclass community is simply down to internalise poor attitudes and poor work ethnics. They argue that the main cause behind worklessness are down to multiple forms of depravation and social exclusion.

3) Murry and Herrnstein: “the Bell Curve”

the bell curve is a book written by Murray and Herrnstein where they say that an individuals intelligence is all down to their IQ . they say that the cognitive elite are becoming separated from those of average and below average intelligence. “social class inequalities can be explained by having low or high IQ. the cognitive elite are more intelligent and thus end up in higher professions. social groups at the low end of the cognitive ability spectrum are more likely to be involved in antisocial behaviours such as: poverty, family matters, unemployment, welfare dependency and crime.

Criticisms - IQ tests have been widely criticised for cultural distortions. individuals who come from homes wit access to a wide pool of educational toys will do better. Raw intelligence is very difficult to measure and the test which Murray and Herrnstein used were criticised for ignoring these issues.

4) Loss of civility - Dennis and Erdos

Dennis and Erdos argue that modern society has lost its common values. Since the rise of liberalism and the decline in religion we have seen a decline in moral standards leading to the emergence of an overly tolerant society where ‘anything goes’. they argue people are rude, self-centred, lacking in morals, for example urinating in the street, using drugs, swearing etc. in the past individuals were taught to think of others before themselves, but modern society suggests people are entitled to put themselves first. this fundamental switch from prioritising rights before responsibilities has led to the emergence of an underclass who fail to offer anything to society and hence are likely to be unemployed and poor.

criticisms - Lyotard discusses how the relaxing of social rules and structures has brought many benefits so we can no longer judge people on what they look like, and all sorts of behaviours are now tolerated.