Social Mobility in the United States

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Does social mobility in our contemporary American society really exist? Is it possible for someone from the deepest depths of poverty to become successful, and ascend into the upper echelons of society? Could the American Dream still be attained in these times where we see the stratification of contemporary American society based on their wealth and social class so vehemently pointed out and perhaps emphasized to a certain degree? Or perhaps, could Charles Sackrey, Geoffrey Schneider, and Janet Knoedler (authors of Introduction to Political Economy) be right about the American Dream being a "particularly deceitful myth?" This is a topic which has been debated over a long period of time between different scholars, analysts, and people just like us - in American society today, it could be broken into many parts: some observe the rich, the middle class, and the poor, and others lean towards the 99% versus the 1%, in regards to debates stemming from wealth distribution. The American Dream, a long-standing national ethos which definitively puts forward the idea that our freedom allows us the opportunity for great prosperity and success, as well as upward social mobility through the application of hard work, is perhaps central to this idea of whether social mobility, as scholars continue to debate that it is less attainable in this day and age compared to previous generations, and that it is much less prevalent in the U.S. than in other western countries. As for social mobility, it's also argued that while it exists to a greater extent in other western countries, it is no less attainable in the United States today than it was in the past. The purpose of this essay is to really get a good look at both sides of the coin in terms of this i... ... middle of paper ... ...erican Capitalism." Introduction to Political Economy. 7th ed. Cambridge, MA: Dollars and Sense, Economic Affairs Bureau, 2005. 147-76. Print. "Class in America: Mobility, Measured." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 1 Feb. 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. . Cassidy, John. "Social Mobility Hasn’t Fallen: What It Means and Doesn’t Mean." The New Yorker. Condé Nast, 23 Jan. 2014. Web. 09 Feb. 2014. . Friedman, Howard Steven. "The American Myth of Social Mobility." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 16 July 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2014. .

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