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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Archiving

There haven't been any discussions on this talk page since November. I have therefore archive all discussions. Please note that the last couple of sections that consitute roughly a fith or quarter of the article still do not have references-which they need in order for this article to make it up to GA status. Best Regards, SignaturebrendelHAPPY HOLIDAYS 21:52, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

UPDATE: I have re-written the last few unreferenced section and nominated the article for GA status. Regards, Signaturebrendel 08:41, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Withdrawal theory

This section seems to come out of the blue...who advocates this idea? Does anyone think the "withdrawal" scenario is plausible, or is advocating for it? How would it be possible to withdraw from society, and yet still be part of the economy? Or is this simply a rhetorical device to define a certain type of unfairness? The section also seems to confuse "assets" with "income". The idea that everyone *should* have the same income also has its critics, on the grounds it destroys economic incentives. See e.g. "Optimal level of inequality" at Income inequality metrics. -- Beland 01:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It is not plausable! It is a "a rhetorical device to define a certain type of" income inequality (not unfairness). I put in a statement that clearly states that the theory should not be used in attempting to determine fairness. No one is advocating the concept. It is an absteact theory meant to give you a guidelines which you can use to decide whose a have and whose not. Please don't take that section literally-it does not say that everyone should have the same income-I doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't! Again, It is merely a hypothetical abstract sczenario by which to determine whose a have and who isn't. Signaturebrendel 01:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Where does the apparently misleading name "withdrawal theory" come from? Does anyone other than Douglas Eichar call it that? What about alternative views about how to define "haves" vs "have nots"? What about critics of the "have vs. have not" distinction? -- Beland 17:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately all other views of haves and have nots are even more subjective. All socioligists (there are quite a few as you can see in the reference) I know of endorse the have/have not principle (as people are well-off and others arn't). The name Withdrawl comes from the hypothetical scenario that "if workers were to withdraw from the economy with their per capita income share..." That's why withdrawal. As I added a new section and needed to trim this article, I removed the Withdrawal theory. Perhaps I'm going to put it in its own article-I'll see-I was aware when I added it that someday, someone would mis-read it ;-) Regards, Signaturebrendel 23:55, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Name of article

This article only covers one aspect of "social structure" - wouldn't a better name be something like "Economic class in the United States"? -- Beland 17:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

No, because there is at least one caste, illegal immigrants, who by law, have a distinctive legal status. Also, class involves factors other than economic status, while social structure involves factors other than class. If it didn't you wouldn't be able to tell a "swamp yankee" from a "cracker". Fred Bauder 17:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
The article clearly covers occupation and educational attainment. Granted such class factors are somewhat economic, but class is a mainly socio-economic topic to beging with. I will soon add a section describing class-based sociolization, which will add a purely social perspective on the social structure. Overall this article does not put more emphazis on economics as do reputable textbooks on the subject such as Dennis Gilbert's The American Class System. The article is meant to reflect the manner in which textbooks view the nation's social-structure. At the bottom we have academic class systems lifted from the books almost work by word (in the case of Gilbert & Kahl I actually quoted their finidings). What aspects of social class arn't covered? Let me know if there is a prominent class factor mentioned in a popular college textbook that I have missed and I'll added ASAP. Signaturebrendel 23:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean to say that there shouldn't be an article on the general social structure of the country, it's just that this article doesn't seem to be that. There are a large number of aspects of social structure that are ignored, such as the structure of families; conventions of friendship; the work/home distinction; a survey of major subcultures; the urban/rural distinction; social clubs and events; political parties; relationship of the individual to the neighborhood, city, state, and nation; law and regulation of social relations; travel and relocation; and language differences. Many of these are not directly related to "class", but the very general title "social structure" sounds like it should include them, in addition to discussion of class. -- Beland 08:33, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think than we have different definitions of social structure. The article that includes things such as "structure of families; conventions of friendship; the work/home distinction" is Culture of the United States. I first though you were implying that this article is an incomplete discussion of America's class system ;-). But I now understand what you are saying and, yes, this article pertains to the social class system or social strata if you will. Personally I am not opposed to re-naming this article, "Socal class in the United States." There'll be a lot of re-directs but I would not be opposed to that change. Signaturebrendel 08:39, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, I'll make the move and help fix the redirects. -- Beland 17:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Moved, and all the double redirects have been fixed. -- Beland 17:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Good job, the only things that's left now is to fix the re-directs in articles that mention "social structure" instead of social class. Those will likely be fixed by other editors over time (and I'll change them when I come across one). I actually like this title as it is more likely to be searched for on the internet and a bit more direct. Signaturebrendel 18:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

GA on hold

After an hour and a half of reviewing the article according to the GA criteria I have come up with this:

