I don’t understand why the poverty line in the US isn’t state by state. The cost of living is drastically different in Alabama compared to Oregon for example.
It's so interesting how social classes differ between countries! I'm from the Netherlands, where you would consider a 50,000 income upper middle class, and probably all of their kids will attend good colleges (since education is affordable here). Go sociologists!
@@jhonatanhernandez3568 Yes immigrants mostly from Eastern Europe. Eastern Europeans have their own cheap labor...North Koreans. Funny how every country has their own slave labor maybe except communist countries?
Judging the comments in previous videos it seems like the series being unbiased already serves as a ground for some people to call liberal bias or even communism (as the series doesn't portrait Marx like the boogeyman americans make him).
Sadly, it doesn't look like this show gets as much love as the other Crash Course shows; as someone who graduated with a BA in Sociology but isn't currently doing anything with it, I love this show. Keep up the great work!
the Humanities need individual thinking and perspective. It's not like engineering that any idiot can learn, if they just follow the assembly manual. That is why it is so underrated. It requires something society hates: Individuality and thinking.
Chase Warwick Thanks for the LSD and other drugs, thanks for the atomic bomb and the cold war, thanks for the guns and all the murder because of them, thanks for having to throw away my phone every 4-5 years because it "becomes obsolete", thanks for the temples that devide us (somebody had to plan those buildings right?), tanks for the internet-trolls, thanks for the hormones and various poisons in the tapwater, thanks for not having a job (soon) because of automatization, thanks for no real human contact (because everybody wants to talk to each other via facebook and such)... Thank you people of STEM for making my life better and worse at the same time!
H.H. I think your loneliness mentioned in your comment stems not rom technology, but you being a conspiracy nut. [HISTORICAL HUNGARICA, ONLY YOU CAN SEE THE REST OF THIS COMMENT. I AM LIZURD HEBREWBERGER, FIRST CIRCUMCISOR OF THE JEW-REPTILIAN MOTHERSHIP ILLUMINATUS. YOU KNOW TOO MUCH. WE ARE COMING FOR YOU. BY THE SCALES OF YEHOVA, WE, WILL NOT BE DEFEATED. ILLUMINATI FOREVER]
Anyone who thinks a family of four can live on $24,000 a year isn't paying attention to how much everything costs. Rent has gone up outrageously in many cities in the US to the point people can't afford an apartment or to rent a house. Not only that but now they require an monthly income of 2-3 times the amount of monthly rent. If the rent is $1,200 a month (which is low) you'd need to make $2,400-3,600 a month to qualify. That is over the poverty level. Hence, homeless families or families where both parents have to work full time jobs.
1200 is high. I make a lot of money, and even I think this. If you are on the verge of poverty, and 1200 is the lowest you can find in a city, you need to move somewhere cheaper even if it means a longer commute.
I've lived in most of these sections. When I was very small, my grandfather died and left my parents money and we lived like upper middle class, but after a few years, the money was gone and we were middle class. Then the economy tanked and we ended up working class. Then my mom decided she didn't want to deal with a disabled kid and kicked me out. I was homeless for a year. I'm finally out of homelessness but still living off of less than half the poverty level, which I guess is lower class. Don't think I'm gonna make it to upper class though at this rate.
@3:17 "Keep in mind the median family income is $70,700." I think this should have been "Average" family income, not "Median"? It just caught my ear because I had looked into it a few years ago and the Median income then was around $50,000. Doing a quick search, it happens that the US Census Bureau put out an update for 2016 a day after this video released stating that the Median household income was $59,039. Link below. www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/income-povery.html
Thank you, they keep mixing up and not specifying different kinds of average in this course. (A median is still a kind of average; I think you mean "mean" when you say "average" here).
Nothing against this series, because it's been incredibly informative, but classifying a family that makes $25k a year as "lower middle class" is a misnomer. Being half a step away from homelessness doesn't make you "middle class".
I'm sweetheart....earning 25K in today's world is low-range dear. At least in the U.S. it is. I'm lower than that but I accept until I can do better after I graduate college. Yes 25,000 per year is not a lot of money.
Your video was pretty accurate and unbiased but you guys forgot to mention trade union jobs and people who are in sales. Both of which can earn more than someone with a masters without acquiring a degree.
Social class definitely becomes messy when looking at anomalies like me and my spouse. We both have college degrees, and work full time jobs that require degrees, but make less than 12k a year each. Beyond this, because we come from families that are reasonably well off, we don't fit nicely into the lower class in terms of available funds (since our families are happy to assist with costs). Relational social privilege grants us a lot of potential upward mobility not normally available to the lower class.
Fair point on "Old Money;" as for the field, education, specifically public school education (my pay is in no way the norm; nationally, the average is closer to 25k/year, I believe).
Everfinderer so basically you teach in a low income discrict so you dont have to pay back the student loans. My stepmom did that. She taugh on the Eastside of Detroit for years before leaving and becoming a principal in the suburbs
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) can be another advantage, yes, though that's little more than exception to an absurd tax code than a tangible benefit (loan forgiveness is by default treated as income in the USA, and taxes must be paid on the amount forgiven). However, "so that you don't have to pay" is inaccurate. Our college debts are being paid despite PSLF, originally out of ignorance (being unaware of income based loan repayment, I used up most of my savings paying the default monthly installments), and then our families, or Old Money, as it were, paying on our behalf as a wedding gift.
You oversimplified marxist theory of classes. Marx doesn't divide society into two classes, he accentuates struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat as a main feature of industrial society.
Marxist theory often gives a simplistic and reductionistic impression in the US because even in colleges, it is often introduced to students in the most simplistic and distorting way possible (society divided into only two classes; economic determinism; one-sided dichotomy between "base" v.s. "superstructure", etc. ie. all features of vulgarized Marxism.) For example, the small shop keeper the video talked about can easily be categorized as petty bourgeoisie in Marxist analysis, and Marx wrote a lot about the petty bourgeoisie in political works like The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, which discussed their political role in a concrete historical context. The point is, even though Marx thought that there is a set of basic economic regularities that more or less governs the daily life of our capitalist society (which is an idea shared by all economists), society -- consisted in concrete people -- response to these economic imperatives in a concrete historical condition, therefore we can't formulate a generalised theory of society, and we must analyse any society within its concrete historical context. That's why Marx never have a general theory of petty bourgeoisie, or a general theory of middle class, because since these classes are not as closely tied to the central economic contradiction that defines capitalism itself as the bourgeoisie and proletariat are, their interests and relations to the larger society depends on specific context to a much greater extent. Only analysis of specific a middle class (e.g. the US middle class from 2008 to 2017) in a specific historical context (e.g. the socio-economic and political landscape of the US after the 2008 financial crisis) makes sense to historical materialism. This kind of insistence on concrete analysis is perhaps what makes Marxism fail to fit into the mainstream format of social science, where people love to talk only about generalised structure and classifying people into artificial categories, but seldom do they discuss history and what people actually did to each other in detail.
