1984 George Orwell Income Inequality Analysis

Reading through RIP, the Middle Class: 1946-2013, it became fairly obvious that the author, Edward McClelland, was presenting a thesis idea that consisted of promoting the middle class through examples of its prime time when middle class thrived. McClelland made the point clearly as he repeatedly provided examples ranging from the glory days of the assembly line industry that had provided high paying jobs for many people, to presidents who attempted to keep business within the United States to promote home grown jobs. He was especially focused on the point that the middle class was shrinking due to a large discrepancy between the wealthy and the rest of society as capitalism achieves its goal of padding the wealthiest and keeping the middle

1984 by George Orwell makes several statements about control, security, and how governments should treat their citizens. However, a reader can also look at chapters 1-7 of the book as a statement on social classes and how the government keeps everyone in a certain social class.

These numbers undeniably show a non “equal” society but one out for the 1% and other high rollers. America isn’t protecting the people at the top nor the bottom. But again it's not fair to say the wage gap is not a problem especially with these numbers but with how taxation is heading it should be put more equally instead of pinning it on the rich.”...There is no sustainable way to make the poor richer by making the rich poorer…”-Richard A.

The article “Confronting Inequality,” written by Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University, emphasizes that the middle class suffers from social inequality and economic inequality. Krugman suggests building a stronger safety net so the gap between the poor and rich can be limited to by raising of the taxes. Krugman uses this claim to highlight the fact that the middle class needs to be stronger and the only way to achieve that is to have a strong safety net. Krugman says the rich use loopholes in the tax system to cheat their way out of high taxes, and the poor pay a relatively high tax compared to what they should be paying. Krugman states if these ideas were incorporated into society, it would link the gap between

Poverty negatively influences how the minds of people work in the world. The fact that poverty exists itself, obstructs people from changing their circumstances in what is known as “the cycle of poverty.” The lower class is incredibly disadvantaged in that it lacks the necessary social and economic resources needed to increase chances of social mobility. In return, the absence of these resources may increase poverty. Therefore, the lower class is unable to change its situation because the majority believes that any efforts to climb the social ladder is highly inefficient. In the novel 1984, George Orwell illustrates a classic example of why the proles are reluctant to change their lifestyle-simply because the costs outweighs

“The Dangerous Consequences of Growing Inequality” was written by author Chuck Collins in 2005. The main thesis of the essay was that a greater amount of inequality causes us to undermine the values of society, along with consequences that affect an indivual’s life. Collins expands on his main point by splitting up the consequences into different categories. To be more specific, he gives different examples on how the growing inequality impacts society, and more specifically, our culture, economy, social order, and democracy.

Krugman writes, “the rich weren’t just getting richer; they were becoming a financial foreigner, creating their own country within a country, their own society within a society, and their economy within an economy.” 563. CEOs or people with an abundance amount of money can give money to politicians create laws or stop enforcing the laws to benefits the rich. Politicians who the Middle-Class and Lower-Class vote for favors the one that could help them and that’s the High-Class. Economic inequality is hurt the middle-class and the lower-class who already had a rough time getting a life. When the High-Class is becoming richer the Middle-Class and Lower-class become poorer it creates social Inequality. Krugman also writes,” The fact is that vast inequality inevitability brings vast social inequality in its train.” 563. When economic tide favors the high-class it starts to tear gaps between the classes. Social inequality can make it hard for many Americans to strive or even live

America prides itself on being one of the most effective democratically governed counties. The idea of the American dream is that all people have equivalent political freedoms and a responsive government. However the effectiveness of social equality is being threatened by increasing inequality in the United States. Economic inequality in the US has expanded drastically. The wealth gap has had drastic changes over the past 35 years. What’s more, specifically, the rich have gotten a lot richer. Almost everybody who talk about it says that economic inequality must be reduced.

