why do privileges of the wealthy seem forever stretchable commodities
Answers
Answer:
A mericans don’t like to talk about class. The topic smacks of snobbery and
elitism and seems sure to offend. To many Americans, talk of class is crass.
Besides, most of us claim to be middle class, implying that we’re all in the
same mix together, despite evidence to the contrary. The elite medical specialist
may wave hello to the security guard on arriving at work, and both may describe
themselves as middle class, but the medical specialist may easily earn 10 times as
much income as the guard, and their respective worlds may hardly ever intersect
except at work. That is one reason Americans are often reluctant to talk about
money, at least about our own, relative to that of others. “What do you earn?” is as
common a question in China as “What do you do?” is in the United States, but most
North Americans would be startled and even embarrassed if a relative stranger
asked them how much money they make. Honest answers would quickly point to
the reality that “all of us in this together” are really living in very separate financial
worlds. Some social scientists have also grown leery of class analysis. Some have
suggested that if there is considerable mobility among various financial conditions
and many gradations along the way, perhaps we should give up the language of class
and just focus on a continuous variable, such as “socioeconomic status” or perhaps
just income. Yet others insist that class is as much a key to understanding our social
world as it has ever been (Sorensen & Grusky, 1999; Wright, 1997).