+Noob E It wouldn't have been so grating if she hadn't opened the episode by basically saying "here's Marx's theory but it's too simplistic, so lets use Weber instead." Marx's theory isn't too simplistic, she's just describing it very poorly. Thus the problem is with a poor explanation of the theory rather than the theory itself. It'd be like if I said "The Ancient Greeks thought the world was flat, but that's because they were simplistic and wrong, so now lets talk about Christopher Columbus." The problem isn't that the Greeks didn't know the shape of the planet, they did know the shape of the planet and had a very good estimate of the size, I'm just explaining it very badly.
You're mistaken on your definition of class by Marx (0:20). He does not says that there is only two classes, but that these two classes (the bourgeoisie and the proletariat) will constitute the primary source of antagonism within the capitalist system. The example you give in 0:29 is akin to marxist definition of "petty bourgeoisie", a class that extracts profit from it's own work, along with their employees; in opposition to the bourgeoisie, that, for instance, extracts wealth and profit only from wage labour. There's also the "peasantry" (which is self-sufficient and does not produces profit), the lumpenproletariat (who's at the margin of society), the colonial aristocracy (which is subservient to another nation's bourgeoisie)... It would be only a minor nitpick if your whole point on bring up Weber weren't as if he "surpassed" or "solved" Marx's alleged anachronism; so this argument is misguided and ironically oversimplistic.
Daniel... this is "Crash Course", not "Detailed Lectures". You are right, they oversimplified the subject, but they have to do it in order to bring people some "basic knowledge". It might push folks even to go after certain topics.
Oh, of course, and I do understand it's merits. But again, in 0:27 is she who claims that Marx's views were too simplistic for our world, using as example a wrong definition of class conflict, and I just pointed it out. As you said, this too can push folks to go after the correct definitions too.
This was very educational. Thanks +CrashCourse. This definitely helped me with my sociology education because im taking intro to sociology at my college. Well done. A++ :-)
Thank You Crash Course. I'm doing a project about Educational quality based on gender and socioeconomic status. This video helped me. Look at what I have so far. Educational quality based on gender and socioeconomic status is an issue today because it can involve quality of life qualities as well as the opportunities and privileges afforded to people within society. The World is filled with people with all kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds. A person’s socioeconomic status is determined by their work experience and by their work experience and their individual or family’s economic position which is based on income education and occupation. A child in a low socioeconomic status household is exposed to low-quality child care, poor and distressed schools and economically depressed neighborhoods. There are many factors that can influence a child’s academic success or failure. Those that come from a low socio-economic background have even more challenges to face. Students who came from a low SES are not as academically successful as those who come from higher status. These are major issues faced everywhere in the world and in every school district and will continue to be a problem. To fix these problems I suggest that it is our responsibility to ensure that every student receives an equal education no matter their background and home life.
The best definition of class is defined in relation to people's debt status. If you have to work not only to fund your own consumption, but to borrow (at interest or rent) the capital needed to live and work in the first place, you are lower class. If you have to work to fund your own consumption, but you don't have to borrow to be able to do so because you own capital enough for your use, then you are middle class. If you don't even have to work to fund your own consumption, because you own so much capital you can rent it out or lend it at interest for profit, then you are upper class. By this definition, almost everyone is lower class, because almost nobody owns even the home they live in outright. Anyone renting or mortgaging is lower class. And by the time you're rich enough to reach middle class, upper class is a hop skip and a jump away, so there's hardly any middle class either. Our economic system pushes people out of the middle class, pulling the people below it down and pushing the people above it up, with a force proportional to their distance from it. Rent and interest are what drive that force.
That just means that expensive places force a lot of people to be lower class there (or here, since I'm in California and spending my entire life struggling just to stop borrowing someone else's land), not that we need to adjust the definition of class. Who owns all the capital that so many people in expensive places are borrowing? Banks and landlords, mostly, who are consequently extremely upper-class by this definition. That everybody else in those countries is indebted to that tiny extremely wealthy upper class doesn't call for changing the definition of class, it calls for fixing that situation.
Skilled trades that were mentioned in the video as "lower middle class" make considerably more than 50K a year. Plumbers, welders, electricians, and carpenters are making excellent wages more in the 75-100K range annually.
Where I live (Georgia USA not the country) social class really does matter I’m Upper middle class and I do get a lot of attention being that in the city I live in 1 in every 4 people are in poverty
The Communist Manifesto actually mentions the petty Bourgeoisie, which includes shop owners and small business owners. It says that this class will eventually be hollowed out as inequality increases.
Thank you for sharing your talent. God bless you. This week I've been analyzing my neighborhood social structure that's how I stumbled across your videos.
This is a great unbiased view in general but I still have problem with the fact the upper class over 250k is split only in 2. This is a prob in the UK as well those who earn a few 100k are lumped in with those who earn a few 100m. There is actually a greater difference in these levels then there are of those who earn say 15-30k. Especially if it is a single earner receiving top level tax and no allowances, not even the basic 11k tax free
Genuine Marxism is not a fixed dogma as many imagine, but it is forever expanding, and today would take into account the small business owner. Who is often just a component part of an can be ruined by monopoly capitalism, which is far more monopilised than in Marx's day. The different divisions of social class are really either divisions within the modern working class i.e skilled and unskilled workers. The trend for middle class people is going towards the working class as many of those jobs are falling in value and many are getting organised in trade unions. There are also divisions with in the ruling class i.e multi millionaires and billionaires.
2:35 When she says "upper middle class families", does she mean that they have a total income between 115k und 250k or is that the income per adult? I understand it as the income per family, but the family structure at least count in a little bit? A single is with 200k per year much wealthier than a family with two children.
Again, you gotta be sure to specify when you're talking about family vs personal income, with the former usually being about twice the latter because the average family is about two people. About HALF of individual Americans make $25k/year or less; it's only FAMILY incomes below that range that are lower class, because those families are made up of people making under around $1k/month each. Likewise, that median family making $70k-something a year is usually actually two people each making $35k-ish per year.
