American Class Divisions Through Facebook and MySpace 373
Jamie found this paper earlier about American Class Divisions and Facebook and MySpace. The paper talks about the history of the two sites, what groups tend to use what site. They also talk about what proponents of each site think of the other. It's actually an interesting read and worth your time.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:lets see if I can sum this up without even RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:lets see if I can sum this up without even RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
I quit reading when she used the slang "kinda"
Re:lets see if I can sum this up without even RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that just being the Devil's Advocate?
Re:lets see if I can sum this up without even RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
The paper lacks citations, makes broad-sweeping overgeneralizations, and doesn't bother with talking to anybody on either facebook nor on myspace to back up its claims. The postscript states that numerous interviews were done, but no numbers are revealed from these interviews. Indeed, there are no quotations from anyone that was the interviewed -- the only instances of quotations marks are around words like "good," and "middle class," and naturally a quote from a completely unrelated book. The only claim that this paper successfully backs is that determining a person's class in America is hard. I wrote better papers when I was in the sixth grade.
I think it can be summed up with a sentence mid-way through: "I don't have the data to confirm whether or not a statistically significant shift has occurred but it was one of those things that just made me think." If the author doesn't have data, then why are they bothering with making a claim?
I'm putting slashdot back on my dns blackhole so that the temptation to read is destroyed...
Re: (Score:3)
That said, the ideas it presents are interesting, but the sheer hubris that the author has in thinking anyone would ever cite that work is astonishing.
Re: (Score:2)
Help from sociologists? (Score:4, Insightful)
IANAS (I Am Not A Sociologist), but I think the might mean cultural divisions. Posts to, say,
Is it because the community that forms around the site, which was ultimately created targeted at a demographic?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Help from sociologists? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the distinctions the paper's author has noted are simply reflections of class that are held by the participants. The separations are much deeper than a simple web site. As a comedian recently noted with respect to Brittney Spears, "you can take the trash out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the trash."
I would be much more interested if the paper's author found people who successfully used social networking sites to actually "change classes". Can you climb the ladder of success by ingratiating yourself with your hegemons, or will you always be snubbed as an "upstart"?
heh (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Serious Scientific Article? (Score:4, Insightful)
After reading that nugget, my interest in the topic waned almost instantly.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Serious Scientific Article? (Score:5, Insightful)
* Dude, like Facebook is waaay more bitchin' than Myspace if ur in college
* Among popular social networking sites, Facebook is far more accepted by college students than Myspace
They both make the same point, right? Which do you think might have a chance of getting serious attention from the scientific community? Which do you think has a chance of getting published in a respected journal? Which one sounds like serious research?
I don't care how insightful somebody's work may be. If it is too painful to read, it isn't worth it. Come back when you can present your ideas in a coherent, professional manner.
Superficial, judgemental fool? (Score:3, Funny)
If you judge a book by it's cover, you're not righteous enough to receive the teachings within.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's going great! Thanks for asking
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Serious Scientific Article? (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair, I saw this earlier this morning when danah (the author) first linked it off her blog (which I read); the announcement there [zephoria.org] was along the lines of "here's this thing I've been looking into, I don't have anything formal or rigorous yet but I wanted to throw out some thoughts on it real quick", not "this is a serious, finalized paper on the topic".
Her actual (formally) published work [danah.org] is, as one would expect, of much higher quality.
Re:Serious Scientific Article? (Score:5, Insightful)
She's also got some interesting view points - there's reasons why she doesn't capitalize i and her name [danah.org]. Some what socialistic, but it's a well reasoned decision, and it's a personal one she's chosen to make, and she seems intelligent enough to deal with the consequences (she'll keep her name in lowercase even for publication, where I'd imagine many may see her as pretentious for doing so, or imitating e.e. cummings or something else). She's even got it legally changed to lowercase.
