Prelims

Half Title Page

Class and Inequality in the United States

Series page

EMERALD STUDIES IN CLASS AND INEQUALITY

Series Editor: Berch Berberoglu

During the course of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, there has been an enormous increase in wealth and income inequality. This series examines the nature, extent, and sources of class divisions and social inequality in the United States, Europe and other societies around the world, focusing on the unequal distribution of wealth and income over the past several decades.

Providing an analysis of the widening gap in wealth and income arising from class, racial, and gender inequalities that are the outcome of exploitative social relations, this series examines the class basis of inequality, in particular the exploitation of wage-labor by capital, which prevails in contemporary capitalist society. Focusing on the polarization of classes through the ever-widening gap in wealth and income, the series explores the class dynamics of social inequality stemming from the disparity in income and wealth, which has led to an uneven and unequal distribution that has reached unprecedented levels in recent history. In addressing these issues, the volumes in this series make an important contribution to an analysis and understanding of this urgent societal problem that we confront in the early 21st century.

Forthcoming title:

Understanding the Vehicles of Capitalist Hegemony in Latin America: Capitalism in Context by Daniel López Pérez

Editorial Advisory Board

• Larry T. Reynolds, Ph.D.

  Professor of Sociology Emeritus, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, USA

• Rhonda Levine, Ph.D.

  Professor of Sociology Emerita, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, USA

• Patrick Bond, Ph.D.

  Professor of Political Economy and Sociology, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

• Ligaya Lindio-McGovern, Ph.D.

  Professor of Sociology Emerita, Indiana University Kokomo, Kokomo, Indiana, USA

• Christopher Chase-Dunn, Ph.D.

  Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Director, Institute for Research on World-Systems, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, California, USA

• Jaroslaw Przeperski, Ph.D.

  Assistant Professor, Center for Family Research, Faculty of Philosophy and Social Science, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland

• Rose Brewer, Ph.D.

  Professor of Sociology and African American and African Studies, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

• Martin Orr, Ph.D.

  Professor of Sociology, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA

• Walda Katz-Fishman, Ph.D.

  Professor of Sociology Emerita, Howard University, Washington, D.C., USA

• Henry Veltmeyer, Ph.D.

  Research Professor of Development Studies, Universidad Autόnoma de Zacatecas, Mexico; Professor of Development Studies, Emeritus, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

• Rajendra Baikady, Ph.D., FRSA

  Assistant Professor of Social Work, Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod, Kerala, India

• Ann Strahm, Ph.D.

  Professor and Chair of Sociology, California State University, Stanislaus, Turlock, California, USA

• Adam Fabry, Ph.D.

  Lecturer in Economics, Universidad Nacional de Chilecito, Cordoba, Argentina

• Alan Jay Spector, Ph.D.

  Professor of Sociology Emeritus, Purdue University Northwest, Hammond, Indiana, USA

Title Page

Class and Inequality in the United States

BERCH BERBEROGLU

University of Nevada, Reno, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL.

First edition 2024

Copyright © 2024 Berch Berberoglu. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80043-753-1 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80043-752-4 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80043-754-8 (Epub)

Dedication

Dedicated to the Memory of

Larry T. Reynolds

Teacher, Mentor, and Friend

Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Figures

Tables

About the Author

Berch Berberoglu is Foundation Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, and the Founding Director of the Ozmen Institute for Global Studies, Emeritus, at the University of Nevada, Reno. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Oregon in 1977. He has taught and conducted research at the University of Nevada, Reno for 45 years. Dr Berberoglu has written and edited 34 books and many articles. His latest books include Globalization in the 21st Century; Beyond the Global Capitalist Crisis: The World Economy in Transition; The Global Capitalist Crisis and Its Aftermath; The Palgrave Handbook of Social Movements, Revolution, and Social Transformation; The Global Rise of Authoritarianism in the 21^st Century: Crisis of Neoliberal Globalization and the Nationalist Response; and America after Empire: The Vision for a New America in the 21^st Century.

