Question

Part A: How does position in a structured hierarchy (stratification) impact quality of life? (Answer this question for inequalities on the national level for the United States)

Part B: How does position in a structured hierarchy (stratification) impact quality of life? (Answer this question for inequalities for the poor countries affected by multinational corporations)

Part C: How does position in a structured hierarchy (stratification) impact quality of life? (Answer this question for societies, but with caste structures)

Part D: How does position in a structured hierarchy (stratification) impact quality of life? (Answer this question for societies, but with with class structures)

Answer 1

United States is relatively a new country that has just started accepting people of colour and women as equals in the society but still the structured hierarchy of rich and poor, racial superiority etc. In a country where individual rights and materialism is viewed as superior, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The rich are able to pay for everything and lead a sophisticated life whereas people in the lower order struggle even to buy lifesaving medicines. This hierarchy has created income disparities and discrimination in all walks of life thus keeping more than half of the population in the making both the ends meet category. The rich children are able to get very good education whereas the poor children get educated in state schools with basic amenities. So, when they come to college or choosing a career, they will have less opportunity to compete with the rich people.

Poor countries are the dump yards and markets of the multinational corporations. They set-up their manufacturing units promising comfortable life thus depriving them of their natural ability of farming and robbing them of their natural resources. They suck all the ground water and leave them when there is nothing left. They distract people with their products by selling it in instalments thus forcing them in debt and pushing them to a comfort zone. They use them as labourers for a cheap cost and make them sick by sucking all their energy and providing them with unsafe working conditions.

Societies such as India, are highly caste sensitive just like the race system is a social stratification which divides people according to their professions. Priests were considered as high class people in the system and they never allowed anyone to learn or study anything and education was reserved only for them. They treated all the other castes, especially the ones in the lowest level as if they were not even human beings by keeping them away from the society, by not allowing them to wear shirts, by not allowing them inside the temple and by not allowing them to move in the societies freely. This has affected them to a great extent that they were living a life that was close to animals. They didn’t get any facilities and opportunities such as medicine, education, right to farm etc.

Most of the societies had class structure where the elite controlled the lower class and exploited their labour in order to accumulate huge profit. They used them for their progress and threw them just like a waste paper after using them. People who consider themselves as elite class get all the facilities because they are able to influence the social institutions such as educational institutions, politicians, physicians etc. with their money and status in the society. They advance few things as elite class thus denying the rights of the ordinary people.