Anyway, back to my original point - context matters, and in this case, this is a blog essay. Reading it, it seems apparent to me that she's clearly just exploring the ideas (constantly pointing out her bias), and hoping for some feedback. She knows this isn't going to be published in Nature or Science, and arguably some of the attitudes expressed throughout this thread could be extensions of her ideas about "class" and social networks (or in this case forums).
In any case, I understand your viewpoint, and respect your decision - but I appreciate the fact she's willing to write up her thoughts and ideas, so that others can read and ponder. Not everything I read has to be a scientific paper or suitable for publication in the NY Times, and blogs and similar venues provide a great tool to make information accessible to the masses. I think the other appeal to me is that a significant amount of "coherent, professional" work is highly filtered and processed - essays like the one being discussed work at the point when the idea hasn't been refined, when it's not ready for print publication, but is still something you want to think about . . .
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting way of looking at it, but wrong.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
This guys analysis sounds like every Venn diagram I've ever seen. Although you seem to be implying if a Venn diagram has an overlap it must not be true.
HOARsju
Re: (Score:2)
No, Im saying when talking about a complicated social system like, for example, the US any classification system which is designed will crumble under thoughtful analysis or it will ebe so specific as to be useless. Classification in and of itself works eg: this is a noble gas because it meets the criteria, but when you try to do that to people you get a broke or uselss system.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you drive a BMW and live in an exclusive neighborhood - you are rich.
If you drive a sensible car and live in sane housing you are poor.
The guy in the BMW is in debt up to his eyeballs and if him or his wife lose their jobs they will be forclosed on in moments. Some will lose their house if they lose their overtime.
The guy that drives a car that does the job for him and lives in a place that is safe, nice and meets needs can afford to lose 1/2 the household income and has almost no d
Re:Interesting way of looking at it, but wrong.. (Score:5, Funny)
Too retarted to spell "retarded"?
Re:Interesting way of looking at it, but wrong.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
The guy in the cardboard box on the street corner lives a debt-free life.
Enjoying life is not about spending everything you have, nor is it saving every penny until you're 60. It's about finding balance between enjoying now and securing your future.
Re:Interesting way of looking at it, but wrong.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I think you meant, "I have friends who make 50K who *are paying on* a boat, two cars, a motorcycle, and their home. They are also constantly in trouble with their debt."
Confusing ownership with making minimum payments on things someone can never realistically expect to own is one of the biggest problems in our credit-based, buy-now-pay-later culture. You friends don't own that stuff -- the bank does. Just thought I'd point out the critical difference.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
However, all of these are broad generalizations. Ther
Hmm. (Score:2, Insightful)
Geeks on Myspace? (Score:5, Interesting)
How can anyone with any appreciation for coding -- or, for that matter, aesthetics in general, at all -- go near MySpace? Every time I go there (and I do this every few months, just to see if it's changed) it's like some circus side-show of bad design.
The whole concept is flawed; the site takes what's inherently repetitive, structured data, and just lets people dump it into tag-soup HTML pages. Facebook's approach is far more elegant, not to mention pleasant to view.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Some valid points. (Score:5, Insightful)
I never understood the whole appeal of MySpace, other than it's a free blogging site. I also have the same feeling. I had an account once, but if felt more like a place for kids to have fun, than an adult. It was more geared toward "Would you ever kiss X, Y, Z" rather than topics more adult oriented like politics, technology, etc.
They both seem to fit a niche, so more power to them both. Just not my cup of tea.
As a Facebook user who tried to get into MySpace: (Score:2)
MySpace, to me, feels like Geocities with marginally better hosting capabilities and a wall to post on. The fact that it's being marketed as a 'social network' seems trite when all it's really doing is focusing on the lowest common denominator. Admittedly, I'm sure it's that part that's scaring people, but only because the internet has a much lower barrier to access than it used
Nothing to see here, please move along... (Score:4, Insightful)
Only if you're into Social Networking sites. If you're like me and you aren't, the article is just as worthless as the SNSs themselves.
