13. Assess the ability of Marxist theories of class, as summarized by Sen and So, to explain the class structure and class relations of contemporary capitalist society.



This is how I see things. There definitely is a pyramid shape to our"class system". At the top are the small portion of extraordinarily wealthy people at the top who have most of our country's, most of the world's money/ resources in their control. I agree that the working class is the largest class of people and that the middle class is not; also that the nature of the middle class has changed ie: there was an old middle class which has become a new middle class.
I think that the fact that people with PHD's are having to take working class jobs of what's now considered the new middle class jobs, often just lumped in under the working class title today, may change things for the better. I think that having well educated people in working class jobs will definitely change the workplace and employee moral for the better, this is because well educated persons who have learned to use their brains well by thoroughly exercising them, earning PHD's plus having good life experience, good sense, leadership skills, and the mindset of thinking more independently and used to being treated better with more respect, dignity, humaness etc. will make their mark in working class arenas by outsmarting the bearaucracy and insisting upon being treated well, fairly, with good pay, benefits etc. I think people who have gained more clout and status in our society are harder to brush off and put aside or merely appease patronize and humor. Persons who have earned PHS's also are more well connected with other high status persons and institutions in this country and the world, and often have more resources available to them, have access to more resources which they can utilize to effect positive change in their working class or new middle class places of employment. I think people without PHD's also can be as smart or smarter than people with PHD's too of course and effect as good or better positive changes in their workplaces.
With many more educated persons having to take working class jobs, I see a ray of hope for better working class working conditionds, of working class or new middle class work places being changed for the better, in my generation. I think well educated persons in working class employment postitions will more and more become internal advocates for workers rights and complete postive changes and improvements in every area of their working class environments. When a well educated person has other well educated friends with money, power and influence in U.S. and world communities , this well educated person may be far more effective in getting management and owners of companies to listen to them, because management and owners will feel pressured to make the postive changes their well educated employee suggests or the well educated employee will make sure that her well educated and wealthy friends don't do business with this company. If companies are in danger of losing big contracts, business connections, etc. they will listen, to some degree.
Well educated persons effecting positive change in their working class or new middle class workplaces will go farther to bring about positive changes than working class persons breaking into politics because once persons become politicians they have to play the government/politician game which may actually end up limiting their ability to effect the very positive changes they intially set out to make.
I still think that working class people ought to mobilize and organize peaceful protests, sit ins, boycotts, strikes, intiative petitions, unions and the like.
I think that the line between the middle class and working classes becoming blurred and blended is serving in some ways to help persons understand eachother better and work together. I saw evidence of this at the Seattle WTO. Here environmentalists and steel workers came together to object to free trade which would lift or completely eliminate many labor laws, worker and human rights laws which have been established by workers.
I think that the working class is gaining power to overcome oppression by entering more and more into political arenas and I hope that the working class people who do this don't become corrupt.
I also wantt o note that I think persons ought to start coming together more and more and creating cooperative sustainable communities to help stabilize a good future. Like, I wonder if Social Security, Food Stamps, Welfare etc. All these Human Service agencies will ever just collapse and become obsolete, deleted, no more, like will they just convenently be the government program to cut when
our country needs to cut its budget. I think people ought to try to create sustainable lives outside of the government and relate with the government as little as possible. I think people ought to use their brain power and their brawn more to these means. Because even when people play the status, keep up with the jonses, follow the game, follow the program, pass al your tests with flying colors, get an excellent education and degree, spend oodles of money on having the nice cars and taking out all the school loans to get persons excellent education,
people still might not be having the career they want and be way overqualified for a job they take sometimes out of sheer neccessity. Some persons are successful and well educated, do save, do relate well socially and the rest too. I just think that persons ought to become more self sufficient over all. People used to make and grow their own food and make their own clothes and machines and often had good lives. People used to think more, have more time to think and read, and relate more so in America years ago.
I think we've just gotten way to artificial and commercialized as a society that what we value today has
little to do with valuing our own true quality of life and that of our land.
I don't want to turn time back nor do I think it can be turned back, barring an incredible natural disaster which wipes out our entire world civilization. I think that technology has availed us the means to progress forward in contientious sensible humane earth friendly ways.
I think the way good changes are going to be made today in workplaces cities etc. is by big business/government realizing and implementing humane earth friendly conversions in architecture, communications, machines etc. Like, many factories are now being built to be toxin free and to well filter the toxins out of the environments, and to set up more flexible reasonable
work schedules and working atmospheres that are more employee friendly, with more light, plants, soft places to stand for hours a day etc. And companies are finally starting to actually diversify energy on a larger scale now, out of knowledge, good will, and mostly, if not predominantly out of neccessity. I'm glad for these positive strides.
I wonder what will happen to our work structures in the future with more and more machines taking over human jobs and with many U.S. jobs going overseas. I also wonder if our whole country will go completely bankrupt or something with outrageous debt?? Maybe the wealthy Bush family and Bill Gates families will bail us out? Maybe not. Maybe the middle/working class will somehow end up footing the bill which is almost always the case it seems.
Additionally, I'm adding, I think that our welfare system and other human services although seriously flawed and need of reform in many ways are at least operating to help some for the better in reasonable ways. I think maybe human services needs to be deinstitutionalized and governmentalized and run more by persons who care one to another for eachothers good positive welfare. Their used to be groups like the Quakers, and the Underground Railroad people, and so many other groups who have come together to help one another, I think our society ought to do this more.
Without these services being so institutionalized, their would be less red tape, administrative pay, pay raises, and bonuses to pay, corruption, misappropriation of funds, court battles, lawyers bills etc. etc.
And, as for churches, well why don't they stay small and really help communities and persons good positive welfare instead of becoming big corporations like the vatican?
Maybe each excessively wealthy person could give 10% of their incomes to the people who need it directly, instead of to a church corporation.
I heard of one wealthy person who in light of this world trade center bombing went and got a list of families who were efeected by the world trade center and called the families on the list individually and asked what they could do to help and then helped them. This seems a lot better than running their charity through a big charity corporation like the Red Cross or United Way. I like the commercials I see for the Red Cross and the United Way and I like the positive stories I hear about both but I wonder about the stories of corrupt I always am hearing in the news etc. about these corporations.
Some of the obstacles and injustices to overcome, which I see in many workplaces is: double standards, alterior motives, hidden agendas, inappropriate sexual and conversational overtures ( like 12 hr.
days of working with people engaged in lame shop talk all day etc. and bosses who befriend you and pretend as if they're your best friend or your brother, then later change the nature of the relationship that has been presented and established by the boss, by hitting on you. Some people are so ridiculous.)
Andcrummy benefits, low pay, long hours, and really inefficiently run non-employee friendly workplaces.
I really can't believe that in this day and age women are still being paid less than men for the same job! I also can't believe that women didn't even become recognized in high professional executive positions until 1972.