image: Diego Rivera mural of Rouge Plant, Detroit Institute of the Arts Recently I posted about C. Wright Mills and his analysis of power elites in America (post). A major theme in Mills's book is the new power associated with the American corporation following World War II. Charles Perrow's Organizing America: Wealth, Power, and the …
Social mobility?
We often think of the United States as a place with a lot of social mobility. What exactly does this mean? And is it true? Ironically, the answer appears to be a fairly decisive "no." In fact, here's a graph from a 2005 New York Times series on income mobility that shows that the United …
Power elites after fifty years
When C. Wright Mills wrote The Power Elite in 1956, we lived in a simpler time. And yet, with a few important exceptions, the concentration of power that he described continues to seem familiar by today's standards. The central idea is that the United States democracy -- in spite of the reality of political parties, …
Inequalities in France
Inequalities in France are particularly volatile these days, with high unemployment, rising income inequality, increasingly evident differences in opportunities for young people from immigrant communities, and rather different levels of schooling available to different communities in France. Social conflict, strikes, and political disagreements are rising in France, and it will take skillful work by community …
Class in America
Are there social classes in America? In order to answer the question in the affirmative, we would need to determine whether there are major social groups that are defined by their position within the economy, who share -- some degree of a common perspective on the world some degree of a common culture a set …
A diagram of class structure
Consider this schematic representation of several variables defined by circumstances of work, income, and occupation. The diagram proposes a classification of income earners according to a series of distinctions about their economic situation. The diagram captures a handful of separate dimensions of a person's economic location -- one's class. These include: source of income (profits, …
The sociology of class
According to the traditional definition, a class is defined in relation to the broad structure of the property system. A group of people belong to the same class when they occupy the same position within the property system governing labor, physical assets, and perhaps intangible assets such as knowledge or money. This is a structural …
Power and class in the 21st century
We could say that power and class are the two most important determinants of everyday life in the 21st century. Class relations – determined by the property system and the basic economic institutions within which we live – determine our opportunities, health, quality of life, and sometimes our basic freedoms. Power relations influence our careers, …
Segregation in France
The mix of race, poverty, and urban space has created intractable social issues in many American cities in the past sixty years. Residential segregation creates a terrible fabric of self-reproducing inequalities between the segregated group and the larger society -- inequalities of education, health, employment, and culture. As intractable as this social system of segregation …
"Influence" concepts
Power is an elusive social concept, because it is fundamentally relational and composite. The power that a person or group possesses can only be defined in relation to the domain of persons over whom this power can be wielded and the set of social resources that constitute the levers of this power. Power must be …
Understanding Society 