But because I did take your advice and read the article, here's one little bit that summed it all up for me:
A month ago, the military banned MySpace but not Facebook. This was a very interesting move because there's a division, even in the military. Soldiers are on MySpace; officers are on Facebook. Facebook is extremely popular in the military, but it's not the SNS of choice for 18-year old soldiers, a group that is primarily from poorer, less educated communities. They are using MySpace.
If Facebook is "extremely popular" then it would be used by the "grunts" and not just the officers as the author claims is how it really works in the military. While I personally believe that anyone who uses MySpace is generally a fucking retard that doesn't mean that the "unwashed masses" use only MySpace. I know plenty of intellectuals that love hiding their dirty little MySpace secret.
Don't bother believing the blurb that it's worth a read. It really isn't. This "article" is nothing more than an attempt to push their political slant/POV. They seriously could have left out the non-sense about the Walmart Nation, etc as it has absolutely nothing to do w/the rest of the article.
-1 Political Troll
How does one explain the blindingly obvious? (Score:2)
Facebook is extremely popular in the military, but it's not the SNS of choice for 18-year old soldiers, a group that is primarily from poorer, less educated communities. They are using MySpace.
If Facebook is "extremely popular" then it would be used by the "grunts" and not just the officers as the author claims
I'm trying to find a way to point out what's wrong with your "logic", but I can't seem to think of anything that would reach a mind that would formulate that reply in the first place.
Still... I'll give it a try:
1- The author did NOT claim "just" the grunts. The dyke says the grunts mostly use MySpace instead Facebook.
2- "As the author claims"? Stop implying she's flat out making this up. The chick's got data, dude.
3- It's a study of class division, you can't get more divided than brass and grunts. Why woul
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyways, its fairly obvious comparing the two sites that one is oriented towards people who are more mature. The site is, for the most part, very structured. There are profile fields, and unless you get into the seedy underbelly of groups, its hard to get any kind of ridiculous "self expression" on Facebook. MySpace, on the other hand, is highl customizable and lends itself much easier to stupid "rebel conforming non-conformist" teenagers and others who never really grew up.
Its not some evil class division or whatever. duh.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I agree. Myspace users wouldn't know vintage port from the turpentine they use to thin the paint on their shanties.
Missing 3rd Class (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow (Score:4, Funny)
grep hegemonic | wc -l
Re: (Score:2)
grep -c hegemonic
as otherwise you'd be wasting a pipe and a process.
Is it really a summary paper (Score:4, Funny)
My Interesting is Lack (Score:2)
Such quality journalism.
Also, let's consider the class of people who were out of college by 2005 vs the class of people who are in college as of 2005.
I haven't had an
Re: (Score:2)
Like I said. I haven't had an
Not to mention, an article that tries to infer intelligence from choice of "social-networking sites" while using the wrong words to try and sound intelligent is ironic at best.
I don't really see what's so special (Score:5, Insightful)
For real social commentary and study, I would have been more interested to see a multi-year study that showed a group of high school students from all social cliques that tracked usage and content of the personal sites over say 6-8 years to see how far in to life those social cliques extend.
All this article has done is reinforce the fact that people congregate with other people with like interests. So naturally, if I'm a "freak/geek" and all of my friends are "freaks" and "geeks" and they hang out on MySpace then why would I want to hang out on Facebook with a bunch of "jocks" who have dissimilar interests and little in common with me? This is common sense, not a ground breaking social study.
Furthermore, the author continues on to use this "disparity" in common use between several sites to show demographic trends which really don't correlate at all. Especially since the author is trying to use the information and "collected data" to show how different social classes use different websites. This is not really shown at all. There is no basis of evidence that the "freaks and geeks" that use MySpace are in a lower societal class. Nor do they show that Facebook has provided a higher earning and networking potential for uses to validate the claim that they are from a higher social class. The author is using inference falsely to show a class separation with no factual support other than essentially "The people on MySpace are weird and not as "beautiful" as the people on Facebook so they must be poor." It's an asinine argument and if that paper was written for course credit, I hope they didn't get a decent grade. If it was written as a professional document for a publication then "ethnographic research " is either a joke science or someone needs to read articles submitted for publication more carefully.
