Social Class And Social Equality example essay topic

2,835 words
The United States was established on July 4, 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. Since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the United States has gone through many changes and will continue to change for years to come. As I think of the future of this country I dream of how America may be in 2100, it will be extremely different. No one can predict exactly how the nation will change, but there are many differing opinions. The United States will change in many ways such as social equality, social class, racism, gender equality, employment, economy, poverty, culture, role of government, and the role of the United States in the world. Some of these aspects will change more than others but overall I bet you that all these things will change in some way.

Some people would say that some of these changes would be vast and radical. Some of these changes may be bad, but others will help the United States flourish as a nation. In the years proceeding to 2100 the United States will grow and develop more and more and our nation will not be the same as it is today. No one can say for sure what the United States will be like in the following years or in year 2100. Many people have looked at the past existence of the United States and have come up with their own theory of what the United States will be like in the future. Changes will be vast and large, some will be predictable others will not, this is why no one for sure can say what changes will come in the future.

By looking at events and the directions of the United States and that of its government, I have come up with what I think the future will hold for the United States. The United States will change in many ways both socially and economically. The ways that I think the government may not be true, but I have looked at the past and I agree that my predictions are the best and most accurate. There is not one certain aspect that is the most important of all the other changes. They are all equally important and most of them affect the nation as a whole as well as individuals of the nation. The one that affects individuals the most is that of social class and social equality.

Since the start of the United States social class has played possibly the greatest roles in the development of our nation. It would seem to most that the upper class has always had the "upper hand". The upper class has always been superior to the lower class. The idea where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer has often existed in society. This trend has led me to believe that the trend will continue. The rich will continue to grow and become wealthy while the poor stay the same or even become less wealthy.

There are chances for some of the poor to become wealthy, thus improving the problem of social class, but these chances are rare and minuscule. Social equality will also play a large role in individual's lifestyles. Although the Constitution states that all men are created equal, certain people do not believe this. Many people feel that they are superior to others. This causes others to feel bad, and in a way worthless, leading them to believe that they cannot make anything of themselves so they do not try to and they become even poorer. Thus adding more people to the lower class, and allowing the generalization we get from social inequality to continue.

Another vital factor in individual's lifestyles and in social equality is racism. Racism has always been an issue in the United States; from the time Americans first started the Slave Trade in the United States and will continue forever. Over time, especially in the last 100 years with the help of Civil Rights Movement, racism has decrease greatly. I believe it will continue to decrease as time goes on, although I do not believe it will never be an issue. There will always be someone who is ignorant enough to think he or she is better then someone else because of the color of someone's skin. Racism is a very serious issue and is very important.

Racism affects not only the individual to which it is aimed towards but also others around you. Racism also affects social equality in a way that further suggests if one is not the same color or ethnic background then one is not equal to another. People must do all that they can to end racism and the generalizations brought about from racism. The United States as a whole must make an attempt to change the amount of racism or the outcome could be horrific.

Gender inequality has been around since the United States was formed and even long before then, before Jamestown and the Puritans, it was present in England long ago. As time went on, gender inequality became less significant. Women started to get more rights and "privileges", like women being able to own property. Also, the 16 Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

These rights and privileges were already guaranteed to men. Throughout time it would seem as though men were superior to women. However, this is not the case. As time goes on women have become more involved in society. Women have obtained many rights and privileges, like owning property and voting, since the settlers proclaimed Jamestown. Men never had to earn these rights the way women have had to do.

This is not fair to women and it adds to the amount of men who think they are better than women. Considering all of this I think that gender equality will continue to grow and people will realize that men and women are equal. One can only hope that when society realizes this, women will not make men work for their forgiveness. All of these factors already mentioned; social equality, social class, racism, and gender equality, all play a role in a very large aspect of life, employment. Ever since Word War I the nations employment rate has never been what it used to be. After the War unemployment skyrocketed.

The great depression did its best to feed this high unemployment rate. Ever since these events along with World War II, our nation has had a spontaneously changing unemployment rate. We have not recovered from this completely, and with a large amount of American jobs going to other countries, I fear we may never recover. I believe this trend of high unemployment will continue to cut its way through society and continue to grow to higher levels. Many more people will have lost their jobs to other countries and I also fear that this will increase the amount of poverty in the United States.

There are many reasons for high unemployment; mainly jobs going to other countries but also, the people that are unemployed may not be "what the company is looking for". Why would companies use this excuse to turn down certain people for jobs? Perhaps some reasons are the same things that this essay mentioned earlier; social equality, social class, racism, and gender equality. If the problems in all of these areas continue to grow then unemployment will always continue to rise. If unemployment rises then our economy will in turn plummet due to less spending because people have less, if any, profit to spend. Economy, stocks, currency, investments, and taxes; what do all of these have in common?

More then half of the time people hate them. All of these factors play in to the state of the economy overall. For the past 60 or 70 years our economy has been in shreds, except for a few years during the Bush, Regan, Clinton, and part of Bush jr. administrations. Our nation has not fully recovered from the stock market crash, also known as Black Tuesday, or the Great Depression. Over the past years we have seen some incline in our economy, which proves it is getting better, but this incline is a slow one. People want fast recovery but every time there is a dip in the market it seems to take years to recover.