1. Well written?: The article is very well written but there are various mistakes and suggestions that should be fixed:
    1. Include the first name of the people mentioned in the intro
    2. The link to middle class in the intro currently has a hyphen, and when you link to the other article, it has none. Please correct it on whichever it is supposed to be.
    3. The link for statistical middle class only links to American middle class, not the statistical section you wanted it to direct to. I think somebody renamed the heading of the section. The same thing happens for lower middle class. Also within the intro, some of the links that go to the same place are wikilinked twice, use the first instance and then unlink the second at least until you get to a new section of the article.
    4. Keep an eye on the link to classless in the What is social class? section as it is currently tagged with a merge request, so there may be a broken link in the future.
    5. Remove the a) and b) in "Social classes distribute persons so that a) only the most qualified are able to gain positions of power and b) all persons fulfill their occupation duties to the greatest extent of their ability."
    6. For the Income section, the first paragraph either needs a hard return or the second paragraph needs to be merged into it (between $32,140.[11] Per capita household income).
    7. In the statement "The table below features the lower thresholds for the top third, top quarter, top quintile (20%), top 15%, top 5%, top 3%, top 1.5%." add an "and" between top 3%, top 1.5%. Also, in the next sentence "The table below features the lower thresholds for the top third, top quarter, top quintile (20%), top 15%, top 5%, top 3%, top 1.5%.[13] It should also be noted that nearly all of those households in the top quintile and the top 15% are more privileged members of the statistical middle class not actually part of the upper class." it appears some more words should be added between middle class and not (such as "that are").
      I would add to this the suggestion that the phrase "It should be noted that..." be removed altogether. This phrase, along with a handful of others (such as "ironicly...") should not be used in an encyclopedia. That phrase makes it sound like editorializing or a parenthetical observation by the author. If something "should be noted", just note it and move on. Indeed, if it weren't worth noting, it wouldn't be in here.--William Thweatt Talk | Contribs 09:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
    8. In the education section, either wikilink higher education instead or move tertiary education to the first words in the paragraph.
    9. "Since 1970 several sociologists such as LeMasters and Melvin Kohl have set our repeatedly to research class based cultures." Include the first name for LeMasters, switch our to out, if that's what you meant.
    10. In the culture section, professional middle class does not link to any particular section like working class does right after it.
    11. Use the same quote format as you did before in earlier sections for the Sociologist Lillian Rubin quote in the Culture section.
    12. "The high salaries and, especially, the potential wealth through stock options, has supported the term corporate elite Top executives and, of course, Chief Executive Officers are among the financially best compensated occupations in the United States." I'm not sure if this is supposed to be two sentences or one. If it's two, add a period after the bold text.
    13. "While the median annual earnings for a CEO in the United States were $140,350[22] (already exceeding the income of more than 90% of US households), the Wall Street Journal reports the median compensation for CEOs of 350 major corporations was $6,000,000 in 2005. Most of the money came from stock options.[23]." Include the last sentence into the first one, perhaps as "...in 2005 with most of the money due to stock option benefits." Also remove the extra period after the inline citation.
    14. Some percentages bounce back and forth from being spelled out then to numerical values and some with both (one with a numerical value in parathenses afterwards). Stick to just one of the methods.
    15. "The middle class is perhaps the mostly vaguely defined of all the social class." I'm not sure if this is supposed to be "all the social class" or "all the social classes". Correct if necessary, if not, ignore this suggestion.
    16. "...disregarding considerable differences in income, culture, educational attainment, influence and occupation." Add a comma after influence.
    17. "As with all the social classes in the US there are no definite answers as to what and what is not middle class." I think it's supposed to be "as to what is and what is not", ignore if applicable.
    18. In the Upper middle section, the further information link should be indented/spaced properly as the Middle class is right above it with its main link. Same as Vernacular middle class.
    19. The commas placed in this statement (in the Working class section) don't appear correct: "Yet another, more dated, definition is that..."
    20. "As working class persons tend to lack higher education they are commonly not qualified to design, create and advise." Add comma after think.
    21. "While Lloyd Warner found the vast majority of the American population to be in either the upper-lower class or lower-lower class in 1949, many modern-day experts such as, Michael Zweig an economist for NYU-Stony Brook, argue..." Move comma after Michael Zweig.
    22. Fix the wording of "Overall, 13% of the population fall below the poverty threshold, hunger and food insecurity were present in the mundane lives of 3.9% of American households, while roughly twenty-five million Americans (ca. 9%) participated in the food stamp program."
    23. "A main, successful political goal of Jeffersonian democracy..." remove comma after main.
    24. "In contemporary times migrant agricultural workers, mostly Hispanic, perform field and packing work. [36]" Remove extra space between period and inline citation.
    25. "The scenario most commonly reordered currently by the country's top news publications is that the statistical middle is splitting into two, a well-off, high-income middle class -the professional middle class- and a lower-income middle class." After "two," switch the comma to a colon, and use &mda sh; for the hyphens. View edit mode on this talk page to see what this looks like.