I feel dumber for wading through that article and I honestly want those 10 minutes of my life back.
It was just an opinion paper, with no facts (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
She's a doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley. This paper here is a better representation of her work: http://www.danah.org/papers/WhyYouthHeart.pdf [danah.org]. In it, she discusses her methods for data collection an
Re: (Score:2)
However, I have to disagree with your use of the term "class." I can't speak for the author but typically when academics use the term class they mean social class and not economic class. The two are generally not synonymous. Economic class has to do with how much money someone earns. This seems to be the definition of cla
Its about taste (Score:2)
Shocking! (Score:2)
Curiosity question... (Score:2)
Does every high school and college student use MySpace or FaceBook these days? Sure, there's probably some Luddites out there, but is the penetration in the 90+% range?
Has it really become that huge a phenomenon? I've seen some goofy MySpace pages, but didn't realize that _everyone_ had one.
Stuff like this really makes me feel like an old fogey. Don't people realize that no one cares what you ate today, who your friends are, or what kind of car
Is our children learning? (Score:2)
Interesting, but not so useful (Score:2)
I found the article interesting in that it was an insight into a world I really just don't have time to study -- tweeny and college-kid social sites. It does appear from the anecdotes that the sites are experiencing some kind of market segmentation, but I found the writer limited by her own conce
Er. What now? (Score:3, Insightful)
This paper basically says "white rich kids who want to get into college go to FaceBook because they heard MySpace was dangerous, that FaceBook's college social networking was valuable and because they're tired of the gaudy graphics in use there." I'll wait for the book - maybe there'll be something other than guesswork and one writer's nasty stereotypes there. Y'know, like actual evidence.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's not a research paper, it's an essay. The citation at the top of the page even says so. Also, the author has done research (see "Methodological Background"), but this article isn't meant to be a presentation of that research. If you want research papers, she's written a few [danah.org].
It's a site life cycle thing (Score:2)
Social networking sites have a life cycle, like nightclubs. They open, they get some cool people, if they're successful they get more cool people and become the place to go, they get greedy and let too many people in, they become uncool and fall out of favor, they limp along in obscurity for quite a while, and finally they close. Formerly-cool social networking sites include AOL, the Well, Geocities, EZboard, Nerve, Tribe, and Friendster. Myspace hasn't grown in a year, and Facebook is still on the way
this just in (Score:2)
news at 11
Class in America (Score:5, Interesting)
As this paper says, class is very hard to define in America - in the United States, class can be more about culture and lifestyle than income or job description.
I'll give you an anecdotal example. I'm a college student, but during summers, I work in factories as a laborer. In the cafeteria, I look more like a supervisor than a laborer. My car is old, but perfectly clean, inside and out. I keep my clothes as clean as the work allows, and my shirts are usually ironed and tucked in, my boots clean, my hard hat clean. Most of the laborers, who are living on a HIGHER wage than I because I'm usually a temp worker, do not. What is important to them is not their aesthetics - especially at work. What is important to them is enjoying their lives. Work is secondary, and not really enjoyable. I'll agree with them on the second part, but where the division is in the importance of work. They have a job, not a career.
This "paper" hits on this. If your work is important to you, you have to follow that work. I haven't read the book by Paul Willis that the paper sums up, but it's true. I am a high school dropout, I planned on joining the military as an enlistee, not as an officer candidate. But his summary is quite correct in my case. I made that "class jump" - I'm not made to do mundane labor 60 hours a week, I have a brain and I need to use it.
Now, when I DO go to my hometown, my old friends are, well, not my friends anymore. They don't understand how I can value paying 250% of my yearly income to go to SCHOOL, how I can spend months preparing for a fifteen minute presentation, much less fathom seven years of training for the ability, not the guarantee of a job. They don't see the point in dedicating oneself fully to the "system" because they think it will stick them in some sort of hierarchy and force them to follow rules. What they unfortunately miss is that the blue collar circle sticks them in an even more restrictive hierarchy. You don't do consulting work as a press operator!