Preface

This book is a product of more than five decades of research and analysis of class and inequality in the United States that I have been engaged in since the early 1970s. Much of my previous research and scholarship on inequality, including class, race, gender, and more broadly social, economic, and political inequalities, have stemmed from my keen interest in the study of society and social relations that I have viewed to be the starting point for understanding the origins, nature, dynamics, and contradictions of social life that I have taken up for study as a sociologist over the course of my long academic career spanning nearly half a century. In doing so, I have reached the conclusion that social classes and class relations are the fundamental bases for an understanding of social life in class societies throughout history ever since the formation of classes in the world, including the United States. Thus, this book is aimed to address the central questions related to class and inequality in the United States historically and today under conditions of historical and contemporary class relations that are the foundations of American society since its origins two and a half centuries ago.

Class and inequality are the central realities of our time. They are pervasive in all aspects of social existence in the United States and throughout the world. Focusing on the origins and development of class and inequality in the United States, this book aims to explore and expose the deep-seated conflicts and crises that are based on class relations that have shaped the nature, dynamics, and contradictions of American society over the past two and a half centuries. Moreover, class and inequality are the twin features of social relations in the United States that have resulted in wealth and income disparities that are based on first and foremost the exploitation of one class (wage-labor) by another (capital), but also contain within them racial, ethnic, gender, and other forms of oppression that reinforce the prevailing class structure of the United States that perpetuates these inequalities that are multi-dimensional both in terms of their nature and effects on millions of Americans who live and die under the weight of all forms of inequities that I argue are based on the interests of the dominant class that rules over American society from which it immensely benefits in promoting its interests against that of other classes over which it exercises its hegemony. It is for these reasons and for explaining in detail the persisting realities of class and inequality in the United States that I undertook this project.

This book, focusing on class and inequality in the United States, examines the complex evolution of class relations from the days of slavery to the modern-day exploitation of wage-labor by capital that has resulted in immense inequities along race, gender, and class lines, translating into social, economic, and political divisions among the people of the United States that have led to a widening gap in the distribution of wealth and income and to class polarization and class struggles.

In a previous book that I published more than three decades ago in 1992, The Legacy of Empire: Economic Decline and Class Polarization in the United States, I argued that the development of capitalism in the United States and the evolution of the US class structure through the 20^th century has led to enormous wealth and prosperity for a small class of capitalists, while bringing immense misery and destitution to the great majority of the American people when today, as we enter the third decade of the 21^st century, the top 1% of the population own more than half the total wealth and the top 10% of the population own more than 90% of the country’s wealth, while the bottom 90% can claim merely 10% of the national wealth, with more than two-thirds of the people are in debt and live from paycheck to paycheck. And this is the way it is in the wealthiest country in the world!

Berch Berberoglu

Reno, Nevada, USA

Acknowledgments

A major macro-sociological endeavor of this nature involves the participation and input of many people who have contributed to our knowledge on this topic through previous research and publications as well as other forms of production of new knowledge to enhance our understanding of these enormously important phenomena today and for many generations yet to come in the future. In this context, I would like to thank those who have contributed to this effort, both directly and indirectly, in impacting the final product that I have produced here, which I consider to be the result of a collective effort to understand and change society for the better in some significant way. My thanks, as always, go first and foremost to my mentors Larry T. Reynolds, Blain Stevenson, James F. Petras, and Albert J. Szymanski who have instilled in me the tools of analysis that I needed to carry out my sociological studies. I am deeply indebted to them for setting me on the correct path to explore and engage in projects such as this one to sort out the realities of life in the United States and other societies around the world. Others who have contributed to this project, directly or indirectly, include colleagues with whom I have exchanged views with which they may or may not have agreed, but who have nonetheless made an important contribution in the formation of my thinking on some of the major issues of our time. Here, I would like to thank David L. Harvey, Karl Kreplin, Lyle G. Warner, Walda Katz-Fishman, Judy Aulette, Marty Orr, Alan J. Spector, Michael Parenti, Howard J. Sherman, Henry Veltmeyer, Patrick Bond, Johnson W. Makoba, and many others for their valuable input over the years. My special thanks go to Katy Mathers, my commissioning editor at Emerald Publishing, for her continued support and for allowing me additional time to complete this project over the course of the COVID-19 Pandemic when my family faced multiple health challenges that delayed the publication of this book. My wife Suzan and my sons Stephen and Michael have always been supportive of my work, which makes efforts such as this one very rewarding. I thank them all for their encouragement to complete this important project.

Berch Berberoglu

Reno, Nevada, USA