    26. "The rising costs of some items often deemed as iconcially middle class, such as a suburban three bedroom home, a college education and private school." Add comma after college education.
    27. "Both, a decline in real wages and the rising costs of "middle class essentials" are commonly cited as reasons for increasing bancrupcy rates, overspending and reliance on two income earners." Change to "Both a decline in real wages and the rising costs of "middle class essentials" are commonly cited as reasons for increasing bancrupcy rates, overspending, and reliance on two income earners."
    28. In the Class ascendancy section, move "The more classic understanding of the American dream, however, is that each successive generation will have a higher standard of living than its predecessor." to the second sentence in the section.
    29. "Occupation, the perhaps most important class component, educational..." switch to "perhaps the".
    30. "As a result not all upper middle class households (who consititute 15% of households) are among the 15.8% of households who had six figure incomes, thus not all upper middle class houseolds had six-figure incomes." Again, either use six figure incomes or six-figures income (be uniform throughout the article).
  • Misspelled: Strucutre -> Structure (within the Dennis Gilbert book inline citation; occurs throughout the article), ineqaulity -> inequality, continous -> continuous (in the intro quote), presons -> persons (occurs twice in the Income section), exactely -> exactly, distriubtion -> distribution, Gilber -> Gilbert, (Dual income controversy section), nationl -> national, atteneded -> attended (both in the Education section), crafstmen -> craftsmen (Middle class section), vernecular -> vernacular, aricle -> article, newsanchors -> news anchors, espcially -> especially (Vernacular middle class section), Gilber -> Gilbert, consititutes -> constitutes, consititute -> constitute, clerial occuaptions -> clerical occupations (Lower middle class section), two thirds -> two-thirds (Working class section), Jacksonian Democracy -> Jacksonian democracy (Farmworkers section), phenonmenon -> phenomenon, understaning -> understanding, iconcially -> iconically, bancrupcy -> bankruptcy, (Middle class squeeze section), advantagous -> advantageous, life time -> lifetime (Class ascendancy section), furthemore -> furthermore, ture -> true, bureacratuc -> bureaucratic, accumalted -> accumulated, toutinized -> routinized, supervisedmanual -> supervised manual, cerlical -> clerical, (Gilbert & Kahl section), uproportional -> unproportional, consitituted -> constituted, predominantely -> predominately, repeatet -> repeated, consititute -> constitute, houseolds -> households (Thompson & Hickey section)
  • Wikilink or further explain: sociologists, incumbent, quintiles, scholarships, US Census Bureau, Nonconformity, Chief Operating Officer (perhaps further then #2 job, expand to the second highest rank in a normal corporate ladder, etc.), information technology, blue collar (pink is wikilinked right after it), white collar, proletariat, Karl Marx, food stamp program, immigrant, indentured servants, emancipation, Hispanic, California, & posited.
2. Factually accurate?:
    1. Provide an inline citation for this statement: "Class culture has been shown to have a strong influence on the mundane lives of people, affecting everything from the manner in which they raise their children, initiation and maintenance of romantic relationship to the color in which they paint their houses."
    2. Inline citation for "Parents from the professional class tend to raise their children to become curious independent thinkers, while working class parents raise their children to have a more communal perspective with a strong respect for authority."
    3. Don't use "On page 119 of his book, The American Class Structure (5th edition),", just include an inline citation at the end of the statement.
    4. "W. Lloyd Warner, perhaps one of the most prominent American sociologists of the twentieth century," Either remove the perhaps... statement or source it.
    5. In the upper class section, for the third paragraph, remove the space between the inline citation and the period.
    6. "salaries of powerful public officials are capped and they are forbidden to accept gifts." add inline citation
    7. "...and are effectively required to have a residence in their district as well as one in Washington.[1]" convert this into an inline citation instead of an outside link.
    8. "Large numbers of immigrants in the colonial period came as indentured servants as teenagers, and by age 30 or so became independent farmers." Add source or reword.
    9. "Less than 2% of the population of the United States is engaged in farming." Add inline citation. Also, combine it with the sentence right after it ("Most are proprietors of independent farms.").
    10. "Once the dominant American social class, this group diminished in overall numbers during the 20th century, as farm holdings grew more consolidated, farming operations became more mechanized, and the majority of the population migrated to urban areas." Add source.
    11. Source the statement by Gilbert in Academic models section: "Some class models are more convincing than others because they make better use of the facts and illuminate metters that concern us... But there is really no way to establish that a particular model is true and another false."
    12. Don't use "The American Class Structure, 6th edition (Wadsworth 2002) as well the preceding 5th edition,", just add inline citation/source at the end of the statements. This also includes "The class descriptions in quotes below are lifted from the 5th edition, pages 284 and 285."
    13. For the references, split it up into footnotes (for the inline citations) and put the books under a heading like "Further reading" or "References" (if you use References, then just make the footnotes a heading as well).
3. Broad in coverage?: This article does a very good job covering all aspects of the information. For the future, the article could include a section focusing about the future of social classes in the U.S.
4. Neutral point of view?: Appears NPOV, make sure it stays that way.
5. Stability?: No problems here.
6. Images?: Good use of images. If you can, on the image pages themselves include a description section explaining what the image is about/entails. For the first image used, either elaborate on "A stark reminder of class in the United States." or remove it.
    1. Elaborate on the statement "Thus the 1906 cartoon showing the middle class family in dire straits." in the Middle class squeeze section or remove it.