Also, let's not forget to compare mean and median, again. The MEAN income (what people normally think of when you say "average": add up all the incomes and divide by number of people) is about $50k per PERSON, or $100k per household. The medians are closer to HALF that. Meaning that 50% of Americans are making not only less than average (as you would expect), but less than HALF of average. In other words: add up all the incomes and divide by the number of people. Write that number down. Now line up all Americans by income, and pick the person out of the dead center of the lineup. You'd expect their income to be around the number you wrote down, right? Nope. It's half of that. The people making the number you wrote down are halfway again toward the rich end of the lineup, around the 75th percentile. Yes, that means there are three times as many people below average than above it.
so according to your chart I am in the lower class. But my cost of living is low. No part of me feels like I am lower class. I still get a little help from my parents. I feel like most people in there 20's are in this category. Can't we distinguish the difference between a low income young adult vs. a low income family? I guess I shouldn't be offended by this, since I feel like they are counting the income as an income over a family of 3 to 4 people.
I think the concept is fascinating, but here is a paradox. What about people who can have higher amounts of money but do not normally like to be in "typical" white collar work but would rather do "typical" blue collar work because I know plenty of educated men who prefer to be "active" with their work rather than sit behind an office desk all day. They mention to me that they're bored out of their minds at work in a "higher income" job. It's also a fact that most of the USA is below the middle class, it's been called "The Working Poor". Recent times, and situations have exposed this and plenty of the masses are angry that they are in fact lower in social class then they assumed or preferred.
The black sociologist said blacks' economic failings were because of a lack of opportunity, while the white sociologist blamed black culture. Imagine that.
Huh im in the working/lower class my dad is disabled and mom works a stressful job and we live in a household of 7 (used to be 9) fortunately though i'm 1st generation student
Why americans express income annualy? I think it's harder to grasp the income and the socioeconomic situacion of a family that way, I mean you have to pay bills montly so it makes more sense to know if your income is enough to pay the basic needs
Some people, particularly farmers, make their money just once or twice a year based on harvest times, etc. And some people have a seasonal job where they make their whole year's income in just a few months. So yearly income makes more sense in that way.
There can be some big variances on a month to month basis. Think of off and on season (people working in tourism, ski resorts, farmers, etc.) workers or people whose hours do vary on a monthly (weekly or even daily basis!) . Bills don't always come up monthly either (think of taxes, for example) so using a monthly basis can be misleading when comparing income to expenses. Also many people don't get paid monthly. They get paid bi-weekly (every 2 weeks) and this doesn't fit neatly into a month.
You disregard Marx's class analysis because it doesn't account for small business owners but how about the concept of the petty bourgeois which is that very distinction you make
I dunno ... I do appreciate the framework presented here (it's a different way of looking at it, which is nice), but I've always subscribed to the binary method of telling if you're working class - could you pay for your lifestyle choices on just capital gains (growth and return on investments you hold), without any actual work income. If so, then you're not working class (i.e. you don't have to work to maintain your chosen lifestyle). The differentiation between the "Old Money" and "New Money" dichotomy of the capitalist class around 2:20, in this video, is that "old money" is inherited wealth and capital gains on that wealth, while "New Money" is ... some small % of salary, but mainly people who own stock in their own brands/companies and generate income from the capital gains on owning stock in their own publicly traded companies (Gates, Oprah, Kanye, yada yada yada). But that's just splitting hairs - they're all capitalists (aka non-working class), but some of them inherited their wealth, while others just extracted the surplus wealth from people working under them).
It would be academically interesting to compare distributions of poverty between America and other countries where poverty is distributed very differently. Often it's more to do with which region of a country you're raised in, or quality of welfare payments under the current government, than race or gender.
Came to watch this video for information specifically on the title of this video. Now I want to know information on all those collectibles that ar the background of this video.
You don’t get tip to who your born to. People of color more likely to be in poverty because last of support from family coming from dysfunctional home. Internal jealousy with in their own family. If a person of color goes go to college, their family is often dependent on them to take care of the family and runs to their every need . When in reality the college graduate now has debt to be paid and still find a job in a society where you are seen as a the Helped I worked with tones of recuiters and they always tried put me in admin or receptionist rolls , when my degrees were in marketing and finance. Then the wages were low it nearly covered my cost to work. Definitely wasn’t enough to pay bills or rent. Even if a person does try to do better, society the white world makes it hard for them
You do know what institutional means, right? This is not necessarily about the law discriminating. If white people own most businesses and choose to employ more white people than black people, than there is an institutional barrier (the institution being the job market) preventing black people from economically succceeding, if they lack the necessary qualifications to overcome obstacles like racism, subconscious bias etc.
It doesn't need to be subconscious discrimination. It might be the fact, that black people are less likely to attend college because their parents never did, or the lack of networking opportunities because the parents of poor blacks were poor and unconnected too most of the time...
i wonder what social class do i belong.!!!.I used to live in US but for last 10 years I am in Europe.I am 58 old,own 55 square metar kind of luxury apartment,do not have mortgage or any debt,son finished NYC Private university,do not own car,/do not need it/ travel a lot /have 2 weeks vacation,eat super food ,dress in Zara, have free health as the most of Europe[ but no dentist free,] go out 2 times a month..[ theater ].. but .have saving only for 6 months ....
I must have missed it, but is this talking about household income or individuals? Because if it’s the former, I find looking only at income is not the best way to assess social class. The video uses “person” as an individual and “families” interchangeably which makes some things unclear.
As with London vs the rest of the UK, the USA has an issue with places like San Francisco, Los Angeles and other major population centres versus the rest. What might be a useful relative poverty level for one part of the country might not help many of those who genuinely need the help in other parts. *Does* the USA social security system attempt to adjust the thresholds and payouts to account for this? There was no "Living in London" component to my state benefits when I lived in London (other than Housing Benefit, which does take the local costs of renting into account).
Its kinda uncomfortable looking at your own class when compared to others. I'm in the working middle class and I am grateful for what I have but it's weird to me that I don't have the "average" in American life.
All trades you named in the working class are actually in the upper middle class. For example a Rail Road worker or a power conpany worker can easily eclipse 115k and never have to worry about loosing their job. Neither need college education. Without the trademans, this country WILL NOT run.
Limey Lassen No like here in the United States. Many times those same companies will actually pay for you to go to school and get a degree all while working at the company. A good paying job and a tuition free degree. Millinials will never know this because they think the trades are beneath them and because most of them are just plain lazy.
Carewolf ummm that happens all the time. A journeyman's card is basucally the equivalent to a degree. Also two states just got devistated by huricanes. When that happens electricians and tradesmen from around the country come and work to rebuild the infrastructure. Trust and believe theyre getting PAID. if a trademen isnt making a minimum of 90k they're underpaid.
An average college graduate does not even make $100,000 a year. They make half that, and so do an average journeyman, though slightly less. The upper middle class, had added on top of that, being born by the right parents, marrying someone making just as much or more, being the top 5% in your field or getting lucky.
