Philanthropy and Elite Social Stratification in America
I. Introduction
When describing social stratification in America, the essential variables are economic. This rule is valid for a high percentage of Americans; but looking only at economic stratification especially misses the point when it comes to the gap between the Old Money social elite and the New Money elite. As Francine Ostrower puts it, "the social elite is an elite of status. It is characterized by solidarity within the group, social exclusivity and a distinctive cultural identity…[they are] a core within the larger elite" (1995:12). I will examine one way that this status distinction is preserved: through the upper-class system of philanthropy, the giving of money to causes both charitable and non-charitable. I will argue that philanthropy’s role is in part to distinguish the social elite from other elites, and that this system is maintained through a particular social mechanism that can be modeled using game theory.
II. The marks of the social elite: a differentiation hypothesis
The type of stratification between old money and new money is qualitatively different from the stratification that characterizes most of American society. What makes this difference possible? One factor is the small number of families and people that compose the old money elite: "Old Money society…is a round of people, places and things that is different from other people’s rounds" (Aldrich 53, italics mine). In a group small enough to have face and name recognition, one can base status judgments on personal knowledge about lineage and breeding, and not have to rely on the conspicuous status symbols that New Money sometimes employs. They could not rely on those symbols, even if t...
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...se, either pure philanthropy or pure miserliness will always be optimal. This concludes the derivation.
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When Gatsby first meets Daisy, he is infatuated with who he thinks she is, but then, through being with her, he finds out she is not what he thought. The impression of who Daisy was which motivated Gatsby for many years is shattered by his interactions with the real Daisy. Daisy is very selfish and shallow, thinking of only what she has by being with Tom. She doesn’t see that Gatsby loves her, but he loves wealth and power even more than her.
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