This article is very well written, but it needs some cleanup from the suggestions above. I think that this article can be improved within the seven-day holding period, so I will put it on hold. If you think that you can't finish these within seven days, let me know and I'll fail it for now and you can renominate it again in the future. Just do each thing one at a time to make sure you fix everything. Consider including a symbol or saying your done after you complete each suggestion. When you fix all the changes or if you have any further questions, please let me know on my talk page. --Nehrams2020 07:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

All the things you mentioned above can be fixed in quickly. In 48h I should have made all the changes. Signaturebrendel 08:11, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Most of the above suggestions are fixed and I crossed off the ones that are complete. However, there are some things that still need to be fixed. Again, don't use the page number after the statement, convert it into an inline citation with the page number listed within the inline citation. You still need to add wikilinks to all of those words I suggested for further clarification for the reader. For the 1906 image, you have the statement "Thus the 1906 cartoon showing the middle class family in dire straits." Elaborate on this to help point out why the image is used in the article. Maybe add another sentence or two in the paragraph about it. If you have any other questions about the suggestions that still need to be fixed, let me know on my talk page. Good work so far. --Nehrams2020 22:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
I'll get around to them withing the next couple of hours. Signaturebrendel 00:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi, again, its gonna take me 'til about 1600 tomrrow-as I have some unexpected things to do tonight. I'll message you then. Keep up the good work and happy editing! Signaturebrendel 05:04, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry to do this again-but I was really busy today and it's now almost 11:00PM- tomorrow I will finally have the time to make the above corrections- I know it's the last day-but I will make the changes just on time. Signaturebrendel 06:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

GA failed

I failed the article for now, just until the changes are completed and since it has exceeded its seven days. Let me know when all of the items are fixed, and I'll be happy to review it again before promoting it. Good job so far, but keep at it. --Nehrams2020 09:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your patience and continued assistance. I was quite unexpecately busy (as you have probably gotten from my posts) the last few days and have a project coming up next week. I will, however, check the above list of improvements once more and proof-read the article within the next week. Best Regards, Signaturebrendel 17:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Question on wealth-class relationship

Apologies if this issue is often discussed on the sociolgy pages, but the article currently states that there is debate as to whether the "new rich" should be included in the "upper class". My question: Is this honestly a serious debate in the United States? Among actual sociologists? Surely, the basing of class purely on wealth attained, (rather than factors such as family history and private education), essentially means there is no class system in America. It's almost the same thing as equating beauty and wealth. It seems compltely absurd to me.--Zoso Jade 15:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I think misunderstand the term social class somewhat. Social class refers to a group of people who assume similar positions in society-it doesn't neccesarily refer to family history or pedigree. The upper class are those who are wealthy and powerful; in other words they assume influencial positions in society and reap great economic rewards- they own media outlets, large shares in corporations, invest to the extend that they can make a break companies, have attained ivy league educations, open and close employment opportunity for others, etc... Social class is a by-product of a complex society. In order for social class not to exsist everyone would need to assume a similar position with similar influence, authority and rewards. But a complex society can't work that way-we need highly educated professionals, big-time share holders, janitors, and secretaries-we need different groups of people assuming a variety of positions: social classes.
As to whether or not there is debate among sociologists-not really. All those with wealth and power are upper class. Society issues two main rewards: income & prestige (how other's think of what you're doing). Among the members of the upper class, some such as Presidents, Senators and many old money heirs receive more prestige than other members of the upper class such as celebs. Personally I have not seen a class model made after 1980 that differentiates between Old and New Money- Dennis Gilbert, whose class model may be the most used, actually made a point in his book not to differentiate between old and new money- as doing so it an out-dated practice. I hope that answer some of your questions. Signaturebrendel 17:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Numerical Adjustment Required

In an environment in which first year associates at NY and Chicago and Los Angeles make $167,000 just for showing up the first day, the broad categories contained in this article are in deep need of revision. CEOs and Politicians and second year associates at $200,000!