This certainly fits with the division seen between MySpace and Facebook. MySpace allows one to do whatever they want with their page - conventions be damned. Facebook, on the other hand, has a set style and layout (or did. The applications are slowly changing that). But when push comes to shove, the "hierarchy" and layout of Facebook gives users a bit more useful information - try finding someone's AOL s/n on MySpace if you've never seen their page before, and then try the same on Facebook!
Great read (Score:2)
Other than that, great read, and very perceptive.
Interesting, though poorly written. (Score:2)
As a person just leaving sixth form (last two years of "high school") in the UK, it seems to me that the reasons behind using myspace/facebook here in the UK are different. Most people I know, inside or outside of school and work have a myspace. A few people have a Facebook, but that's more to do with being frustrated with the poor design of myspace than s
Walled gardens and gated communities... (Score:2)
I have a number of serious issues with this analysis, not the least of which is the idea that social capital is more important than actual capital in determining class relationship. While I gran
Never true (Score:2)
Nothing new? (Score:5, Interesting)
This stratification shows up across the culture. But it has not always been here to the extent it is today. Economic historians claim that stratified societies - particularly those where children are locked in to the strata of their parents - are in the longer run neither so stable nor so successful as more egalitarian nations. America's own past success vis a vis Europe is cited as a prime example. If that's the case, we might want to take America back to a more egalitarian version. Back when America was more egalitarian there was a more unified cultural aesthetic - splitting more on generational than class fractures (which is to say, on direction of progress but still assuming that progress belonged to all). Now, if the fine article is accurate (I'm too old to know) there is a distinct split in aesthetic and sensibility, as demonstrated in the SNS's - one which favors acceptance of our new degree of social stratification. If we want to avoid developing a large permanent underclass, we should look at reversing that.
The article makes the useful point that social identification is not tightly linked to income. But the income equation is itself troubling for egalitarians: In the past 40 years the GDP per capita has doubled. Yet in that time the median income has stayed level. We're twice as rich, per person, as a nation. But those on the middle and lower parts of the income curve have seen none of the gain. This isn't to say that being median-income in the '60s was a bad life; nor that it's a bad life now. But it raises a very curious question of who has made off with all that gain in national wealth. And there's a corollary: How have our cultural institutions enabled them, wittingly or not?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And social mobility is restricted in the US by a single factor: tax (specifically the income tax). The income tax dis
Re:Care2 (Score:5, Insightful)
They've got plenty of purpose when you're young and virtually all of your friends use the sites along with you, which I'd imagine is what matters most to most users.
Re: (Score:2)
I half agree, but what's the relevence of the age bit? I'm not as young as most facebook users (33) but many of my friends use it which is what makes it useful to me.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Purpose? (Score:5, Insightful)
Social networking is one of the more powerful concepts in life, both online and in the real world. It's how adults get jobs (ask any professional over 30 and you'll see that the resume process isn't so blind -- it's all about who you know). Myspace and Facebook are starting to redefine social networking ... little is known about how this will impact the more traditional social networking world, but rest assured that it will.
As to their uses today, this is more clear. Facebook is giving evite a run for its money within the under-30 crowd. Its stalker-esque features allow people to research others (I use it to look at potential employees), which often leads to a real-world friendship. Its groups allow people to be politically active -- you can bet Facebook and its peers will be quite important in the 2008 election (hopefully more of an impact than Howard Dean's campaign turned out to be). It even brings some order to YouTube and similar video sites with its "sharing" system (also has more sensible comments rather than the drivel comments on YouTube [xkcd.com]).
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, I've got a special purpose!!
--Navin R. Johnson
Social networking sites (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Social networking sites (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Care2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook really does have a purpose and that's probably what TFA was driving at without realizing. Facebook is really for college friends (and high school friends) to "hang out" online. It's the social networking of friends and peers and your friends' and peers' friends and peers - people of similar mindedness. Myspace is the bar-scene of the web; you go there to meet anyone and everyone, people sincerely looking for friends and pick-up artists alike.
