Wealth in the USA

The wealthy are given so many extra privileges in life. They can buy whatever they want without even thinking about the price. Their stress levels are reduced because there are less worries over money and paying bills. When we played monopoly in class, the wealthy had such a large advantage over everybody else because they owned more properties and money, and they received the most total money from passing go and from rent. Wealth can also give someone more connections in the world to get things done easier and know somebody for whatever needs to be done. Also, the wealthy can have security financially and physically just in case things get bad, so they don't have many worries in the world that most other people worry about everyday. In the movie we watched in class, there was a family who lived in a trailer home, and the mom's car didn't work and she walked miles to work. Wealthy people don't have to walk miles to work, and they may not even have to work much. Lower class people don't always have money either and may have to take out loans that they will pay back the rest of their lives if their income doesn't change, so people usually stay within their own class throughout life. One thing that could be done to make things more fair is to give more federal help to lower class people, but if everything becomes equal, then we would turn into a socialistic society, so there isn't much that can be done besides just to tax the wealthy some more.

Class

This quote is saying that people will view someone by their actions and traits. If someone has bad manners people will view him or her as lower class. Some people will view race as an issue of class too. Also in the quote when he says the characteristics that ruin a man in one class makes him eminent in other, he means that someone who has the traits of a certain class can only stay in that class because he or she wouldn't fit in with any other class. Say someone has the best manners and speaks with the best grammar; this person wouldn't fit in with people who live in the projects or in a trailer park because it just doesn't work that way in society. He is basically saying that there are certain things that each class has and does to make them different so you can look eminent to many people in one class and then shunned by everyone in other classes. An example of behavior that's a virtue in one class and a vice in another is if there is the best construction worker and can construct anything. He may be looked up to in one class in society and then people in a higher class will just see him as a laborer and think better of people who are business executives.

the big house

In society today, many people who enter our penitentiary system go right back to it. This shows how much the system doesn't work very well and there really aren't other alternatives. As sociologists we can look at our penitentiary system as a place where people are around their own kind and not many things change with the criminals. Punishable deviance is part of our society that won't go away because there will always be some people who are willing to deviate in a bad way, but also in a good way. I believe we should regulate punishable deviance by reaching criminals early on and helping them by either having them do community service or setting a guideline for their goals, so they won't have to do criminal acts in the future. When looking at our court and jail systems, it is apparent that people are easily sent to jail in many cases whether the person is a minor or even a small drug charge. The issue some have with our jail system is that it is a big part of our economy, and if there weren't many inmates, then the economy would fall. We need criminals in our society to keep things flowing, and that seems pretty unfair to people who have small acts of punishable deviance. Once the people are in jail, they just wait and are confined to a single area for years usually. This isn't much help because they aren't being taught how to better themselves, just to think, which is why so many people are going back after being let free.