If you own a small business and work there yourself along with a couple of employees, Marx wouldn't put you in the bourgeoisie. You would be petite bourgeois, a class which depending on circumstances can be hindered by capitalism and be an ally to the proletariat or at least not the enemy. Plus, Marxist sociologists have developed class systems more adapted to today's world, see Erik Olin Wright for example.
@@tjgamer9713 The West's 'poor' are some of the richest in the world. Particularly America's 'poor.' Wealth inequality is not a good measure of a society's economic health. I mean, there is little wealth inequality in Cuba and Venezuela but no one is calling them paradises.
I'm a bit disappointed that skilled trades were left out. They are good jobs, with good income. I think it is important not to exclude these jobs, because they can be higher paying and more stable than many white collar jobs.
You can have money and still lack or miss opportunities you otherwise are entitled to, for a vaerity of cultural & social reasons. Living near NYC around mostly: blacks, latinos, and european jews. It is clear that if you are black, society already has a negative idea of you, especially if you look like a hip hop artist. Furthermore, there are many race groups, and well, some race groups are more comfortable than others. Life is easier if you are white in the US, because it is easier to integrate with, well, the particular group of people that enslaved and took the land and resources from the grandparents of other groups, and so they generally have more resources at their disposal. If you take other peoples land today, then make and enforce a rule that says you cannot take anyones land, and called it a civil society, well now, your children are way more likely to end up on those top two tiers. The ones who had their land taken on the other hand, you are likely find their decendant in the bottom 2 tiers. Poor peole are just poor, because they just are, they don't try hard enough, *or* are they the decendants of victims of wars, slaverly & colonialism?
This is a very simplistic view, one that millions of other people have. Unfortunately life isn't fair, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. "The whites have more resources at their disposal because they enslaved the blacks" is 1.) way oversimplified, and 2.) EVEN IF it wasn't oversimplified, and was an accurate description of the situation, there's nothing that can be done about it. As a white person in the US, and my colonial American ancestors did not own slaves, if I can prove that English people persecuted my Scottish ancestors in the 1400s, do I get to go back and ask for reparations from the English? Can I take this back further, to when the Romans persecuted my ancestors? Do black people in the US today have any desire to seek reparations from the other Africans who sold their ancestors to the Europeans? Even though blacks are more likely on a per-capita basis to be poor, whites compose by far the larger numbers of poor, as the video showed. Do these people need to pay reparations, or feel guilty? What if they paid reparations to wealthy black and hispanic people? (Take note that there ARE wealthy minorities and POOR whites. Skin color is *correlated* with wealth, not a causal factor. Anyone can do anything they want in the US if they put their mind to it). I'm skinny, losing my hair, and extremely near-sighted, and white. Would I rather be a black guy who is a super ladies man, and also very intelligent, or talented at sports? I don't know. My point is every person wins or loses the lottery in countless different ways when they are born. And there's no way to enforce reparations based on racial correlations regarding social status. And unlike other countries, you CAN work your way up to success no matter how low you start. So stop complaining, stop comparing yourself to your American neighbor who has more than you, and start comparing yourself to the rest of the world to see how good you really have it. I can't really refute any particular point you made, since you didn't really make a point... it was just implied complaining. But I do appreciate the analysis that lead to your complaining, it just wasn't a complete analysis.
Ian Alvord Whether we like it or not, Marx had a HUGE influence on economic theory and sociology. Perhaps a huge NEGATIVE influence but influence nonetheless.
Hey Crashcourse! Absolutely love your videos! They're amazing! I was looking for a video on Universal Basic Income (UBI) and couldn't find any in your resources. Any chance we'll get one?
I don’t understand why the poverty line in the US isn’t state by state. The cost of living is drastically different in Alabama compared to Oregon for example.
It's so interesting how social classes differ between countries! I'm from the Netherlands, where you would consider a 50,000 income upper middle class, and probably all of their kids will attend good colleges (since education is affordable here).
Go sociologists!
most jobs do not require a bachelor's degree, how do y'all handle the lack of cheap workforce? Who makes the jobs that no one wants to do? Immigrants?
Jhonatan Hernández the children
@@jhonatanhernandez3568 Yes immigrants mostly from Eastern Europe.
Eastern Europeans have their own cheap labor...North Koreans. Funny how every country has their own slave labor maybe except communist countries?
I like how unbiased this is. Great for learning and makes it harder for the comments to become politicized and toxic.
Don't underestimate the internet.
We do try our very best. :)
- Nick J.
Judging the comments in previous videos it seems like the series being unbiased already serves as a ground for some people to call liberal bias or even communism (as the series doesn't portrait Marx like the boogeyman americans make him).
Saying Marx was the boogeyman isn't bias, it should be common knowledge.
"it should be common knowledge" - A biased opinion. So yeah, it is bias. Not commenting on your opinion by the way just the statement that it is bias.
This has by far been my favorite Crash Course series (okay, aside from World History).
Sadly, it doesn't look like this show gets as much love as the other Crash Course shows; as someone who graduated with a BA in Sociology but isn't currently doing anything with it, I love this show. Keep up the great work!
the Humanities need individual thinking and perspective. It's not like engineering that any idiot can learn, if they just follow the assembly manual. That is why it is so underrated. It requires something society hates: Individuality and thinking.
Chase Warwick
Thanks for the LSD and other drugs, thanks for the atomic bomb and the cold war, thanks for the guns and all the murder because of them, thanks for having to throw away my phone every 4-5 years because it "becomes obsolete", thanks for the temples that devide us (somebody had to plan those buildings right?), tanks for the internet-trolls, thanks for the hormones and various poisons in the tapwater, thanks for not having a job (soon) because of automatization, thanks for no real human contact (because everybody wants to talk to each other via facebook and such)...
Thank you people of STEM for making my life better and worse at the same time!
HistoricaHungarica life isn't perfect man, get real!
H.H. I think your loneliness mentioned in your comment stems not rom technology, but you being a conspiracy nut.
[HISTORICAL HUNGARICA, ONLY YOU CAN SEE THE REST OF THIS COMMENT. I AM LIZURD HEBREWBERGER, FIRST CIRCUMCISOR OF THE JEW-REPTILIAN MOTHERSHIP ILLUMINATUS. YOU KNOW TOO MUCH. WE ARE COMING FOR YOU. BY THE SCALES OF YEHOVA, WE, WILL NOT BE DEFEATED. ILLUMINATI FOREVER]
Chase Warwick whats the point of this comment?
This comment section is going to be great and everyone is going to get along just fine.
your sunglasses suck
You're sadly mistaken....
ok~ if you say so, lady
I'm doing an essay on the book 'The Outsiders' and it's going to be about social divide. Thank you for the videos, it's really helpful!
This series has been very helpful in my Sociology class. I currently have 98% in the class. Thanks!
I fear often that I'm not smart, talented or hard working enough not to be poor when I'm older, and that it'll be my fault.
