It can be seen that higher class are much better than the rest of the class because they own means of production and are in top level executive position and are heirs who have high income mainly from assets, Moreover they are seen as the more dominant class. According to Macionis and Plummer they are portrayed as “better within society” [1997, p. 274]. They have a better life within society because of their family back ground.
Children born into high income families are more likely than those born into poverty to enjoy health, achieve economically, succeed in their life’s work and live well into old age [Macionis, Plummer, 1997, p. 275]. Furthermore, those children in middle class are also likely to enjoy good health and go into university education if their parents manage to sustain their high income jobs.
However proletariat lower class people are economically, politically and socially marginalised and excluded; because they are individuals with some or non high school education who work part time or are unemployed and on welfare benefits with low income[Morrison, 1995, p. 248-249]. The concept behind this is believed that as Lower Class are poor they are mobilized by the entire mass of society as poor due to the immense leverage which the common conscience has over the beliefs and social practise of the group [Morrison, 1995, p. 129]. They live between unemployment and the labour market of causal and temporary work, which clearly shows that the division of labour began to develop creating a separation between means of production and commerce [Morrison, 1995, p. 50].
From an early age children within Lower Class are exposed to the risk factors more frequently, but they also experience more serious consequences from these risks. They are vulnerable to negative events in their lives such as single parenting Social isolation and unemployment [MacDonald, 1997, p. 30-31]. Furthermore, when lower class children get put together with middle class children in schools the values middle class children learn in their homes are foreign to the lower class children because of the values and norms they learn at home creates a barrier to success in school.[Macdonald,1997,p.30-31]
Individuals’ in upper class are less likely to commit crime or be unemployed because of the wealth and the means of production their family own [Macionis, Plummber, 1997, p. 440]. However, middle class individuals’ are only less likely to commit crime if they are able to sustain their jobs. Individuals’ in middle class are also likely to go into unemployment and into crime because they only gain their social status because of their occupation, but once they lose their jobs and become unemployed their social status may change within society [Macionis, Plummer, 1997, p. 253].
Many who tend to grow in a low income household and live in a neighbour hood with a lot of crime rates tend to turn to crime because of the lack of education and unemployment, not finishing school and leaving school without any source of qualification can signal to a downward mobility [Macionis, Plummer, 1997, p. 275]. According to Macionis and Plummer “Lower Class, males were effectively denied the opportunity to achieve status because they invariably failed in the education system” [1997, p.276-277]. Lower Class individuals do not have much opportunity within the system because they failed within the system showing that poor education would signal to a downward mobility.
Unemployment is seen as the key factor in Lower Class individual’s because poor educational back ground leads to unemployment [Rothman, 1992, p. 118]. The problem with long term unemployment, high criminality and run down housing has caused a sharp re- focusing of the problem [Rothman, 1992, p. 91-92]. The poor are seen as those people who live on the very bottom margins of the productive system; thus crime is associated with high unemployment rate.
An individual’s socialisation plays a major role in the amount of deviant activities and crime they commit. Rothman describes underclass unemployed people as often “discouraged” [1992, p. 5]. Suggesting that the working poor are the least skilled and have the most unstable jobs and those who are unemployed believe that they won’t be able to find work because they are unskilled, so therefore they tend to be discouraged.
Lower Class individuals tend to turn to crime as a result of frustration suffered by individuals who are deprived of legitimate means to reach their goals[ Hurst, 2004, p35-36]. The fate of the individual raised in poverty is usually jeopardized by exposure to power-assertive discipline and physical punishment without the parenting support they need. Social development and delinquency is particularly strong when experienced in early childhood. Poverty severely affects the child’s home environment. The causes of unemployment are complex. Lower class individuals are unemployed more, it is not just because they are more marginal in the labor market; it is also because they have fewer choices, and because people who become classified as 'unemployed' are more likely to be poor[ Hurst, 2004, p16].
Unemployment causes people to become deviant because that’s what one must do to be able to survive. According to Hurst “poverty perpetuates criminal activity” [2004, p260-270]. Furthermore, people become deviant by learning the criminal values of the group to which they belong to. They become deviant because their behaviour seems to run counter to the norms of a social group. A social group creates deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitution deviance [MacDonald, 1997, p. 83-84].
There are many factors leading to crime and deviance and poverty, one of the risk factors. Living in a low income household can negatively impact a person in many ways e.g. a child who is hungry may not perform well in school [Hurst, 2004, p207]. Families who live in a low income household may not be able to put their children into sports and leisure programs or for extra circular activities because it may be too expensive and because they have also been kicked out of school. MacDonald suggested that “deviant behaviour acts starts out of boredom” [1997, p. 55-56].
In the United States many episode of norm violation or under age drinking provoke a lot of reaction from others. According to Macionis and Plummer many people begin to describe a young man as a “boozer and push him out of their social circle, he may become embittered” [1997, p.275.]. Suggesting that many children who hang around in neighbour hoods with nothing to do tend to start as alcoholics and seek the company of others who condone their behaviour. Macleod looked at the attainment in an low income neighbour hood in America and youths who have dropped out of school tend to get high as one of the boys stated “you see, the way we are right now, technically we are alcoholics y’know, everyone gets ragged on out there, its just when your high, you’re drunk you start ragging on people, helps time go by” [1995, p29.]. Many run down neighbour hoods were there is a high crime rate and deviance, children who do not go to school because they have been excluded tend to hang around on the street and make trouble and behave in a deviant manner.
Deviance occurs because of the environment and the group interactions individuals’ have within their social group, which then the information experiences favouring of conformity [Macionis and Plummber, 1997, p.207]. Deviance arises from unequal or lack of access to legitimate means for not achieving their goals in schools [Macionis and Plummber, 1997, p. 207]. Those who lacked access to legitimate means did not automatically have access to illegitimate means suggesting that those who where in lower class in low income their children where automatically in the situation of being poor and not being able to afford any legitimate means because of the social status they were born into within society.
Finally power is a very significant concept in Marx’s theory and as it is in his remarks of social class. Power is ultimately seen to derive from economic ownership of means of production. However poor people are unemployed because they are more marginalised in the labour market but also because they have fewer choices and because people who become classified as unemployed are more likely to become poor.
Leeder described social class as an umbrella, meaning that being in a different class may involve difference in culture economic circumstances educational status, dietary preference, housing conditions, property ownership and power. Status is not rigidly fixed by birth, dropping out of school, having a low income job can signal to a downward social mobility.
An individuals’ social status is fixed by their economic ownership in society like the bourgeois having a good occupation and high income can change one’s social status. Moreover, losing a high earned income job can signal to a downward mobility and change one’s social class.
The theory here suggests that the bourgeois are less likely to commit crime only if they can sustain their high income occupation. Moreover this situation can change once they become unemployed. However, proletarians are likely to commit crime because of unemployment and because they lack certain things in their livelihood and form a gang.
Reference
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Morrison, K. (1995). Formation of modern social thought. London; SAGE
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Macionis, J., & Plummer, K. (1997). Sociology 'a global introduction (6th ed.). New Jersey; Prentice Hall
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MacDonald, R. (19997).The underclass and social exclusion. London; Routledge
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Rothman, R. (1992). Inequality and social stratification (2nd ed.). New Jersey; Prentice Hall
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Callinicos, A. (1983). The Revolutionary of Karl Marx, “History and class struggle”. Retrieved January 19, 2007, from http://www.istendency.net/pdf/revideas.pdf.
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Macleod, J. (1995). Ain’t No Makin It (2nd ed.). Oxford; Westview
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Hurst, E, C. , (2004). Social inequality (5th ed). Boston; Pearson education