Category Archives: Sociology

Americans don’t know about the level of wealth concentration in the United States

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Sociologists have been talking about the growing levels of inequality in the United States for some time now. But a recent survey suggests that Americans are unaware just how much wealth is concentrated at the top (and there is a lot more information on the topic at this link):

A remarkable study (Norton & Ariely, 2010) reveals that Americans have no idea that the wealth distribution (defined for them in terms of “net worth”) is as concentrated as it is. When shown three pie charts representing possible wealth distributions, 90% or more of the 5,522 respondents — whatever their gender, age, income level, or party affiliation — thought that the American wealth distribution most resembled one in which the top 20% has about 60% of the wealth. In fact, of course, the top 20% control about 85% of the wealth (refer back to Table 1 and Figure 1 in this document for a more detailed breakdown of the numbers).

Even more striking, they did not come close on the amount of wealth held by the bottom 40% of the population. It’s a number I haven’t even mentioned so far, and it’s shocking: the lowest two quintiles hold just 0.3% of the wealth in the United States. Most people in the survey guessed the figure to be between 8% and 10%, and two dozen academic economists got it wrong too, by guessing about 2% — seven times too high. Those surveyed did have it about right for what the 20% in the middle have; it’s at the top and the bottom that they don’t have any idea of what’s going on.

Americans from all walks of life were also united in their vision of what the “ideal” wealth distribution would be, which may come as an even bigger surprise than their shared misinformation on the actual wealth distribution. They said that the ideal wealth distribution would be one in which the top 20% owned between 30 and 40 percent of the privately held wealth, which is a far cry from the 85 percent that the top 20% actually own. They also said that the bottom 40% — that’s 120 million Americans — should have between 25% and 30%, not the mere 8% to 10% they thought this group had, and far above the 0.3% they actually had. In fact, there’s no country in the world that has a wealth distribution close to what Americans think is ideal when it comes to fairness. So maybe Americans are much more egalitarian than most of them realize about each other, at least in principle and before the rat race begins.

So Americans have some ideas about what the wealth distribution should look like but not much of an idea of what it actually looks like. What exactly might they do if they knew the exact figures since it doesn’t seem to line up with what they think it should be?

Read about the possible effects of this heavy concentration of wealth, including helping to bring about our recent economic crisis, here.

A sociology ph.d. becomes a New York state legislator and New York Supreme Court judge

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Since students often ask what students can do with sociology degrees, I like to write about sociology majors (like Ronald Reagan) or sociologists who go on to intriguing careers. Here is another case: a sociologist who became a New York Supreme Court judge.

Sidney H. Asch, a New York judge with a Ph.D. in sociology who wrote scholarly works about civil liberties and made notable decisions about landlord-tenant law, employment of gay people and a man’s right to get his hair cut in a women’s beauty salon, died on Sept. 1 in a nursing home in North Carolina. He was 92…

Judge Asch, who wrote eight books, was modest about his academic credentials when he began his public career as a member of the State Assembly in 1952, and he seemed almost apologetic about them when interviewed a few years later, after he had won election to a Democratic Party leadership position in the Bronx…

Notwithstanding his effort to blend in, The Times found a scholar’s rise in city politics so unusual that it put its article about his election on the front page under the headline “Democrats Pick Ph.D. Egghead as District Leader in the Bronx.”…

In his decade in the Assembly, Judge Asch, who earned his doctorate from the New School for Social Research, promoted legislation to ban corporal punishment in schools and to require that cigarette packaging carry health warnings. Neither bill passed — though the objectives would later be met — before he left in 1961 to accept appointment as a New York City municipal court judge.

Sounds like an interesting career. I wonder if Asch ever spoke openly about how sociology influenced the decisions he made as a legislator or judge.

New American homes might be smaller but are still bigger and nicer than the past

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Some commentators have taken the US Census data that says new American homes are smaller than they were at the 2007 peak as evidence that the McMansion era is over and Americans will live in smaller homes in the future. While it may be difficult to make predictions about the future (and Americans still have large homes compared to world standards), there is another way to look at the data: the new houses of 2010 are much bigger and nicer than new homes several decades ago.

According to the data, the average new, single-family home built in 2010 was 2,392 square feet. That’s down somewhat from a McMansion-inflated high of 2,521 square feet in 2007, but still up significantly from three decades ago.

In 1980, the average new home was just 1,740 square feet, according to the Census.

Our homes also have gotten a lot more comfortable. For example, in 1980, 63 percent of new homes had central air conditioning. Last year, 88 percent of them did.

