Sunday 18 March 2012

Why is America's Class Divide Deepening?

In this news article from the Korea Times, the authors look at how and why America's class divide is deepening, with an emphasis and focus on one specific writer; Charles Murray.

They look at the positives and negatives of Murray's views in a critical way; as an overall summary, they finish their article with a conclusion which is food for thought; Changing a culture is difficult and takes time. With the crisis facing our republic today, "hope for change" may not be good enough. This is a very effective point because it is almost realising that America's culture may never change and that this class divide will always exist, and will continue to widen as time progresses. 


Murray looks at the time periods of 50 years ago from today and the present time, he clearly states the differences that exist and how society has changed; he puts this down to peoples views on things such as religion changing and this is the root of the issue. In the article, they emphasise the statistics of divorce amongst the different classes within the United States. Within the middle class white population, 80% of them are married and the divorce rates are far lower than what they are in the lower class families; could this be down to people losing faith in America, after all, it is being rapidly caught up by China in terms of its economic power; and from the latest economic recession and people losing jobs, people may be becoming disheartened with America and are unhappy- which has then been projected onto their family lives and marriages. 


In the article they do briefly look at the notorious '1%' of Americans who have so much of the wealth, but they say it has more to do with the ruling elite such as leading politicians- Murray urges these elite members to preach more about virtue to the lower classes. 


This article is effective in the sense that it weighs up Murray's book and critically analyses it; and how well it represents the issue of America's deepening class system. 

No comments:

Post a Comment