Anyone who thinks a family of four can live on $24,000 a year isn't paying attention to how much everything costs. Rent has gone up outrageously in many cities in the US to the point people can't afford an apartment or to rent a house. Not only that but now they require an monthly income of 2-3 times the amount of monthly rent. If the rent is $1,200 a month (which is low) you'd need to make $2,400-3,600 a month to qualify. That is over the poverty level. Hence, homeless families or families where both parents have to work full time jobs.
Darcy Kahler
A lot of this is, ironically enough, caused by rent control and minimum wage laws.
1200 is high. I make a lot of money, and even I think this. If you are on the verge of poverty, and 1200 is the lowest you can find in a city, you need to move somewhere cheaper even if it means a longer commute.
I've lived in most of these sections. When I was very small, my grandfather died and left my parents money and we lived like upper middle class, but after a few years, the money was gone and we were middle class. Then the economy tanked and we ended up working class. Then my mom decided she didn't want to deal with a disabled kid and kicked me out. I was homeless for a year. I'm finally out of homelessness but still living off of less than half the poverty level, which I guess is lower class. Don't think I'm gonna make it to upper class though at this rate.
Werevampiwolf wht part of ur body is disabled. and how do u wrk? serious question
@3:17 "Keep in mind the median family income is $70,700."
I think this should have been "Average" family income, not "Median"? It just caught my ear because I had looked into it a few years ago and the Median income then was around $50,000. Doing a quick search, it happens that the US Census Bureau put out an update for 2016 a day after this video released stating that the Median household income was $59,039. Link below.
www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/income-povery.html
Thank you, they keep mixing up and not specifying different kinds of average in this course. (A median is still a kind of average; I think you mean "mean" when you say "average" here).
its still vlose enough tough
Nothing against this series, because it's been incredibly informative, but classifying a family that makes $25k a year as "lower middle class" is a misnomer. Being half a step away from homelessness doesn't make you "middle class".
So where would you put the minimum for lower middle class?
I'm sweetheart....earning 25K in today's world is low-range dear. At least in the U.S. it is. I'm lower than that but I accept until I can do better after I graduate college. Yes 25,000 per year is not a lot of money.
I think your right
I am obsessed with her outfit!!! Queen of pinks and purples YASSSS
by far Sociology and Philosophy are my favorite CrashCourse series. Really into your videos! :)
Your video was pretty accurate and unbiased but you guys forgot to mention trade union jobs and people who are in sales. Both of which can earn more than someone with a masters without acquiring a degree.
Social class definitely becomes messy when looking at anomalies like me and my spouse. We both have college degrees, and work full time jobs that require degrees, but make less than 12k a year each. Beyond this, because we come from families that are reasonably well off, we don't fit nicely into the lower class in terms of available funds (since our families are happy to assist with costs). Relational social privilege grants us a lot of potential upward mobility not normally available to the lower class.
Everfinderer so basically you hqve old money to assist you. What do you do that pays so little?
Fair point on "Old Money;" as for the field, education, specifically public school education (my pay is in no way the norm; nationally, the average is closer to 25k/year, I believe).
Everfinderer so basically you teach in a low income discrict so you dont have to pay back the student loans. My stepmom did that. She taugh on the Eastside of Detroit for years before leaving and becoming a principal in the suburbs
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) can be another advantage, yes, though that's little more than exception to an absurd tax code than a tangible benefit (loan forgiveness is by default treated as income in the USA, and taxes must be paid on the amount forgiven).
However, "so that you don't have to pay" is inaccurate. Our college debts are being paid despite PSLF, originally out of ignorance (being unaware of income based loan repayment, I used up most of my savings paying the default monthly installments), and then our families, or Old Money, as it were, paying on our behalf as a wedding gift.
Working class.
Mazdoor. Mazdoori.
In bad sense where poverty is reality. Oppressed class. Exploited class.
This video is gold. You presented this topic so well, I am impressed. Keep it up, I'm loving this course (:
You oversimplified marxist theory of classes.
Marx doesn't divide society into two classes, he accentuates struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat as a main feature of industrial society.
She already stated that she was oversimplifying it. These videos aren't long enough to give a comprehensive analysis or definition lol.
well people need proletariat, but the wrld dosent wrk only with proletariat, they need other things too
I always like when someone points out a "mistake" but than doesn't correct it.
Marxist theory often gives a simplistic and reductionistic impression in the US because even in colleges, it is often introduced to students in the most simplistic and distorting way possible (society divided into only two classes; economic determinism; one-sided dichotomy between "base" v.s. "superstructure", etc. ie. all features of vulgarized Marxism.) For example, the small shop keeper the video talked about can easily be categorized as petty bourgeoisie in Marxist analysis, and Marx wrote a lot about the petty bourgeoisie in political works like The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, which discussed their political role in a concrete historical context.
The point is, even though Marx thought that there is a set of basic economic regularities that more or less governs the daily life of our capitalist society (which is an idea shared by all economists), society -- consisted in concrete people -- response to these economic imperatives in a concrete historical condition, therefore we can't formulate a generalised theory of society, and we must analyse any society within its concrete historical context. That's why Marx never have a general theory of petty bourgeoisie, or a general theory of middle class, because since these classes are not as closely tied to the central economic contradiction that defines capitalism itself as the bourgeoisie and proletariat are, their interests and relations to the larger society depends on specific context to a much greater extent. Only analysis of specific a middle class (e.g. the US middle class from 2008 to 2017) in a specific historical context (e.g. the socio-economic and political landscape of the US after the 2008 financial crisis) makes sense to historical materialism. This kind of insistence on concrete analysis is perhaps what makes Marxism fail to fit into the mainstream format of social science, where people love to talk only about generalised structure and classifying people into artificial categories, but seldom do they discuss history and what people actually did to each other in detail.
+Noob E It wouldn't have been so grating if she hadn't opened the episode by basically saying "here's Marx's theory but it's too simplistic, so lets use Weber instead." Marx's theory isn't too simplistic, she's just describing it very poorly. Thus the problem is with a poor explanation of the theory rather than the theory itself. It'd be like if I said "The Ancient Greeks thought the world was flat, but that's because they were simplistic and wrong, so now lets talk about Christopher Columbus." The problem isn't that the Greeks didn't know the shape of the planet, they did know the shape of the planet and had a very good estimate of the size, I'm just explaining it very badly.
You're mistaken on your definition of class by Marx (0:20). He does not says that there is only two classes, but that these two classes (the bourgeoisie and the proletariat) will constitute the primary source of antagonism within the capitalist system.