In 1980, more than one-quarter of all homes built had 1.5 bathrooms or less. Last year, just 8 percent of houses had such a small number of bathrooms.

This is quite a change from 1980, suggesting that homes have changed quite a bit in the span or just one or two generations.

Questions that come to mind when considering this historical change:

1. Would those who suggest American homes will get smaller in the future suspect that homes will go back to 1980 sizes by 2040?

2. Does anyone expect that Americans will give up amenities, such as multiple bathrooms, on the way to having smaller homes?

3. If the answer to the first two questions is no, what might the new home of 2040 look like? A little bit smaller, say 2,000 square feet, but packed with features?

Should kids be playing Monopoly rather than Settlers of Catan during this economic crisis?

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This Chicago Tribune article rehashes an argument I’ve written about before: a newer set of European games, epitomized by Settlers of Catan, allow all players to build and compete in a way that is quite different from classic American games like Monopoly or Risk where one players crushes the others. However, Monopoly defenders say the classic game may just be the perfect game for our troubled economic times:

Games like Monopoly and The Game of Life and upstarts such as Settlers of Catan come with powerful lessons about personal finance, experts say. Just don’t expect the experts to agree on which lessons are best.

University of Texas at Austin professor Daniel Hamermesh said he demonstrates in his introductory economics class the concept of diminishing returns through a Monopoly property deed…

The game [Settlers of Catan] involves a bit of nation-building. Players are settlers of a new land and trade for commodities like sheep and lumber as they build roads and towns, but no one is eliminated during play.

The whole idea irks Orbanes, who believes that the lessons of the traditional games — there is one and only one winner in the jungle — are being lost.

Here is a summary of Orbanes’ perspective: in a cutthroat world, game players, particularly younger children who are learning about how the world works, should practice being cutthroat. Games like Settlers of Catan are not realistic enough for an economic world where everyone does need to fight each other.

This all sounds to me like it could be another generational argument: the younger generations are too soft as they play games where “everyone is a winner.” It could also be that Orbanes thinks that a classic piece of Americana is being lost – Americans once flocked to Monopoly during the Great Depression but aren’t turning to it during this period. Or perhaps he is motivated by business: these European games are taking away market share from American games in a sector that has had some difficulty in recent years.

Regardless, he is right to suggest that games and play can teach kids and others about cultural values. This article hints at a larger cultural argument that we could have: should kids learn about teamwork or winning?

Keeping the poor at bay in both suburbs and urban developments

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This overview of Battery Park City, a New York City development located near Ground Zero, suggests the development has kept the poor away in the same way as suburbs:

Conceived originally by David Rockefeller, then vice-chair of Chase Manhattan, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the development was essentially built to house finance executives and other white-collar workers during a period in which those sorts of people were escaping the city for a growing number of suburbs. Literally, as well as metaphorically, Battery Park City crushed the docks that were the only vestige of working-class industry in lower Manhattan, constructed atop landfill that was tacked onto Manhattan with the specific purpose of advancing New York’s financial sector.

It was as physically isolated as it was demographically. Separated from the rest of the city, connected only by pedestrian bridges—unless one was willing to face West Street, more aptly described as the West Side Highway. There were guards at the edge of Battery Park City, and its parks closed to the public at night. In a similar fashion, much of the “public” space was established where it was either difficult or intimidating for non-residents or non-financial workers to get to…

Lower Manhattan is not what is was when Battery Park City was conceived and built. These days, much of the area around it is fancy, too.

“The people across the street are just as elite as they [Battery City residents],” told me.

There are no longer any guards because “you don’t need them anymore, because just as in the suburbs people don’t have fences around their yards, you don’t need those barricades because there’s nobody poor nearby. So instead of walls, you’re using distance.”

As the nearby area gentrified, Battery Park residents no longer had to fear who might enter their development as nearby residents were similar to them.

As a broader question, is a neighborhood like this more desirable for critics of suburbs even though it is still a wealthy enclave that is separated from lower-class neighborhoods? These city dwellers may have more contact with people unlike them on a day-to-day basis but ultimately, some of the issues that are said to plague suburbia such as homogeneity can also be found in urban neighborhoods. Is residential segregation in the city equal to, better than, or worse than residential segregation in the suburbs?

How long do students keep notes from their college classes?

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While discussing some of the things that he left behind in the transition between the analog and digital world, a writer includes his notes from Sociology 101:

I collected a lot of things. A large part of my identity revolved around the acquisition and accumulation of books. I also collected CDs, DVDs, comics and other cultural ephemera. I kept movie tickets, clippings of articles, flyers, interesting things I picked up. I couldn’t bear to throw these out because I thought that there might come a time when I might need something —like, say, my readings in Sociology 101 from the year 2000.