Those persons are exceptions. This article talks about what is typical, not what is exceptional- 50% of CEOs make less than $140k. Signaturebrendel 22:23, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

I just wanted to say that whatever one's view of the subject, this appears to be an interesting and well written page. I'm sure I will enjoy reading further. Thanks for your work. --Kenneth M Burke 07:11, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for those kind words. Signaturebrendel 21:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

What the heck its that high?

Must be all those stuck up rich people. My family only makes $25,000 a year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uber555 (talk • contribs)

What is this supposed to mean? I probably should delete this comment but instead will use the opportunity to briefly mention the ambiguouity that sourrounds social class. As there are no offical or well defined class tresholds the concepts and perceptions persons have of class vary widely - especially when discussing the middle class. Thus it is understandable if some readers disagree with the current academic theories on the subject and "common" income figures identified by contemporary social scientists. Regards, Signaturebrendel 21:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Social class in the United States/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

This article is well-written and the 80% of it that I wrote since August 2005 are very well-referenced. The only thing that is missing are references in the last fifth of the article. This could be a GA and an A-Class if it were only for the references. Signaturebrendel 02:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Update: Probelm fixed, all sections now have references. Signaturebrendel 02:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 01:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC). Substituted at 22:04, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Linkspam?

I have twice reverted this edit, which contains what I believe to be linkspam. In order to avoid 3RR, I'm stepping aside, and I'm asking y'all to evaluate whether it is a legitimate external link or not. Shalom Hello 20:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

You did the right thing. The link has no business in the external links section on this article. Considering that he/she has been warned multiple times and the uncivil remakrs I just found in his/her contributions history, I have blocked the IP. Regards, Signaturebrendel 20:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Good article candidate 2007-07-06

First off, I would like to congratulate the editors of this article for the persistent quality of work here. For such a controversial topic, this is a very neutral article, and after reading over the article twice, I really do feel that it is worthy of GA status. However, there are a few cases of vague terms and redundancies that will need to be corrected in order to get the article to FA status. Also additional wikilinking should be applied where necessary. OSX (talk • contributions) 10:04, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

  1. Well-written: Pass
  2. Factually accurate: Pass
  3. Broad: Pass
  4. Neutrally written: Pass
  5. Stable: Pass
  6. Well-referenced: Pass
  7. Images: Pass
Thank you! Signaturebrendel 16:44, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Clarification

Did you read this? Class models, with providing more or less congruent theories on the socio-economic stratification of American have been developed by social scientists. I am not even sure what it means. Rumiton 11:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

It means that sociologists have devised class models that are similar to one another. It means, that even though the American class system remains ambigously defined, social scientists have developed some sort of quasi-defacto consensus on certain theories. If you can find a better way to phrase this statament, I'm all ears. Regards, Signaturebrendel 16:43, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
OK, I think I see what is meant. I was thrown by the redundant "with" and "providing," and also because the word "life" or "society" might be missing after the adjective "American." The passive voice is a ittle confusing, too. I am sorry, I know I am pedantic, all those people who have told me so can't be wrong. How about...
Social scientists have developed class models on the socio-economic stratification of American society which give rise to more or less congruent theories.
Or perhaps Social scientists have developed class models on the socio-economic stratification of American society, USING more or less congruent theories. From the original, I am really not sure which came first, the theory or the class model. Thanks for your patience. Rumiton 12:17, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, actually its thories that give rise to models who in turn give rise to models. The current models are the result of old models being updated and new theories having been made. I replaced the sentence with Social scientists have developed class models on the socio-economic stratification of American society which feature more or less congruent theories. I think it is the most accurate statement I can make. Thanks for your input and improving the article. Signaturebrendel 18:34, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your open and helpful response. Wikipedia at its best, I think. Rumiton 10:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Janitor?!

Is a computer game graphic if a janitor really necessary?

I have not contributed to the page but have been keeping up with the changes in reading it. I don't like the graphic so much. --Kenneth M Burke 22:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, I removed the graphic. Thanks for the feedback. Signaturebrendel 23:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
I've looked for other janitors. You know, there was a news story about an elementary school janitor in the United States. The students liked him a lot and raised money to send him on a vacation to San Francisco. Maybe a photo? I dunno. --Kenneth M Burke 00:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Some articles about Joe Venable, the janitor kids love. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] --Kenneth M Burke 02:46, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

A Recent Survey

says that advanced education is correlated with affluence, but 'job outlook' is not. 24.32.208.58 (talk) 23:31, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Review: On Hold

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Culture and Society" articles. I believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. However, in reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that need to be addressed. I have made minor corrections and have included several points below that need to be addressed for the article to remain a GA. Please address them within seven days and the article will maintain its GA status. If progress is being made and issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted. If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. If you disagree with any of the issues, leave a comment after the specific issue and I'll be happy to discuss/agree with you. To keep tabs on your progress so far, either strike through the completed tasks or put checks next to them.

