Although the American Dream in the United States implies that everyone can succeed, it is incompatible with the concept of social stratification. This term implies that resources are unequally distributed and go to the elite, who frequently refuse to share them. In Kendall’s Sociology in Our Times, stratification is defined as “Social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement of large social groups based on their control of basic resources” (Kendall, 2022, p. 215). Initially, a person is born with a certain number of resources based on what their parents had, and so a person will be limited by their class. In contrast, wealthier people with a completely different standard of living may have social prestige or financial security that will help them live well.
In my community, an example of social stratification is the issue of immigrants who are unable to support themselves on a regular income. Free insurance allows them to receive low-quality medical care while risking humiliation from medical professionals. Immigrant children frequently face the reality that their parents are unable to provide for their basic needs.
However, the kids do not realize this at first. The problems begin when they mature and realize how many difficulties they will face. These include the cost of education, which is often out of reach for both the student and their parents. Youngsters of migrants who have reached adulthood frequently have families and kids, and they face high costs with low wages. Class inequality in the United States between migrants and Americans exists primarily because their education level is lower and their specific knowledge is unrelated to American society.
Furthermore, a lack of English-language proficiency, an American skills diploma, and other items that ordinary Americans are likely to possess also play a significant role. This prevents them from moving up the social ladder on equal terms with Americans, as they are initially a level below even the poorest Americans due to a language advantage in hiring. At the same time, middle-class Americans can save for a child’s higher education while also providing for the first time if the student starts a family. Not to mention the children who are born into a wealthy family and have virtually nothing to do because their immediate and possibly even their heirs’ lives are secure for the rest of their lives.
Marx believed that inequality exists because there are two classes: capitalists, who own all the means of production, and workers, who work for wages (Kendall, 2022, p. 220). Weber agreed with the basic idea but thought it was a little more complicated. Thus, the middle class would be unable to overthrow the capitalists and establish an elitist society as Marx had envisioned (Kendall, 2022, p. 223). Weber believed that there were other classes besides the capitalists and the working class. He thought that for some people, social prestige was more important than financial status, whereas those with high incomes might have little social prestige and thus little influence.
The problem is that while working-class Americans have a chance to move into the middle class and even reach the Upper (Capitalist) Class, which represents the American Dream, migrants often start from the Underclass or Working Poor. The only thing they can hope for is that they will have enough life to become the lower-income class because most likely their health will be worse, and their life span and that of their babies will be shorter.
The American dream is practically unattainable for them, and even if they do receive a large sum of money, they will be unable to manage it properly to generate a good income because they lack the necessary knowledge. Furthermore, Weber argued that it is sufficient for kids to teach in universities, where salaries are low but provide access to the elite society. That is, stratification implies that access to quality education, which is also a type of resource, should be denied to the lowest class and several other classes.
Reference
Kendall, D. (2022). Sociology In Our Times (12th ed.). Cengage Limited.