What's Class Got to do with It? / More or Less Equal? / The Silver Spoon

     Michael Zweig breaks down the importance and relevance of social classes before defining the most current interpretations of the various classes. He believes it's important to understand different people's class status in order to have a more holistic view of each person's background. He gives an example: "Suppose you knew that there were men and women because you could see the difference, but you didn't know about the socially constructed concept of gender. You would be missing something vitally important about the people you see" (Zweig, p. 130). Like this example using gender as a classification, social class too gives people more information.
  
     Zweig goes on to divide the classes and define each of them. The lowest level he describes are the working class, comprised of blue collar employees who have little say in their day-to-day operations. Next are the middle class, these people earn enough to have more amenities and carry more power and decision making capabilities than the working class. The middle class is broken into three subcategories: self-employed, professional and supervisors. The final class is the capitalist class, which makes the final decisions and has the most persuasion. The Economist's article describes how these differences were created and how they have changed over the last few decades. Again, these classes are changing and the results seem to be leading the US towards more inequality.

     Stephen McNamee discusses how these varying classes affect our lives before we even have a chance to understand what's happening. The idea of the silver spoon is very much real and is proven through statistics. Basically, people who are born in a higher class don't need to work as hard to maintain that level of comfort; whereas, people born into lower classes need to work extremely hard to get up to where the first class was born into. This is not to say that this process is impossible, more that it's important to realize the disparity in effort levels required to lead comfortable lifestyles...for some it's natural and requires little work, for others it may take their whole life to get there.

     What I found different about Zweig's view of the social classes was how he considered influence and power to be the determining factors in establishing/defining the classes. Rather than income, which most people tend to agree is the major seperator, power and influence between groups leads people in directions beyond their income. For instance, a working class person who puts in a lot of overtime to get extra money for amenities is not quite at the same level as a professional putting in a normal amount of hours and getting paid the same. Additionally, the professional is more likely to have control over their day-to-day work lives and are in charge of more decision-making. These ideas make a lot of sense and helped me to re-frame my perception of classes. I too thought that income was the sole determinant, but I can see and agree with Zweig's definitions and better understand the relationships that are formed within our society resulting from these relationships.