Best book on US Social Classes in the last Decade

books:


	• The Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret (ILR Press Book) Michael Zweig ILR Press, 2001 - 198 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Best book on US Social Classes in the last Decade

Zweig's class="textlinks">book is an empirical and analytical tour de force. In rigorous fashion he outlines the current class structure of the US in terms of power and control in the workplace. He proves the continuing relevance of class analysis in an era when most Americans consider themselves middle class, and he aptly describes the class war which the "ruling elite" has been precipitating on the working class. The book is clearly written and convincingly argued, and should be accessible to a wide audience.

Good Point....

Zweig makes a really good point. Whereas society determine the classes based on a family's income and their possesions he breaks it down to three main classes, the Capitalists class, the middle class(which includes lawyers, doctors, financial analysts and etc..) to the working class shich can include workers who may make more than those of the middle class. For example, a lawyer or a doctor fresh out of school will make the same amount of money for the first couple of years as a union worker or even more. Lawyers, doctors ect. are placed in the middle class because of their title and education, not their income.
This book opens up your eyes and makes you see things in a clear and broader sense.

The only negative, I am not comfortable with his writing. There are times he presents one topic and goes off in a tangent the next two lines.

for more information click here

Taking the power back!

"The Working Class Majority" came out at a time when formidable economic forces, such as corporate mergers, globalization, recessions, and tax-cuts for the wealthy, had been punishing the American working class with unprecedented impunity, a phenomenon that has forced politicians, media, and learning institutions to intensify their efforts to deflect people's attention from whatever gets them to talk about social classes. Such a concept many thought died with the Berlin Wall and the anachronism of the Soviet system, not to mention the American labor's hey-day before and during the Depression, but Zweig contends that whether it has been in the past or the present, knowledge of class relations has proved paramount to understand how society really functions.

In his class relations study, Zweig found that the United States is neither a 'class-less' country, as the most enthusiasts picture it, nor is it predominantly middle-class, with few prominences as Bill Gates and Ross Perot at the top and few lazy, welfare-supported people, sometimes called the 'underclass,' at the bottom. Instead, the majority of Americans are in the working class, which Zweig estimates makes up 62 percent of the U.S. workforce.

By giving an alternative to the conventional definition of classes, Zweig's thesis mantains that is not solely income and living standards what determines the social position of people in society but rather to what extent they participate (power) in setting the pace and priorities at the workplace and how much they can influence the decision-making process of producing goods and providing services. In other words, the role at the workplace and the means by which an income is earned to afford a certain living standard, Zweig argues, is what defines a person's class.

Zweig divides social classes in the United States into three layers: the capitalist class, or big business layer, the managerial class, and the working class, which makes up the majority of Americans. Zweig separates these three main classes and provides detailed, yet easy-to-grasp analyses about their various subdivisions and roles in society. By adding multiple government and independent sources as well as statistics on U.S. labor and business, Zweig arrives at the conclusion that the majority of Americans are in the working class.
Zweig's book is a wake-up call for the most under-reported, yet largest segment of the population. It is a must-read for all citizens who still believe that cementing a strong working-class culture helps to strenghten democracy in our society.

for more information click here

We're all working class....mostly.

This is excellent class="textlinks">book that really triggers thought about the distribution of wealth and power in the United States as it is now. Most workers see themselves as "middle class" instead of "working class". Basically, the point of this book is that when the majority of the working class--people Zweig describes as having minimal control over what they do at work (not just factory workers)--they lose the ability to pool their political power and use it to reform the economic system in their favor.

reviews: page 1, 2

hot