Today, some companies have still not recovered from 9/11/01, which caused the stock market to take its biggest dip possible since Pearl Harbor. It is obvious that things will in time get somewhat better, the question is how much worse will it get until it does get better. I do not think the United States economy will flourish any time soon. I feel that the War With Iraq and the War On Terrorism is hurting our economy in ways that words cannot describe.

People may not see it at the time, but we are setting our self up for disaster. The United States is already $7,184,706,918,695.29 in debt. The estimated population of the United States is 293,974,828. This means that each citizen is on average of $24,442.12 in debt. If we continue to spend money on other countries instead of fixing our own, and these numbers do not change for the better, then our nations economy will only continue to collapse.

The state of poverty in the United States is very dependent on the state of the economy. That is, if the economy is struggling, then more then likely poverty is high and many people are out of work. Poverty has always been increasing. Poverty skyrocketed during Word War I, and has been increasing every since.

Nowadays poverty is a lot bigger of an issue then it used to be. Life is a lot harder to live when one is poor in the present time than it was in the 1930's. The cost of living is extremely high and like in Word War I wages are not keeping up the cost of living. This trend will continue and poverty will continue to increase. Despite this, I feel that in the year 2100 life will not be as bad for the poor person. I believe that people will finally realize that something needs to be done, and that we need to try to help the poor.

I think in the year 2100 people will have come to their senses and started forming programs for the poor. There will be more homeless shelters, but they will not have the harsh generalization that they have today. Providing this, the poor will not be ashamed to go there, thus taking most poverty off the streets and giving people a second chance. There will also be programs to provide education, transportation, and day care to those who need it. Perhaps the most altering aspect of life is culture. Culture is always changing and switching.

What was in is now out and what was hip is now lame. Culture changes a lot even over ten years, just imagine how much it has changed since the United States was formed. In the early twentieth century culture gave birth to its sub branch, pop culture. Pop culture changes even more rapidly than culture. This trend has always been the way it was.

This trend will also always continue. There is no stopping the altering of culture. New products are always coming out, new ways of thinking are always coming out. Although all of this is true, I feel that culture will repeat itself. I believe in the year 2100 the things that were "in", as one would put it, in 1900 will be very similar to the way things are in 1900. Rap will be out for sure; the brands and type of clothes will be extremely different then what they are today.

It is not possible to say how every aspect of culture will change, but it can be said for sure that every aspect of culture will change in one way or another. Anyone who has looked at the past and present times and compared the two should be able to see the pattern and conclude that culture will inevitably change greatly, thus agreeing with this essay. As long as there has been a democracy and as long as there will be, there will always be the issue of; State government vs. Federal government, and how much role the government should have in society. The people of the United States over the past one hundred years have changed dramatically. Personally I think it has been an awful change.

We used to be people who worked hard to survive in life, which is not the case any more. Now we depend on others for everything. When something in our life goes wrong we find someone to blame. Many times we blame our government. Some Americans feel that our government doesn't do enough to support those who are less fortunate. The reality of it is that people have stopped standing on their own two feet.

They are now depending on others to support them. Due to the laziness of many Americans I feel the government will get much more involved in our society. People in American become less dependent on themselves and more dependent on the government. This is going to cause our government to spend much more money to support these lazy people who are just a waste of space. Since Word War I the United States has been considered the "police" of the world. We are one of the, if not the, world powers.

The United States has always had a strong role in the world, other countries have in the past, and still do, often come to the United States for help when in trouble. Other countries come to us not only for help in military aspects but also for economic help. If the United States economy continues to plummet like I have predicted then what reason would these other countries have to come to us for help. Other countries will not be as dependent on us and start to turn to other countries for help. This would greatly reduce the role of the United States in the world and possibly allow another country, like Russia, to become the "police nation of the world" and the main world power. Most people know that if Russia some how became the main world power then there would be a massive uprising in one way or another.

Many things would change in the world and I do not believe they would be for the good. Unfortunately, that in a different essay and another 10 pages to write about. 1 January 2100 is 34,913 days away from today, 3 May 2004. No one can for sure say what changes that the United States will go through. No one knows for sure what social equality, social class, racism, gender equality, employment, economy, poverty, culture, role of government, and the role of the United States in the world will be like. No one can even for sure predict that there will even be a year 2100.

Although no one can for sure do any of these, I have looked at the passed and I have looked at the present, I took facts from both and compared the two. Based on trends, patterns, and the directions of these areas I have come up with what I feel is the best suitable prediction for the years to come. I am unaware if there will even be a year 2100, but I strongly believe that if there is, the United States will be very similar to this essay. Work Consulted- Bureau of Public Debt United States Department of Treasury Homepage. 26 April 2004. United States Department of Treasury.

26 April 2004 web Gerald A. Danger, J. Jorge Kl or de Alva, Louis E. Wilson, Navy Wo loch. The Americans. Evanston, IL; Mcdougal Littell Inc., 1998- James W. Loewen. Lies My Teacher Told Me. New York, NY; James W. Loewen, 1995- Howard Zinn. A People's History Of The United States.

New York, NY; Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 2001.