Classism is a major issue that plagues American society. Classism separates groups by their economic status in society. America is perceived to be a middle class society, however in reality the middle class does not hold majority of the nation’s wealth. Most of the nation’s wealth is held by 1% of the population in America which consists of 34% of the nation’s wealth, meanwhile “the richest 20% of Americans hold nearly 85% of the total household wealth in the country” (Adams et al, 2013, p. 151). American citizens that are a part of the upper class are privilege because they have access to majority of the resources. They are not shut out from opportunities like the middle and lower class. The class that an individual is in affects their chance

One of the themes of 1984 by George Orwell is how it represents living in a dictatorship. There are many troubles that come with living in a dictatorship. In the book, everyone is ruled by a dictator called Big Brother. No one knows if he is real or not, but he makes all of the rules. An example from the book about dictatorship is, “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull. (27)” This shows dictatorship because a dictator wants complete control of its people, just like Big Brother wants control of his people. This says that Big Brother and the party have almost full control over their people, but they still have their brains that are there own. In a dictatorship, no one has freedom except for the dictator himself. This is also true in 1984 because one of the main slogans of

Schwartz supports his claim about the correlation between poverty and economic inequality by stating, “All of which has led to today, an era of national and international inequality unparalleled since the days of the Roaring ’20s” (Schwartz). The author, in the previous sentence, is comparing the degree of economic inequality that is seen today to the equally as corrupt and unforgiving period called the Roaring Twenties. The Roaring Twenties was known for the economic advancement of America post World War One. It is often believed to be a prosperous period of time for everyone in America, however, that is almost completely incorrect because over half of all Americans lived below the poverty line. Today’s economic inequalities are very similar in nature to that of the Roaring Twenties. For example, because of today’s workers’ salaries not being increased to compensate for the inflation rate, many of workers are struggling to provide for themselves and their families as evidence by Schwartz’s statistic included in his article, “Over 20 percent of all American children live below the poverty line” (Schwartz). The reason that over 20 percent of American children are in poverty currently is because the workers that are not being financially compensated correctly statistically have more children than the higher class, who rule the wealth in America. All in all, Schwartz’s argument that the economic inequality today in America causes a significant increase in poverty is very accurate based on the statistical evidence given in his article and the truthful analogy that he uses to describe

Then we come to the next five percent fractile; they controlled just 0.7% of the yearly average wealth from the years 1967-1970. Finally, we get to the lowly bottom ninety percent fractile; they had a meger 0.07% of the yearly average wealth from the years 1967-1970. Which made the wealth inequality ratio between the top one-hundredth percent fractile and bottom ninety percent fractile from the years 1967-1970 69,716:71. In other words, the top one-hundredth percent fractile controlled $69,716 of the yearly average wealth for every $71 of the yearly average wealth the bottom ninety percent fractile controlled for the years 1967-1970. That ratio, still very lopsided, was infinitely more equal than the wealth inequality ratio between the top one-hundredth percent fractile and the bottom ninety percent fractile before the great depression ( 356,900:100), or even worse, the wealth inequality ratio between the same two groups before the great recession (301,932:113) (Duménil, Gérard). Therefore, the evidence shows a positive correlation between inequality (wealth and income) and economic disaster (the great depression and the great

In the article “Confronting Inequality” by Paul Krugman it explains how and why large changes between wages of wealth and the problems between the social classes. America's middle class in today’s society are exceeding their limits in effort to give their children opportunities many middle class parents did not have themselves. Ways that many middle class parents are doing this is by buying homes that they can't afford; this is so their children will be able to attend a good school. Another reason why middle class parent are doing this so that their children can have more opportunities to one day slow the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor. Another reason that inequality between the classes is important Krugman believes is because

The wealthy continue to grow as they get more of everything and the lower class continue to get less. The average wealth has increased over the last 50 years, but it has not grown equally for all. “ Families near the bottom of the wealth distribution (those at the 10th percentile) went from having no wealth on average to being

The most important social class in America is shrinking at an alarming rate. The middle class, the driver of the economy is becoming few and are between. This is impart by stagnant wages and salaries for low skill jobs that need little to no education but also huge tax breaks for the tip top 1% makes the middle class pay for what is lost from them. Not only are the percentages that the middle class is taxed are high. The percentages never go up again after reaching a certain annual income. This is a fundamental flaw in the US tax code. But some people mostly upper class tax payers and political lobbyist do not think it is real.