This is Sociology by Dan Woodman Steven Threadgold

Author:Dan Woodman, Steven Threadgold [Dan Woodman, Steven Threadgold]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General, Social Theory
ISBN: 9781529771305
Google: 6rMlEAAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 59794718
Publisher: SAGE
Published: 2021-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

Wealth and Privilege

Class is not just about disadvantage – it is about advantage and privilege as well. Wealth is defined as income from investments, ownership of productive assets, salaries, bonuses, shares and property. But wealth is difficult to accurately measure because of offshore banking and trust funds. Many wealthy people disguise their true worth; unlike welfare recipients, they have the power to do so. There is a group of extremely wealthy global citizens that Leslie Sklair called the transnational capitalist class who hide immense sums of money. It is estimated that about one quarter of all global wealth is hidden, more than the annual GDP of the USA. It was widely reported in 2018 that the richest eight people in the world now own as much wealth as the bottom 50 per cent of the world's population. Despite constant media stories about ‘self-made millionaires', much wealth is passed down from generation to generation and is not ‘earned’ in the way that the self-made stories portray.

Political proponents of neoliberal capitalism argue that rising wealth for the privileged few is good for everyone due to what has become known as the ‘trickle-down effect': when the living standards of the very rich rise, they bring everyone else up with them. Critics say that this is an ideology that hides the reality of the consequences of inequality. Wealthy ‘Global North’ countries do have higher standards of living based on economic growth. But this ignores power relations within and between societies, between capital and workers, between the included and the excluded, and the exploitation of workers in the ‘Global South’ (discussed in Chapter 4). Many recent studies show that there is a social cost of increasing inequality in income and wealth, both within and between countries. This is reflected in health and mortality outcomes (lower life expectancy, higher rates of addictions, depression, stress, work injuries, obesity); higher rates of social problems (higher crime, lower rates of literacy and trust); and the unsustainable impact on the environment (not everyone can consume at the same rate as the industrialised countries as there are not enough resources). We will come back to wealth at the end of this chapter.

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