Needs inline citations:

  1. The quote in the "Income" section needs an inline citation.
  2. "Not once in a professional middle-class home did I see a young boy shake his father's hand in a well-taught manly gesture... Not once did I hear a middle-class parent scornfully-or even sympathetically-call a crying boy a sissy or in any way reprimand him for his tears... even as young as six or seven, the working class boys seemed more emotionally controlled-more like miniature men-than those in the middle-class families."
  3. The quote in the "Corporate elite" section needs an inline citation. It has been tagged since August 2007.
  4. The quote in "Working class" section needs an inline citation.

Other issues:

  1. The lead needs to be expanded to three or four paragraphs to better summarize the article. See WP:LEAD guidelines.
  2. "Many politically powerful people make money before coming to office, but in general the political power elite have official incomes in the $150,000 to $185,000 range; members of Congress are paid $165,000, and are effectively required to have a residence in their district as well as one in Washington." Single sentence shouldn't stand alone. Either expand on the information present or incorporate it into another paragraph.

This article covers the topic well and if the above issues are addressed, I believe the article can remain a GA. I will leave the article on hold for seven days, but if progress is being made and an extension is needed, one may be given. I will leave messages on the talk pages of the main contributors to the article along with the related WikiProjects so that the workload can be shared. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 05:10, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Review: Failed

Unfortunately, since the issues weren't fixed, I have regrettably delisted the article according to the requirements of the GA criteria. If the issues are fixed, consider renominating the article at WP:GAN. With a little work, especially with a collaboration among the two WikiProjects, it should have no problems getting back up to GA status. If you disagree with this review, you can seek an alternate opinion at Good article reassessment. If you have any questions let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 02:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Image caption

The image caption for File:A monument of working class.JPG, currently used in the lead, includes "A monument to the working and supporting classes...". That description is incorrect. The Mechanics Monument (originally known as the Donahue Memorial Fountain) was commissioned by James Mervyn Donahue in memory of his father, James Donahue, founder of Union Iron Works. (sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) It was dedicated to mechanics. (sources: 1, 2, inscription) The monument isn't honoring the entire "working" and supporting classes (What does supporting class mean?). That being said, I'm not sure it really belongs in the lead (or article) considering it's not related to a specific social class. Unless someone reasonably objects, I'll replace it in the next day or so. APK is ready for the tourists to leave 20:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Scarcity of skills LARGELY determines income inequality?

I take issue with the two mentions of this, and plan to make a minor rewrite if no one objects. While to a certain extent this is true, it breaks down in a big way in quite a few cases:

Whenever an employee, partner or affiliate is paid as a percentage of the profit, whether in the form of a bonus or a salary; in the case of a business owner or owner/CEO; those who make a living without having to work, through returns on investments, whether inherited or earned, and a few others. There is often overlap between the three of these, but they are not the same. It should be noted that a disproportionate number of the top 1% of income earners fall into one of these categories, which helps to underscore the importance of this issue.

As a short and simplified example, take the example of the owner/CEO who makes $1000/day, but who also pays his ten employees a TOTAL of $1000/day, or $100/day per person. If suddenly his business unionizes and the workers win a wage that was fifty percent more than what they were making previously, then the owner is forced to give this out of his profit, reducing his own share by half. By the reasoning of this article, mathematically that would amount to him becoming 50% less scarce, or there suddenly being two of him. This conclusion is shocking, as it flies in the face of all we know about biology and economics.

From a different perspective, income disparity fell drastically during the Great Depression. Applying the scarcity model to this circumstance, the implication is that there was either a great influx of venture capitalists during this episode, or that demand for them fell--both of which propositions are absurd and historically false.

Please respond with your thoughts, either for or against. Glyph250 (talk) 23:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

2.2 Income Section

"However such a conclusion is contrary to the widespread observation that upper management at many companies is less knowledgeable and competent than many of their underlings, and that their positions are largely the result of fortuitous birth situations and networking."

This sentence reeks of bias. Who specifically is gaining positions "largely" as the result of their fortuitous birth?

What studies have shown upper management is incompetent? Based on what testing? Management style?

Is networking not a talent for navigating competing interests in a organization to promote cooperation?

Blamire (talk) 12:03, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

2.2 Income Section

In some fields, like my field of social work, mgmt is NOT required to have anything other than a Bachelor's and sometimes no degree at all, whereas to work as a licensed social worker in any state (to do direct care with clients,) you MUST have at least a bachelor's (basic SW jobs), in most cases a Master's (must have in order to start your own private practice, practice psychotherapy, supervise someone who is working on their SW license, be paid by many insurances, etc.) It often costs agencies less to hire mgmt with less education, and some mgrs were grandfathered into licensure without having as much education or training. As a result, many supervisors are less educated/formerly trained than the people who work for them. I suspect there are several other fields that operate similar to this.