The example you give in 0:29 is akin to marxist definition of "petty bourgeoisie", a class that extracts profit from it's own work, along with their employees; in opposition to the bourgeoisie, that, for instance, extracts wealth and profit only from wage labour. There's also the "peasantry" (which is self-sufficient and does not produces profit), the lumpenproletariat (who's at the margin of society), the colonial aristocracy (which is subservient to another nation's bourgeoisie)... It would be only a minor nitpick if your whole point on bring up Weber weren't as if he "surpassed" or "solved" Marx's alleged anachronism; so this argument is misguided and ironically oversimplistic.
Daniel... this is "Crash Course", not "Detailed Lectures".
You are right, they oversimplified the subject, but they have to do it in order to bring people some "basic knowledge". It might push folks even to go after certain topics.
Oh, of course, and I do understand it's merits. But again, in 0:27 is she who claims that Marx's views were too simplistic for our world, using as example a wrong definition of class conflict, and I just pointed it out. As you said, this too can push folks to go after the correct definitions too.
Daniel Moreno good explanation
Exam in 20 minutes. Thank you.
This was very educational. Thanks +CrashCourse. This definitely helped me with my sociology education because im taking intro to sociology at my college. Well done. A++ :-)
Thank You Crash Course. I'm doing a project about Educational quality based on gender and socioeconomic status. This video helped me.
Look at what I have so far.
Educational quality based on gender and socioeconomic status is an issue today because it can involve quality of life qualities as well as the opportunities and privileges afforded to people within society. The World is filled with people with all kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds. A person’s socioeconomic status is determined by their work experience and by their work experience and their individual or family’s economic position which is based on income education and occupation. A child in a low socioeconomic status household is exposed to low-quality child care, poor and distressed schools and economically depressed neighborhoods. There are many factors that can influence a child’s academic success or failure. Those that come from a low socio-economic background have even more challenges to face. Students who came from a low SES are not as academically successful as those who come from higher status. These are major issues faced everywhere in the world and in every school district and will continue to be a problem. To fix these problems I suggest that it is our responsibility to ensure that every student receives an equal education no matter their background and home life.
How about a history of art courses?
YES!
The best definition of class is defined in relation to people's debt status.
If you have to work not only to fund your own consumption, but to borrow (at interest or rent) the capital needed to live and work in the first place, you are lower class.
If you have to work to fund your own consumption, but you don't have to borrow to be able to do so because you own capital enough for your use, then you are middle class.
If you don't even have to work to fund your own consumption, because you own so much capital you can rent it out or lend it at interest for profit, then you are upper class.
By this definition, almost everyone is lower class, because almost nobody owns even the home they live in outright. Anyone renting or mortgaging is lower class. And by the time you're rich enough to reach middle class, upper class is a hop skip and a jump away, so there's hardly any middle class either. Our economic system pushes people out of the middle class, pulling the people below it down and pushing the people above it up, with a force proportional to their distance from it. Rent and interest are what drive that force.
That just means that expensive places force a lot of people to be lower class there (or here, since I'm in California and spending my entire life struggling just to stop borrowing someone else's land), not that we need to adjust the definition of class.
Who owns all the capital that so many people in expensive places are borrowing? Banks and landlords, mostly, who are consequently extremely upper-class by this definition. That everybody else in those countries is indebted to that tiny extremely wealthy upper class doesn't call for changing the definition of class, it calls for fixing that situation.
My neighbor, the plumber, is laughing at this. Dude has two houses, a boat, a couple trucks, and a pimped out side by side.
She looks like an adult version of that girl from the Harry Potter movies.
Luna?
- Nick J.
That's her, I couldn't think of her name.
Im not sociologist but this is interesting to learn
I dunno, some of those plumbers and electricians make way more money that the "white collar" people in call centers.
K F your husband’s job is at the mercy of the economy
Skilled trades that were mentioned in the video as "lower middle class" make considerably more than 50K a year. Plumbers, welders, electricians, and carpenters are making excellent wages more in the 75-100K range annually.
This video is beyond Bourgeoisie
It's the Proterlerate
Wew Lad good
Where I live (Georgia USA not the country) social class really does matter I’m Upper middle class and I do get a lot of attention being that in the city I live in 1 in every 4 people are in poverty
I prefer the French way of dividing up the Bourgeoisie.
Also, I think it's worth remembering Thorstein Veblen's concept of the Under Class.
"the French way of dividing up the Bourgeoisie"
The head and the rest of the body?
The Communist Manifesto actually mentions the petty Bourgeoisie, which includes shop owners and small business owners. It says that this class will eventually be hollowed out as inequality increases.
thats the petite bourgeoisie...not petty
Which is what's already happening.
Thank you for sharing your talent. God bless you. This week I've been analyzing my neighborhood social structure that's how I stumbled across your videos.
Personally I think more people need to read Thomas Sowell.
0:35. Haven't you heard of the term petite bourgeoisie? Marx uses it in like every other sentence.
This is a great unbiased view in general but I still have problem with the fact the upper class over 250k is split only in 2. This is a prob in the UK as well those who earn a few 100k are lumped in with those who earn a few 100m. There is actually a greater difference in these levels then there are of those who earn say 15-30k. Especially if it is a single earner receiving top level tax and no allowances, not even the basic 11k tax free
Compared though those on 15-30*
0:39 Hence the petty bourgeoise
Awesome video! I'd love to see a video where you discuss absolute poverty!
You have just helped me in my exam! Much love♡
Wow... turns out I'm lower class... really low. Thanks college!
XenomorphYo what did you studied?
Genuine Marxism is not a fixed dogma as many imagine, but it is forever expanding, and today would take into account the small business owner. Who is often just a component part of an can be ruined by monopoly capitalism, which is far more monopilised than in Marx's day. The different divisions of social class are really either divisions within the modern working class i.e skilled and unskilled workers. The trend for middle class people is going towards the working class as many of those jobs are falling in value and many are getting organised in trade unions. There are also divisions with in the ruling class i.e multi millionaires and billionaires.
2:35 When she says "upper middle class families", does she mean that they have a total income between 115k und 250k or is that the income per adult? I understand it as the income per family, but the family structure at least count in a little bit? A single is with 200k per year much wealthier than a family with two children.
I think powerty by norwegian standards --lifestyle wise-- is equal to Working Class in the states. lol
O thoroughly enjoy this series, thanks.
Love your ootd btw
Feeling that marry poppins vibe lol
Again, you gotta be sure to specify when you're talking about family vs personal income, with the former usually being about twice the latter because the average family is about two people. About HALF of individual Americans make $25k/year or less; it's only FAMILY incomes below that range that are lower class, because those families are made up of people making under around $1k/month each. Likewise, that median family making $70k-something a year is usually actually two people each making $35k-ish per year.