Who knew when I would have to define the sociological imagination? Or when I would need to define the political dynamics and do a comparative analysis of the authoritarian leadership styles of Lee Kuan Yew and Saddam Hussein based on my studies of Politics and Change in the Third World in 2001? Oh and there were empty liquor bottles signed by friends from the early Noughties wishing me a happy nineteenth or twentieth birthday, and lord knows a situation might arise when I might need those too.

If I was the professor of this Soc 101 class, what should be my response on hearing this? Happiness in that a former student might have turned to these notes? Depression because the student had years to look at these and never did again? Or indifference since this student seemed to collect a lot of things, not just sociology notes?

More broadly, I would be curious to know how often college students return to their books and notes from school. Does anyone have any systematic data on the subject? I suspect the data would look like a Poisson curve: most students have never returned to these sources. But couldn’t this be a measure of the “effectiveness” or “success” of a particular class, an outcome that colleges and professors might be interested in knowing about? Typically, we get information on evaluations forms from the closing moments of class, a time when students might be able to judge the immediate effect of a class but can shed little light on the longer-lasting impact of a particular course. Imagine if we found that a more popular sociological text like Gang Leader For a Day was popular in the short-term but a text like The Truly Disadvantaged stuck with students for years. Both outcomes could be desirable – a short-term book or lecture can draw people into the subject or enhance the classroom experience while a longer-term book or lecture can influence lives down the road – but are qualitatively different pieces of information.

Perhaps this could all be explained by personality types: there are people who keep things from the past and those who do not. But I suspect that professors would like to think that they have the potential in many lectures or in the sources they put in front of students to influence any student for years.

Learning from the organizational structure of al-Qaida

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Studying organizations is hot today and here is some real-world evidence: US Special Operations forces were aided in their search for terrorists by mimicking al-Qaida’s structure.

One of the greatest ironies of the 9/11 Era: while politicians, generals and journalists lined up to denounce al-Qaida as a brutal band of fanatics, one commander thought its organizational structure was kind of brilliant. He set to work rebuilding an obscure military entity into a lethal, agile, secretive and highly networked command — essentially, the U.S.’ very own al-Qaida. It became the most potent weapon the U.S. has against another terrorist attack.

That was the work of Stanley McChrystal. McChrystal is best known as the general who lost his command in Afghanistan after his staff shit-talked the Obama administration to Rolling Stone. Inescapable as that public profile may be, it doesn’t begin to capture the impact he made on the military. McChrystal’s fingerprints are all over the Joint Special Operations Command, the elite force that eventually killed Osama bin Laden. As the war on terrorism evolves into a series of global shadow wars, JSOC and its partners — the network McChrystal painstakingly constructed — are the ones who wage it.

Very interesting. This story suggests that factors manpower, equipment, and even charismatic leadership can only go so far: an organization’s structure is vital to its outcome.

Several Weberian thoughts that I have:
1. If this course of action is now considered a success, would the rest of the Armed Forces (and even other organizations) be willing to change their organizational structures? Is this the end of bureaucracy in the Armed Forces or could there be other global situations or battlefields where a traditional bureaucratic structure works better?

2. The article places a lot of emphasis on General McChrystal and his finer and lesser moments. Is McChrystal a classic example of a “charismatic authority” and if so, can his work be routinized? In his forthcoming book, will McChrystal put himself at the center of the story? Since it sounds like JSOC has moved on without him with his ideas, was McChrystal’s ultimate role to introduce these ideas and then bow out? And if McChrystal is good at solving such problems, where could he be put to best serve?

A final thought: how would the American public respond to this idea that adopting al-Qaida’s ideas is what can make America (and its military) great? Is this American pragmatism at work?

A $32 million home with 27,000 square feet is not a McMansion

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When I started studying the use of the term McMansion years ago, I didn’t expect to run into this problem: how big does a house have to be in order to be called a McMansion? Sometimes the question is on the lower end but lately, I have run into a number of articles suggesting that really large houses are McMansions. Here is another example:

Going, going, gone will be music to Sherwin and Deborah Jarol’s ears when their palatial estate is auctioned off on October 29. The couple have been unable to find a buyer for their lavish Chicago area mcmansion dubbed “Le Grand Reve,” which has been on and off the market with numerous price chops since the summer 2010…

This home isn’t messing around — the crib measures an incredible 27,000 square feet and includes this luxurious entryway and two story rotunda that looks like it belongs in a real palace.