My daughter was one of the few West Point cadets who had no family members who graduated from West Point. My sister has worked at Merrill Lynch for 15 yrs, and the overwhelming majority of her clients are extremely affluent individuals who inherited their fortunes. In fact, our family grew up on welfare, and she said she has never seen such lazy and unemployed children and grandchildren as she has those who come from ultra-affluent families. Fortuitous birth is such an obvious factor with regard to this topic, that most would agree research is not necessary to lend support to this theory. However, if such a study could be completed to the satisfaction of all, would anyone really be surprised if such support would be found?

As far as hetworking, I think what was intended here was people obtaining jobs, promotions, favors, etc. due to "who they know" versus "what they know." In other words, there MAY be some skill involved in networking, but the fact that many who have desirable, and at times superior, skills are never given the opportunities afforded those who are "well-connected." I believe most reasonable people would agree with that and not question it, but again, if studies could be completed to verify this theory, would anyone be surprised? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mvmunozr (talk • contribs) 17:48, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

@ Social_class_in_the_United_States#Income

do these income numbers describe earnings before taxes?

also it lists 5 categories. it says 'income' e.g. 'Persons, age 25+ w/ earnings' what is "income" "w/ earnings". what the dilly?? 165.236.200.99 (talk) 19:06, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Leonard Beeghley's social classes don't add up to 100%

preston Just wanted to point out that something must be wrong on the Leonard Beeghley's social classes, because they add up to 109%, instead of 100%. Maybe a typo? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arrab (talk • contribs) 15:08, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Class inflation

It would be nice to see something about class inflation in the USA, as this would help to explain the radically different conception of "middle class" in the USA compared with the rest of the world, including the difference in American vs. British English.

Economists seem to have done a better job of explaining this than sociologists. For example, the creation of Fannie Mae in 1938 made home ownership widely available to the working class. Before 1938, only about 5% of homes had mortgages. The GI bill, passed in 1944, provided millions of veterans returning from WWII with free college tuition. Much of our education system has experienced academic inflation. Many technical and agricultural colleges that morphed into "universities" would probably by called "polytechnics" in most countries. The USA and Canada both experienced major reforms in primary and secondary education in 1965 in which the curriculum was heavily watered down.

The concept of class deflation has also been raised in the last two decades, e.g., the American middle class waking up to the discovery that most of them are really working-class.

This sort of thing is occasionally discussed in WIRED, The Economist, the Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal, as well as some of the books advertised in The Economist. Zyxwv99 (talk) 13:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Due to the Red Scares and a long history of anti-communism the working class has been defined out of existence in the United States. Thus, reasonably paid workers are referred to as middle-class. There is no connotation that they are the bourgeoisie. No politician in the United States would represent themselves as representing the "working class" although perhaps 70% of the population could be fairly, and scientifically described as working class. User:Fred Bauder Talk 02:09, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Social_class_in_the_United_States&oldid=4495269 User:Fred Bauder Talk 02:12, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
Fred is right. "class inflation" is only meaningful in terms of differing interpretations of Weberian models over time: ie: today's "middle class" is yesterday's "working class" because "home ownership" is a fundamental stratum identifier in the US system of class recognition. The concept is irrelevant in term of Bourdieu, where the goal-posts shift to maintain communities. It is irrelevant to Marxist conceptions. It is irrelevant to "quintile" or "decile" approaches to social stratification by wealth. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:17, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Biological

There is research that is trying to understand if how and why human beings socialize the way we do is biological. Two examples come to mind from the "Human Spark, The Brain Matters" TV show series that was on PBS. http://video.pbs.org/video/1390247671

1) Cooperation vs non-cooperating/not interacting: 9 Month old human babies watching three animal puppets playing with a ball will choose the animal puppet that is cooperative and not the non-cooperating puppet - according Karen Wynn at Yale University

2)Cooperating vs hindering: 9 month old human babies watching "abstract puppets"; a triangle, a circle and a square "puppet" choose the puppet that is "helping" and not the puppet that was "mean" or impeded the success of the other puppet. - according Karen Wynn at Yale University

3) 9 month old babies watched two puppets "eating" food. The baby choose the puppet that has the same preferences as themselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.250.40.133 (talk) 01:38, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I am sure there are more studies out there. Studies on what is thought to be biological and what is learned should both be included in this article. Right now the article only includes hypothesises and observations. Rather then testing, retesting and comparison experiments.

A study on language and the misunderstanding between ways of communicating between cultures would be interesting too. As this might tie back to the experiments with the 9 month old babies and what humans perceive as who's on who's side, and therefore stratification.