Also, let's not forget to compare mean and median, again. The MEAN income (what people normally think of when you say "average": add up all the incomes and divide by number of people) is about $50k per PERSON, or $100k per household. The medians are closer to HALF that. Meaning that 50% of Americans are making not only less than average (as you would expect), but less than HALF of average.
In other words: add up all the incomes and divide by the number of people. Write that number down. Now line up all Americans by income, and pick the person out of the dead center of the lineup. You'd expect their income to be around the number you wrote down, right? Nope. It's half of that. The people making the number you wrote down are halfway again toward the rich end of the lineup, around the 75th percentile. Yes, that means there are three times as many people below average than above it.
And then they went on to say that a quarter of Americans make less then $25k, which implies individuals.
How could I get a job working for this channel? Really like these videos and they approach issues the same way I like!
*I'm distracted by how gorgeous that outfit is*
kidding, this is super well done and I'm glad I found it
Follow your passion and to Hell what people think
so according to your chart I am in the lower class. But my cost of living is low. No part of me feels like I am lower class. I still get a little help from my parents. I feel like most people in there 20's are in this category. Can't we distinguish the difference between a low income young adult vs. a low income family? I guess I shouldn't be offended by this, since I feel like they are counting the income as an income over a family of 3 to 4 people.
Wealth comes from other people's work
But mostly your own work, along with intelligence, good decision making, and ingenuity. Thanks for the comment.
I think the concept is fascinating, but here is a paradox. What about people who can have higher amounts of money but do not normally like to be in "typical" white collar work but would rather do "typical" blue collar work because I know plenty of educated men who prefer to be "active" with their work rather than sit behind an office desk all day.
They mention to me that they're bored out of their minds at work in a "higher income" job. It's also a fact that most of the USA is below the middle class, it's been called "The Working Poor". Recent times, and situations have exposed this and plenty of the masses are angry that they are in fact lower in social class then they assumed or preferred.
I have two questions left dawg and i cant find it in the video 😢
The black sociologist said blacks' economic failings were because of a lack of opportunity, while the white sociologist blamed black culture. Imagine that.
Dang it! I cant wait for the next video! I actually want to learn for once!
Upper Middle Class here 😇
Huh im in the working/lower class my dad is disabled and mom works a stressful job and we live in a household of 7 (used to be 9) fortunately though i'm 1st generation student
Why americans express income annualy? I think it's harder to grasp the income and the socioeconomic situacion of a family that way, I mean you have to pay bills montly so it makes more sense to know if your income is enough to pay the basic needs
Bruno Sánchez You can just add up their bills. Thus just talks about how much they make.
Bruno Sánchez Americans don't all get their money monthly. Some get it weekly or every other week.
Some people, particularly farmers, make their money just once or twice a year based on harvest times, etc. And some people have a seasonal job where they make their whole year's income in just a few months. So yearly income makes more sense in that way.
There can be some big variances on a month to month basis. Think of off and on season (people working in tourism, ski resorts, farmers, etc.) workers or people whose hours do vary on a monthly (weekly or even daily basis!) .
Bills don't always come up monthly either (think of taxes, for example) so using a monthly basis can be misleading when comparing income to expenses.
Also many people don't get paid monthly. They get paid bi-weekly (every 2 weeks) and this doesn't fit neatly into a month.
College education is, not required for and, does not equal financial security
0:42 yeah if you own a small business, you're part of the bourgeoisie. The petit bourgeoisie. Cooperatives are the answer.
My favorite part of human history is the part where there's class warfare.
So all of it ;)
You disregard Marx's class analysis because it doesn't account for small business owners but how about the concept of the petty bourgeois which is that very distinction you make
I dunno ... I do appreciate the framework presented here (it's a different way of looking at it, which is nice), but I've always subscribed to the binary method of telling if you're working class - could you pay for your lifestyle choices on just capital gains (growth and return on investments you hold), without any actual work income. If so, then you're not working class (i.e. you don't have to work to maintain your chosen lifestyle).
The differentiation between the "Old Money" and "New Money" dichotomy of the capitalist class around 2:20, in this video, is that "old money" is inherited wealth and capital gains on that wealth, while "New Money" is ... some small % of salary, but mainly people who own stock in their own brands/companies and generate income from the capital gains on owning stock in their own publicly traded companies (Gates, Oprah, Kanye, yada yada yada). But that's just splitting hairs - they're all capitalists (aka non-working class), but some of them inherited their wealth, while others just extracted the surplus wealth from people working under them).
It would be academically interesting to compare distributions of poverty between America and other countries where poverty is distributed very differently. Often it's more to do with which region of a country you're raised in, or quality of welfare payments under the current government, than race or gender.
The claim that the richest people are only those who inherent money is idiocy and obviously not true.
I'm working class and capitalist. Why? Because it works and I don't want your hand outs
Should have talked about the Gini Coefficient in regards to absolute and relative poverty.
When your stating the income range for each class, are you talking about household income or individual?
Do a crash course unit on journalism please!
Cool video!
Came to watch this video for information specifically on the title of this video. Now I want to know information on all those collectibles that ar the background of this video.
You don’t get tip to who your born to. People of color more likely to be in poverty because last of support from family coming from dysfunctional home. Internal jealousy with in their own family. If a person of color goes go to college, their family is often dependent on them to take care of the family and runs to their every need . When in reality the college graduate now has debt to be paid and still find a job in a society where you are seen as a the Helped I worked with tones of recuiters and they always tried put me in admin or receptionist rolls , when my degrees were in marketing and finance. Then the wages were low it nearly covered my cost to work. Definitely wasn’t enough to pay bills or rent. Even if a person does try to do better, society the white world makes it hard for them
Very helpful. Thank you very much
"Institutional barriers to economic success"
Okay. Name them.
You do know what institutional means, right? This is not necessarily about the law discriminating. If white people own most businesses and choose to employ more white people than black people, than there is an institutional barrier (the institution being the job market) preventing black people from economically succceeding, if they lack the necessary qualifications to overcome obstacles like racism, subconscious bias etc.
WaterMelonFan1
Ah, SUBCONSCIOUS bias.
Such a convenient excuse by leftists to continue claiming institutional racism (and needed affirmative action).
It doesn't need to be subconscious discrimination. It might be the fact, that black people are less likely to attend college because their parents never did, or the lack of networking opportunities because the parents of poor blacks were poor and unconnected too most of the time...
i wonder what social class do i belong.!!!.I used to live in US but for last 10 years I am in Europe.I am 58 old,own 55 square metar kind of luxury apartment,do not have mortgage or any debt,son finished NYC Private university,do not own car,/do not need it/ travel a lot /have 2 weeks vacation,eat super food ,dress in Zara, have free health as the most of Europe[ but no dentist free,] go out 2 times a month..[ theater ].. but .have saving only for 6 months ....
