Sociology college textbook says that mass inequality is good for society

[Kingpin]

There is a section that argues that inequality and poverty are positive things and should not be changed. I'm a little shocked by some of these reasons. Here is a summary.

1. The poor do society's dirty work at a low cost. It would be difficult for us to survive without this underpaid workforce. If it wasn't for poor people, who would produce our stuff and do dirty jobs at low wages?

2. The poor create jobs for police and prisons. Police and welfare agencies shield us from the poor people and their undesirable behavior.

3. The poor serve as cheap guinea pigs in medical experiments.

4. The poor makes the economy more efficient. They spend their low wages on cheap stuff that would have been thrown away and work in dangerous factories at a low cost.

5. The poor make others wealthy. Many slum landlords and inner city alcohol stores would be bankrupt without the poor.

6. The poor provide the front-line soldiers for war. These poor youth can be sacrificed during battle at a low cost. Where else would we get the grunt-level forces and people willing to test roads for bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan?

7. The poor provide cheap entertainment. Their lives of despair become entertainment and media for us to watch and enjoy.

8. The poor help motivate us. If we don't get an education and work hard, and do whatever our bosses and government tells us, we will end up like them.

9. The poor help our self-concept. They make us all feel superior. We are not like them.

"One wonders if human society could exist without the poor".







Is it just me or does the above sound like something straight out of fascist Italy or Nazi Germany?

[Kléber]

Sociology is weird. One minute they're expressing Marxist ideas in a mystical code-language, then before you realize it, they're expressing the most reactionary and conservative positions. I don't think you would find anything like this in a fascist state, though. Fascism began as a middle-class socialist movement, which pretended it could solve the problems of poverty and overaccumulation while maintaining private property over the means of production. All of their propaganda said they were for the workers. Maybe in a secret memo to Hitler though :P what textbook is it?

[Havet]

Is it just me or does the above sound like something straight out of fascist Italy or Nazi Germany?

What is the book (title, authors) and what page did you see this?

I have to be honest, i think you're just making this up. I seriously doubt this is your school textbook (unless you go to some sort of ultra-conservative christian school).

[Kingpin]

What is the book (title, authors) and what page did you see this?

I have to be honest, i think you're just making this up. I seriously doubt this is your school textbook (unless you go to some sort of ultra-conservative christian school).

Fair enough. There is no trust among people on the internet.

It's just a typical state-run school in the United States. Not religious.

The title of the book is
"Social Problems A Down-To-Earth Approach Ninth Edition"

By James M Henslin and Lori Ann Fowler.


On p.217 you will find research based on someone named Herbert Gans, titled "Why We Need the Poor: How Poverty Helps Society".

[Havet]

Fair enough. There is no trust among people on the internet.

It's just a typical state-run school in the United States. Not religious.

The title of the book is
"Social Problems A Down-To-Earth Approach Ninth Edition"

By James M Henslin and Lori Ann Fowler.


On p.217 you will find research based on someone named Herbert Gans, titled "Why We Need the Poor: How Poverty Helps Society".

If you think its about trust, then it could be properly described that I trust no one, because I prefer to see the data directly rather than to believe someone on faith.

Anyway, the book seems legit, though a scanning of the page exactly would really convince me 100%. I am really incredulous at this. Not even right-libertarians talk about the poor like this.

[Lynx]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_J._Gans

Perhaps this excerpt has been presented out of context?

[Bud Struggle]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_J._Gans

Perhaps this excerpt has been presented out of context?

I would agree. That or tongue in cheek. I couldn't see anyone seriously taking those viewpoints--they are feudal in their outlook.

[IcarusAngel]

Sociology is weird. One minute they're expressing Marxist ideas in a mystical code-language, then before you realize it, they're expressing the most reactionary and conservative positions.

Indeed. What it shows though is that sociologists often have different interpretations about the world, as any social science (including economics) must.

It's probably a field still worth studying though, providing you get a professor closer to the "Marxist" or "leftist" viewpoint of the world. Many of them are anti-capitalist, as are many philosophers.

[IcarusAngel]

I would agree. That or tongue in cheek. I couldn't see anyone seriously taking those viewpoints--they are feudal in their outlook.

sounds like standard Randianism to me. Intellectuals are capable of employing all kinds of theories.

