SOCIOL 173 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Thomas Piketty, Rational Expectations, Meritocracy
Document Summary
Lecture outline, march 6, 2017: the american dream and social inequality. American dream: us= land of opportunity, hard work is rewarded, getting ahead is closely associated with hard work; achieved status is up to individuals (meritocracy); education is key to social mobility. Even middle-class home-owner families are fragile, let alone families that have no assets, only paychecks. Inequalities; massive in the 19th c. & first couple of decades of the 20th, decreased during great. Depression, ww, and 1950s-60s, have been increasing since the 1970s. 1928: top 1% controlled 24% of all income, bottom 90% controlled 50. 5% 1944: top 1% - 11. 3%; bottom 90% - 67. 5% pattern held for 3 decades. 2012: top 1% - 22. 5%; bottom 90% - below 50% (income + pre-tax market income; salaries, wages, dividends, interest, returns on invested capital, etc. ) Wealthiest 1% of households had 225x the wealth of the typical american household (double the. When inequalities increase opportunities shrink; polarization; undermines econ. efficiency.