Additionally, there are studies on hormones, their effects on the brain, and their relationship to apes (and people) of different standing in a group. (Tara) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.250.40.133 (talk) 01:26, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

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This Article

This article needs some serious work. Many of the things it says are contradictory.16:22, 1 July 2016 (UTC)2601:640:4080:5960:54DC:1531:633A:465 (talk)

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Some copying has occurred -- (maybe not a big deal...)

version of this article that was current when this was written

These comments are based upon the "14:17, 8 February 2019" version of this article. which was the most current version when this [section] was originally written.

How I came to notice that "some copying had occurred"

I found a sentence in this article -- in the first paragraph of the "Upper class" sub-section (of the "Academic models" section) of this article -- that said [quote:]

Twentieth century sociologist W. Lloyd Warner divided the upper class into two sections: the "upper-upper class" (or bourgeoisie) and "lower-upper class" (or "scoobs").

and I was pretty certain that I was not familiar with the word "scoobs" there (inside a pair of parens...).

Also, (just "FYI"), I did eventually find out, that consulting

did not seem to help much.

However, something in the "search results" at [EXT URL 2] did catch my eye. It was a "hit" (that pointed to a ".DOC" file) and that "hit" said something like this:

The Academic Elite and its Relation to Muslim Society: A Sociological ...
https://www.researchgate.net/.../The-Academic-Elite-and-its-Relation-to-Muslim-Socie...
... (or bourgeoisie) and "lower-upper class" (or "scoobs"). The former includes established upper-class families while the latter includes those with great wealth.

and (after downloading the ".DOC" file, and opening it using some software that can interpret the bits inside a ".DOC" file) I found that there are some large sections where the contents of that ".DOC" file and this article seem to be identical.

Before you get excited, it appears that (a) there may have been no impropriety, other than perhaps failing to "credit" the source when doing the copying, and (b) since I could not find any "as of" date on the ".DOC" file, it was not at all clear whether someone copied a lot of material from this Wikipedia article, ... or whether there was a lot of material -- (of whatever [maybe unknown?] licensing status, and/or copyright status) -- that had been copied to this Wikipedia article.

It is not certain whether the copying was FROM or TO this article

I noticed that there are MANY places in the "copied" material, where the hyperlinks in the ".DOC" file point to the exact same articles, -- in the English Wikipedia! -- as are pointed to by the corresponding hyperlinks in this Wikipedia article.

The fact that the "from" end of a copying activity, would be unlikely -- if it were not part of Wikipedia -- to be so full of hyperlinks to articles in the English Wikipedia, suggested to me that the copying that did take place (if indeed it did) (...and, that is just an assumption, but ... the amount of material that is identical is very large ... it is so much, that any "similarity" just by "coincidence", would be pretty astounding ... to me, at least) ... that is, the copying that "I suspect" did take place, was probably "from" this Wikipedia article ... and not "to" this Wikipedia article. (I could be wrong ... but IMHO that would be an awful lot of links to Wikipedia articles, from some academic paper that later just "happened" to get modified [edited], to bring in a lot of material verbatim.)

That probably means that the copyright violation -- ("if any") -- was a relatively minor one. Since Wikipedia articles do allow copying (and even creation of modified versions) as along as the source ['Wikipedia'] is properly credited, the only thing wrong might be ... failing to "credit" the source when doing the copying. That might still be a legal issue -- ["technically"] -- but perhaps it would really be more of an "academic standards" or ethical issue. (right?)

What should be done now?

Any comments? --Mike Schwartz (talk) 06:13, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

comments

By the way, that strange-looking .DOC file also contains, (as the last entry in its bibliography) (and actually, I think it is the last entry in the whole .DOC file) ... a link that is baiscally a sort of dead link, but I think it was intended to point to [the material that NOW resides at] this URL: https://cornellsun.com/2011/04/11/the-poison-ivy-league/ (...although it uses an incorrect URL -- starting with [well, preceded by] a left square bracket! ... one that is un-matched by a right square bracket!; ... [more evidence for which way the copying -- perhaps "clumsily" -- occurred?] ["to" or "from" Wikipedia?] and the incorrect URL was ...this: "https://cornellsun.com/section/opinion/content/2011/04/12/poison-ivy-league" ... which gives a page that "suggests" doing a search, -- and I did a search ... for "poison ivy league" ... and that led me to a "search results page", that has an entry that worked OK ... it did not contain quite so much << "... /section/opinion/content/ ..." >> -type stuff, as part of the URL, but it pointed to the URL shown above ... the one that is closer to the word intended).

Go figure...! --Mike Schwartz (talk) 06:39, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Blockquotes and Cquotes

I fixed the formatting for most of the blockquotes on this page to use the template parameters (e.g. moving the author's name from 4 to author). However, I am not sure about the number of Cquotes used throughout the article. How many of them should be using the {{Quote}} template instead? Perhaps some sections need to be restructured so that the Cquotes are outside of the article space. WhirlWithoutEnd (talk) 11:05, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

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