As I’ve argued before about similar homes, this house is far beyond McMansion status. It is simply a mansion. This isn’t about the average suburban nouveau riche looking for a status symbol or a cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood or having a garish home (though one wonders if it is possible to live in the style that the interior of the home is decorated in). This is the sort of home only available to the mega-rich.

Here is the real estate listing for the home. Any surprise that it is in Winnetka?

(Perhaps the gallery offers a way out: a picture later in the show says, “The mansion features six bedrooms, all as wonderfully opulent as this one.” Did two people write the captions? Can you have it both ways?)

“The Sociology of the Offensive Line”?

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ESPN’s Ivan Maisel tries to provide a sociological take on one of the key units on a football team:

Our topic is the Sociology of the Offensive Line. Our guest lecturer is Barrett Jones, the Alabama redshirt junior, a two-time Academic All-American and an All-SEC right guard in 2010. Jones is uniquely qualified to address this topic. In the No. 3 Crimson Tide’s 48-7 victory over Kent State to open the season, Jones started at left tackle and moved to left guard. That’s unusual but not unheard of.

However, Jones then moved to center for several series in the second half. He played all three positions on the offensive line in one game, none of them on the side of the ball he played for the last two seasons. For offensive linemen, this is the equivalent of playing all nine positions on the baseball field, something only four players have done in the history of major league baseball…

And now, as promised, the sociology: Now that Jones has played all three positions, he can explain what each position thinks of the other.

“Tackles just think their position is by far the hardest,” Jones said. “All the other positions are relatively easy. That’s the mindset they have, just because it is very challenging in the passing game, more so than the other two [positions]. The tackles sometimes think they are the most important people on the line. You kind of have to keep an eye on them, keep them humble. I think it all stems from the NFL. The tackles get paid the big bucks. I think that’s where it all comes from.

“Centers think they are definitely the smartest. If you ever question one of their calls, they get a little uptight. They take great pride in their calls. They think they know it better than anybody else.”

A quick translation into sociological-ese: Jones knows what it means to step into multiple social roles. While he was primarily trained to play one position (right guard?), he became a “portfolio lineman,” filling different roles in order to compete in the tough economy of the Alabama offensive line. One wrong step in any of these social roles might mean the end of his working career under the capitalistic Nick Saban, a “weasel coach,” a manager who cares more about money and winning than the flourishing of his proletariat offensive linemen. Along the way, Jones uncovered the status hierarchy of the offensive line: tackles think they are at the top of physical prowess while centers bristle at their low prestige (linked to the pay segregation they experience in the NFL – how many Hollywood movies have they made about centers?) and try to exalt the thinking they have to do. When asked by reporters, Jones is able to thoughtfully describe the social processes at work after extensive participant observation (perhaps even “going native”?). On the whole, being an offensive lineman requires more than just physical skill – one needs social capital in order to participate in a cohesive, effective group that can protect the real status leader of the offense: the quarterback.

The sociology of Star Trek

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Occasionally, I run across more unusual sociology courses. Here is a summer class that examines Star Trek:

In order to understand more about why the Star Trek cannon has continued to be popular and respected since its creation in the 1960s, I took a class this summer at Portland State University entitled “The Sociology of Star Trek.”  I learned about how the Trekkian visions of the future offered a lens through which to examine the culture of its time and about the vision of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenbarry, who highlighted enlightenment ideals and ‘exploration without conquest.’  Additionally I learned about the obsession and culture surrounding the show.

One of our assignments was to review an event that occurs annually in Portland: Trek in the Park. At this event, a full-length original episode is performed by the Atomic Arts theater company. For one month a year, Portlanders gather to show their Trek Pride.

Big sociological themes that you could play with in such a course:

1. The social change of the 1960s and how this was reflected in popular culture.

2. American fascination with:

a. Technology and progress. Even in space, we can’t escape some basic problems.

b. Utopias or idealized communities. This could be tied to a number of utopian communities that were actually built or perhaps even the suburbs, the space where Americans seek the elusive American Dream.

3. The subcultures that form and are maintained based on objects in the popular culture.

4. Cultural narratives as displayed in television (all the versions of Star Trek) plus movies.

See a draft of the syllabus here and comments from the Internet public about what the class could include here. Apparently, you can cover all sorts of topics through the lens of Star Trek…

Are sociologists more likely than the general population to be Star Trek fans? And is the competition to Star Trek, the Star Wars franchise, too low-brow for sociologists?