SOCIOL 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Stock Market, Campaign Finance, Financialization

• School: UMASS-Amherst
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOCIOL 110
• Professor: Paul Knudson

Document Summary

Stratification - structured social inequality or systemic inequalities between groups of people that arise as intended or untended consequences of social, political, and historic processes. Structured inequality based on income, wealth, and education. Income - yearly money acquired through wages or investments. Wealth - accumulation of assets (assets - debts) Median wealth: ,828 in 2011 (down from ,585 in 2005) real estate values went down. Blacks: ,916 / ,995 (decline from ,000 in 2005) U. s. offered far higher wages than most countries. How we got the name/myth of being the land of opportunity . Apart from slaves and native americans, able-bodied men and women could earn far higher wages than in europe. Apart from periodic economic depression, the u. s. had an almost insatiable demand for labor from. The physical construction of the nation required nearly unlimited demand for labor. Slavery created enormous wealth for shipping, insurers, banks, mills, factories, and the planters themselves.