One social science professor at Berkeley (a supposedly liberal school) is still promoting flat out racism, although I think he has retired due to old age.

Also, professors often put things like this in order to get people to criticize or agree with the text. I'd also like to see the context as maybe the professor was trying to represent Libertarian beliefs.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

I would agree. That or tongue in cheek. I couldn't see anyone seriously taking those viewpoints--they are feudal in their outlook.
I agree. If anything, it sounds like the message of the textbook is "look what insane and horrible things you must believe if you don't want to do something about poverty."

[Demogorgon]

I agree. If anything, it sounds like the message of the textbook is "look what insane and horrible things you must believe if you don't want to do something about poverty."
Yes. Also to me it looks like the author is arguing that this is the reason contemporary society maintains poverty and is attempting to shock people into seeing how unjust it is by using such stark language.

[ComradeMan]

1. The poor do society's dirty work at a low cost. It would be difficult for us to survive without this underpaid workforce. If it wasn't for poor people, who would produce our stuff and do dirty jobs at low wages?

Rubbish. Malatesta deals with this too in a way. The problem is with the concept of dirty work- something enforced by the snobbery which is in itself a by product of the class system. Jobs are jobs. Why is being a refuse/garbage collector "dirty and low class" but being a forensic surgeon "skilled and not-low class"- they are both quite "icky" jobs? They are also both essential to society.

2. The poor create jobs for police and prisons. Police and welfare agencies shield us from the poor people and their undesirable behavior.

Well, it could be argued that the poor were/are created for police and prisons? Who is shielding who from who? Complete reactionary crap.

3. The poor serve as cheap guinea pigs in medical experiments.

Heil mein fuehrer!!! Dr Mengele thought the same about the Jews...

4. The poor makes the economy more efficient. They spend their low wages on cheap stuff that would have been thrown away and work in dangerous factories at a low cost.

Where is the statistical proof of this? The poor usually spend a lot of money on designer sportsgear and are consumers too. Anyway, this is written so badly and stereotypically that it is a worthless comment.

5. The poor make others wealthy. Many slum landlords and inner city alcohol stores would be bankrupt without the poor.

Well, that's all right then. (Blood beginning to boil...:cursing:) So it's all right to be wealthy at the expense of those weaker and more vulnerable- hey, why not bring back slavery to give unemployed black people jobs? Who writes this shit?

6. The poor provide the front-line soldiers for war. These poor youth can be sacrificed during battle at a low cost. Where else would we get the grunt-level forces and people willing to test roads for bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan?

No comment- absolute reactionary crap.

7. The poor provide cheap entertainment. Their lives of despair become entertainment and media for us to watch and enjoy.

For whom? By whom?

8. The poor help motivate us. If we don't get an education and work hard, and do whatever our bosses and government tells us, we will end up like them.

A slightly more academic comment, but reactionary all the same. Typical condescending, patronising reactionay statement typical of apologists for the class system.

9. The poor help our self-concept. They make us all feel superior. We are not like them.

Who are we? Who is this "us"? The poor no more make people feel better than the rich make people feel inferior.

"One wonders if human society could exist without the poor".

Well it has done in many "primitve"- for want of a better word societies for tens of thousands of years- societies far more peaceful and stable, which, at the risk of sounding like a primitivist, makes one wonder just who is "primitive" at the end of the day.


Is it just me or does the above sound like something straight out of fascist Italy or Nazi Germany?

No it is not you, do yourself a favour and rip out the pages of that book, cut them into squares and put them on a string, then hang them in the bathroom because their only use in my opinion is as toilet paper.

Are you serious about that being in a book? Or is the author trying to provoke by using reactionary statements- in which case I might be able to understand within a given context?- if that is so then ignore the penultimate comment- trying to give the benefit of the doubt here.

[GPDP]

As a Sociology student a semester away from graduation, I must say this kind of attitude seems to be the usual structural functionalist bullcrap, only using more extreme and provoking language. Structural functionalists would indeed say things poverty is functional to society in several ways, such as the poor being essential for performing menial tasks or even making people more well-off than them feel better about themselves.

[cska]

As a Sociology student a semester away from graduation, I must say this kind of attitude seems to be the usual structural functionalist bullcrap, only using more extreme and provoking language. Structural functionalists would indeed say things poverty is functional to society in several ways, such as the poor being essential for performing menial tasks or even making people more well-off than them feel better about themselves.

