As to why class is important, the book argues that the principal reason is economic. Since 1972, the median (half above and half below) weekly earnings for private sector workers have fallen twenty percent in inflation adjusted dollars. By 1992, fifty-seven percent of all families had two or more people working. Three out of four families with children had both parents working in 1992 while in 1972 only one-half did. The proportion of father works and mother is at home with the children declined from twenty-three percent of all families in 1972 to nine percent in 1992. By now, all of these statistics are worse and it is clear that the Working and Middle Class maintained and improved their standard of living by having the women and children go to work. Professor Zweig believes that, "class is not based on income, but income has a great deal to do with class." He massages and discusses income by quintile to an extraordinary degree. He sees it as a worsening situation where those with college degrees and better are in the upper quintiles and consistently increase their income. Conversely, those with a high school diploma or less fall ever farther behind. What the author fail to mention is that the income quintiles are on family income; hence the top quintile is actually 26% of the population and this quintile works over 4000 hours a year. The bottom quintile has a large cohort of single women with children and the average hours worked per year is 950 or less. Finally, in respect to the lowest quintile the additional benefits of Medicaid, Food Stamps and subsidized housing are not included. Finally, there are always a great number of people moving from one quintile to another and recently (at variance with his statistics) seventy percent of all those in the bottom quintile will not be there 4 years hence. The author does not believe there is an "underclass." He ascribes the underclass as just poor people. The author also describes the unequal distribution of wealth with the upper ten percent of the population owning sixty-eight percent of all wealth (1992). Whenever there is a disparity in income or wealth Professor Zweig suggests this is proof positive of gross egalitarian injustice that requires a class remedy. He makes a spirited defense of welfare, AFDC, Food Stamps and so forth. He also supports laws and policies destined to eliminate racism, sexism and homophobia. At times his writing approaches, "you have nothing to lose but your chains " style. For example, "...To exercise power, you need to know who you are...You also need who your target (adversary) is..." The author is certainly up front in respect to his views and desires. In spite of all arguments posed by the author, it remains true that class-consciousness is not the rule in contemporary America. The author seems to have a good grasp on why is this is so. First, he points out that the Capitalistic Class disappears into the "rich." When the Capitalist Class disappears it cannot be a target for the Working Class. Second, many in Working Class actually enter the upper income quintiles and their lifestyle and thinking become Middle Class. Third, consistently the capitalist countries have provided higher standards of living than elsewhere. Fourth, and very importantly, Americans are by nature individualistic. Privacy and self-interest are hallmarks of American life. Class-consciousness stifles individuality and self-interest. Americans hate being considered as anything but as individuals. Fifth, identity politics trumps class-consciousness politics. People who identify themselves by race, gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity are unlikely to be concerned about social class.
Contrary to popular belief there is a class struggle going on in America, the problem is the majority of Americans have been convinced that eliminating gay marriage is somehow more important than earning a living wage.
i always thought the class system first came about with servius tullis in rome who swept away the social system by basing society on wealth. basically people with money were given more power and any impoverished nobility had any power taken away. romes history of from 753/6 BC ( i think) is basically a story of class struggle until the dictators gained control circa 100 bc. america like rome was founded by a monarchy, then there was a struggle between royalty and the merchants (war of independance) then there was a war between the competing merchants and men of influence civil war/ internal conflict. with the continuous wars going on created by rome all power devolved to those who were causing the wars. this was when rome became an empire just as america, now only the thing we have to look forward to now is a massive assault on the known world by rome/america. funny isn't it?