Great video.
I must have missed it, but is this talking about household income or individuals? Because if it’s the former, I find looking only at income is not the best way to assess social class. The video uses “person” as an individual and “families” interchangeably which makes some things unclear.
Black lives matters. Down goes the white privilege
Those last two guys are both right about black poverty.
omg Nicole I missed you!!!!
As with London vs the rest of the UK, the USA has an issue with places like San Francisco, Los Angeles and other major population centres versus the rest. What might be a useful relative poverty level for one part of the country might not help many of those who genuinely need the help in other parts.
*Does* the USA social security system attempt to adjust the thresholds and payouts to account for this? There was no "Living in London" component to my state benefits when I lived in London (other than Housing Benefit, which does take the local costs of renting into account).
Working class, right here😄
Why is it there everywhere I go I get different numbers for this stuff.. it does not seem to bed standardized
Small gripe: The outro music started about 10 sec to early. And the (outro) music volume was a tad to high.
Its kinda uncomfortable looking at your own class when compared to others. I'm in the working middle class and I am grateful for what I have but it's weird to me that I don't have the "average" in American life.
All trades you named in the working class are actually in the upper middle class. For example a Rail Road worker or a power conpany worker can easily eclipse 115k and never have to worry about loosing their job. Neither need college education. Without the trademans, this country WILL NOT run.
No degree to work in a power company? What, like in Ukraine?
Limey Lassen No like here in the United States. Many times those same companies will actually pay for you to go to school and get a degree all while working at the company. A good paying job and a tuition free degree. Millinials will never know this because they think the trades are beneath them and because most of them are just plain lazy.
Yeah, that happens, but it is extremely rare. The upper middle class is 15% of the population. Most tradesmen do not make that much.
Carewolf ummm that happens all the time. A journeyman's card is basucally the equivalent to a degree. Also two states just got devistated by huricanes. When that happens electricians and tradesmen from around the country come and work to rebuild the infrastructure. Trust and believe theyre getting PAID. if a trademen isnt making a minimum of 90k they're underpaid.
An average college graduate does not even make $100,000 a year. They make half that, and so do an average journeyman, though slightly less. The upper middle class, had added on top of that, being born by the right parents, marrying someone making just as much or more, being the top 5% in your field or getting lucky.
I define myself as the space class. I am above even the rich 1%
Where does the data suggesting median family income is $70700 come from? Isn't the median household income in the US $59000 a year?
If you own a small business and work there yourself along with a couple of employees, Marx wouldn't put you in the bourgeoisie. You would be petite bourgeois, a class which depending on circumstances can be hindered by capitalism and be an ally to the proletariat or at least not the enemy. Plus, Marxist sociologists have developed class systems more adapted to today's world, see Erik Olin Wright for example.
Tadas J.
And Marx's successors are just as wrong as him.
@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 whats so wrong about doing things to improve life across the board
@@tjgamer9713
LESS government and MORE capitalism helps everyone across the board than this superficial take on the haves and have-nots.
@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 capitalism is making the rich richer and the poor poorer, how does that help everyone
@@tjgamer9713
The West's 'poor' are some of the richest in the world. Particularly America's 'poor.'
Wealth inequality is not a good measure of a society's economic health.
I mean, there is little wealth inequality in Cuba and Venezuela but no one is calling them paradises.
everyone wants to be middle class.......but we cant fit everyone there, someone must make up the bottom as well
I'm a bit disappointed that skilled trades were left out. They are good jobs, with good income. I think it is important not to exclude these jobs, because they can be higher paying and more stable than many white collar jobs.
You can have money and still lack or miss opportunities you otherwise are entitled to, for a vaerity of cultural & social reasons.
Living near NYC around mostly: blacks, latinos, and european jews. It is clear that if you are black, society already has a negative idea of you, especially if you look like a hip hop artist. Furthermore, there are many race groups, and well, some race groups are more comfortable than others. Life is easier if you are white in the US, because it is easier to integrate with, well, the particular group of people that enslaved and took the land and resources from the grandparents of other groups, and so they generally have more resources at their disposal.
If you take other peoples land today, then make and enforce a rule that says you cannot take anyones land, and called it a civil society, well now, your children are way more likely to end up on those top two tiers. The ones who had their land taken on the other hand, you are likely find their decendant in the bottom 2 tiers.
Poor peole are just poor, because they just are, they don't try hard enough, *or* are they the decendants of victims of wars, slaverly & colonialism?
This is a very simplistic view, one that millions of other people have. Unfortunately life isn't fair, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. "The whites have more resources at their disposal because they enslaved the blacks" is 1.) way oversimplified, and 2.) EVEN IF it wasn't oversimplified, and was an accurate description of the situation, there's nothing that can be done about it.
As a white person in the US, and my colonial American ancestors did not own slaves, if I can prove that English people persecuted my Scottish ancestors in the 1400s, do I get to go back and ask for reparations from the English? Can I take this back further, to when the Romans persecuted my ancestors?
Do black people in the US today have any desire to seek reparations from the other Africans who sold their ancestors to the Europeans?
Even though blacks are more likely on a per-capita basis to be poor, whites compose by far the larger numbers of poor, as the video showed. Do these people need to pay reparations, or feel guilty? What if they paid reparations to wealthy black and hispanic people? (Take note that there ARE wealthy minorities and POOR whites. Skin color is *correlated* with wealth, not a causal factor. Anyone can do anything they want in the US if they put their mind to it).
I'm skinny, losing my hair, and extremely near-sighted, and white. Would I rather be a black guy who is a super ladies man, and also very intelligent, or talented at sports? I don't know.
My point is every person wins or loses the lottery in countless different ways when they are born. And there's no way to enforce reparations based on racial correlations regarding social status. And unlike other countries, you CAN work your way up to success no matter how low you start. So stop complaining, stop comparing yourself to your American neighbor who has more than you, and start comparing yourself to the rest of the world to see how good you really have it.
I can't really refute any particular point you made, since you didn't really make a point... it was just implied complaining. But I do appreciate the analysis that lead to your complaining, it just wasn't a complete analysis.
This is the Umpteenth time you've mentioned Marx.
Ian Alvord
Whether we like it or not, Marx had a HUGE influence on economic theory and sociology.
Perhaps a huge NEGATIVE influence but influence nonetheless.
Hey Crashcourse! Absolutely love your videos! They're amazing! I was looking for a video on Universal Basic Income (UBI) and couldn't find any in your resources. Any chance we'll get one?
Thank you!
hey bless this comments section though
lately one needs to step away and view things as they actually are
Median household income is around 57k; is that different than, as you stated, median "family" income (which you said was 70k?)?