It isn't bullcrap. It is the truth. That doesn't make it right. Everything that was said in this book was true. It means that the rest of us get to live of the poor people. I don't want to do that, but that isn't the point. If I was selfish, I would want there to be poor people who do the important work for miniscule wages.

[GPDP]

It isn't bullcrap. It is the truth. That doesn't make it right. Everything that was said in this book was true. It means that the rest of us get to live of the poor people. I don't want to do that, but that isn't the point. If I was selfish, I would want there to be poor people who do the important work for miniscule wages.

I didn't say it was false. Just that's it's fucked up.

[Drace]

The existence of the poor is completely contrary to the "good for society".

I would also imagine that only an racist would make such claims.

[Scary Monster]

Fuckin disgusting this book is.


The existence of the poor is completely contrary to the "good for society".

I would also imagine that only an racist would make such claims.

Exactly. Funny how the textbook talks about "the good for society", when the poor and working class that it abhors, makes up around fucking 95% of the world's population! Apparently, when the book mentions "society" they mean the 3% of the world that owns all our wealth that we (working people/lower classes) have produced and maintain for them with our blood and sweat, through constant wars and working for shit wages. This doesnt sound like something that's "good for society" at all.

That "sociology" book belongs in the trash

[Drace]

Yes, essentially it is admits capitalism prospers off poverty but tryies to pass it off as "don't care about anyone as long as your of the upper class."
Funny though because the poor now constitute the majority of the population!

What kind of book is that anyway? I doubt such a thing would be circulated.

[JazzRemington]

That book sounds like it was written from a functionalist perspective.

[ComradeMan]

I can't believe that stuff like that is printed in a school textbook in 2010! It really does sound like something from a NSP textbook c1937....

[革命者]

Isn't this just what people in the US predominantly think?

Therefore I think it is completely legit to use it in a textbook for non-revolutionary education; its just reproducing the status quo.

Isn't this what by far the most of us want?

[NecroCommie]

Honestly, I believe that the author either is not serious, or never wrote such thing in the first place. I've heard some fucked up shit, but this would be the most fuckedest up shit.

[Scary Monster]

Isn't this just what people in the US predominantly think?

Therefore I think it is completely legit to use it in a textbook for non-revolutionary education; its just reproducing the status quo.

Isn't this what by far the most of us want?

Of course its not what we want. The textbook is painting anyone who's not in the upper class as dirty and worthless (worthless in the sense that we arent good for anything but laboring and dying for the upper class).

[Durruti's Ghost]

Honestly, I believe that the author either is not serious, or never wrote such thing in the first place. I've heard some fucked up shit, but this would be the most fuckedest up shit.

I think so too. It sounds like a reductio ad absurdum satire of the structural-functionalist perspective, and was probably written by a conflict theorist to illustrate just how fucked up structural-functionalism is.

[IcarusAngel]

I don't see how it's any worse than what Ayn Rand taught, where her biggest problems with society seemed to be how humans will often speak in terms of "social cooperation" and dealing with problems collectively. Or any of the racist and fascist things Ludwig von Mises said. Theoretically, they would simply allow poor people to starve and don't care if resources are controlled by few people who earned it through capitalist "property" rights.

As pointed out it may be a reflection of the way the poor actually exists in society, and what we could do about it.

Since the guy who posted the textbook refuses to give the context (merely gave the page number when pressed) we have no idea about the context.

[革命者]

Of course its not what we want. The textbook is painting anyone who's not in the upper class as dirty and worthless (worthless in the sense that we arent good for anything but laboring and dying for the upper class).No, they say that about the poor, which is for most people anyone that lives in poorer conditions than oneself.

This is really what most people think. If this helps in preserving the status quo and you want that, it's good this is taught in such clear terms.

[gorillafuck]

The guy who wrote that also wrote "The War Against The Poor" according to his list of publications. I think this is tongue-in-cheek, this guy seems like a pretty legit sociologist according to the internet (which granted isn't that good of a way to tell, but I'm not gonna buy his books to find out)

[StalinFanboy]

Um, I agree one hundred percent with it. Inequality is good for society.


If that society is capitalist. The book was most likely talking about how capitalism functions, and the role the poor play within it.