TFA seems to think there's a socio-economic divide between Facebook and Myspace and there probably is. But not because poorer, less educated people all decided, hey, let's all hang out on Myspace. Think about your high school experiences. If you don't have friends you liked from high school, you're less likely to use Facebook. If you have high school or college buds that you hang out with exclusively, Facebook is all you need, with the added bonus of seeing the ideas of your friends' friends. Compounding this is the initial seeding of Facebook. If you never went to university or college, the likelihood of you using Facebook plummeted because they originally required you to have an e-mail address at that organization!
The original article was interesting but probably read a little too much into the organization of socio-economic and educational differences and probably didn't look sufficiently at the "why" or purpose of the SNSes, which is probably more benign than some plot by the Man to hold us down as was hinted.
As for Care2, it does look interesting and I may sign up. If I'm feeling particularly sociable, I may troll the "bar" that is Myspace; if I just want to hang out with friends, you'll find me on the "pub" that is Facebook; Care2 sounds kinda neat, like when my friends and I want to do activities together, Care2 may be the online "soupkitchen".
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Care2 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Care2 (Score:4, Insightful)
As for your friend, people can spread stories and lies just as successfully by sending out emails and telling their friends by phone or in person as by using Facebook. That was a problem with him, not with the site. It's not like these social networking sites have some sort of magical honesty button.
Re:Care2 (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that's kind of the point. I have maybe 10-15 close friends that I see and catch up with on a weekly basis, but my extended network I don't get to see as often are exactly the kind of people I keep up with via Facebook.
Re:Care2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't have any purpose!?
Facebook has one major use for me: It's not instant communication. Ever get tired of people asking for your MSN address? Or having people message you constantly when you're in the middle of something? There are alternatives, you can ignore these people, or politely refuse to give them your address, OR you can tell them that you don't really use MSN anymore and that you would rather add them to facebook? This way, you don't have to instantly respond to someone's message, you can keep track of friends more easily if you want, and you don't have to feel guilty about ignoring people on MSN! I have many good friends on MSN that I just don't talk to, not because I don't want to talk to them, but because I don't want to use MSN to talk to them. MSN takes up way too much time to say what you want to say. I have better things to do. I'd rather see these people in person.
Maybe some people don't care as much, and the site wouldn't be useful for them. But I know I feel particularly guilty when I haven't talked to people in months. So I just drop them a message on facebook and I don't expect an instant reply. Simple!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Some people seem to panic when class-based analysis is undertaken of a phenomenon in which they are involved - they assume that there's some judgment or discrimination being made, as if observing that the incoming class of Harvard has a distinctly different background than an incoming class at a community college, or that a NASCAR fan is different from an experimental theater enthu
Re:Division By 0 Overflow on Social Networking Sit (Score:2, Insightful)
Uhm? I don't understand. Did you use html-tags to illustrate something, because in that case (for someone that is part of the slashdot crowd and knows the difference between html and plaintext), you should use html entities. No, really, they are very nifty to actually display greater than and lower than signs. Try this the following time > for >, and < for <
And as for the "modded naked PC", there is weird [gizmodo.com] stuff [engadget.com] out there [cside.com]...
Re:to borrow from pynchon- (Score:5, Insightful)
I also feel like the author's persistent struggles with how to "define class" in the US would evaporate if a proper study were performed. Because, in a scientific study you don't have to "define class"--rather you simply report what variables correlate with website choice, and what variables don't. You can then divide the population into groups (if the data supports such a division) and see whether the group divisions correlate to income, education, ethnicity, etc. (without ever having to artificially apply class labels).
Food for thought, but unfortunately nothing meaningfully conclusive.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On a serious note, though, as one of the more flagrantly uncool kids in high school, I've still noticed that the majority of my uncool friends have gone on to college and are now on Facebook. I joined up mostly because everyone else was, and I didn't want to get bugged about it later on down the road. I don't use Facebook all that much, and I've never used MySpace.
News At Eleven! (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry
Hey Marx, how are ya? Really fooled em all... (Score:5, Interesting)
Your definition of "class" is true. Its 100% true as Karl Marx described it. The only problem is he was wrong. There aren't just two classes. There are 3. His and your refusal to acknowledge that does not make you right. Yes those who own the means of production are the truly wealthy and everyone else works for them. But a "worker" who makes $250,000 a year has very little in common with someone who makes $19,000 a year. Their concerns are as different from each other as a middle class person's is from a deca millionaires. This is why Marx's foretold economic revolutions never took place. There's plenty for the poor to gain by revolting, but the middle class would have a lot to lose and so they declined to join in. Without the middle class participating the revolutions could not take place.
The failure of the old school definiton of class into two systems is that it tries to lump way too many people together under one banner. A doctor/lawyer/engineer/writer/executive who's making anyhere from $250,000 a year up to say $5 million a year lives in an entirely diferrent world from a school teacher/cop/fireman/factory worker/garbage man/retail clerk/fast food worker who makes anywhere from $19,000 to $130,000 a year. The former group lives in a better neighborhood, sends their kids to better schools, enjoys more travel and better vacations, has a much nicer house some with a second home, has substantial savings and a much better retirement plan and can make choices about where to work and who to work for. The bottom half of the latter group is working hard just to scrape out a living and make ends meet. They have few real chocies on what to do with their lives. They don't have adequate healthcare and no buffer of savings in the bank if they lose their job. Their children rarely go on to higher education.
The third group of course are the obviously wealthy. Those who are so rich that from birth they never have to work a day in their lives if they don't want to. This equals at least $15 million in the bank with additional money from investments/interest coming in all the time.
The two groups are not alike. They do not share class interests. They don't eat at the same places, they don't party at the same places and they don't live in the same places. They're extremely different from each other. Those who cling to Marx's distinction of class as being between only 2 parties are bitter, very very bitter, that the middle class actually exists. They want anyone who's not part of the "rich" class to team up together and gang up on the rich and take back whats "rightfully theirs" or some such. If this large nebulous class of "workers" is divided between the "middle class" and the "really poor" than that revolution can't happen. Not while our middle class is as large as it is because it means way too many people are satisified with what they have and know they have far too much to lose if they were to engage in an economy wrecking "revolution."
So to recap, there's an old school definition of class that contains only 2 divisions. Capital owning robber barrons on one side and ALL the people who work for them on the other side. The "modern" definition of economic class has 3 divisions. The capital owning class, the highly educated and highly paid middle class, and the working poor. Good luck with trying to get well educated and well paid middle class folks to consider themselves the same as a high school drop out garbage man or fast food worker. You've got your work cut out for you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
For example, among the bourgeois (from the same root as "burg" - meaning townsperson, person engaged in commerce there are at least the "haute bourgeois" and the "petty bourgois." The difference lies in their relationship to the act of working. The haute bourgeois own things (factories, corporations, etc.) and employ others; the petty bourgeois includes s
Class structure broke down... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you look at the social security reform debate, behind all the verbiage of "ownership society" or "risky scheme," at the heart of the debate was ownership of assets. If individuals own the assets, then they owned the means of production.
Compare a 401(k) account to a pension. In both cases, the money is tied up on stocks and
Re: (Score:2)
And how is voluntarily selling ones labor to a factory owner "exploitation"?
Selling one's labor is about as voluntary as eating and finding shelter. Sure, you can choose not to do it, but then you die.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Much of what the author did could have been done by stating:
"As kids don't have their real jobs yet, it is harder to tell what their personal class is. We can either go by their parent's class, or by an estimate of what the kid's job will be eventually, based on whether they are on the college track, the military track, or the lowe end job track. While both methods have their problems, I choose to use the estimate based on track method."
While normall