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sc94597 on 11 October 2015
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Dusk said:
sc94597 said:
Dusk said:

Americans as people yes. As a culture and social system, not so much. That's what it's based on. 

Just because someone is a waiter, it doesn't make them poor. Just because someone is a Doctor, it doesn't make them rich. 

I'm talking poor. Below poverty. That of course has its merit in different parts of the country as well and with how much the classes vary can be a factor too. I'm not American, but I have traveled through much of the US and from my personal experiences, that is what I saw. It's how people were treated, how they were looked at. People that lived in poor parts of areas weren't treated well. 

China. Of course the use of first, second, third world countries isn't really used anymore. China has becomes the worlds largest economy. 

The majority of waiters are below the poverty line. The majority of doctors make more than 100k. The U.S is number one for voluntary charity. I have never experienced being treated poorly because of the income of my family. Sure impoverished areas are looked own upon, but that is more due to the associated cultures that the income level. 

 

China adopted capitalist modes of production in the 1980s. The effect was that their people stopped starving. Meanwhile in capitalist Hong Kong, the freest market in the world, the income levels of the population increased at unprecedented rates, and the quality of life was much better than mainland China. 

I'm not worried about the majority of either. Impoverished fall under the poor do they not? I'm only speaking of my experiences. It's not only the impoverished. Certain areas in Manhattan are looked down apon because of the area they live in. In Phoenix, if someone doesn't have a pool, they aren't important. The places where this seems to matter the least from my experiences are tourist areas. This might be a generalization, but it's my own experinces on it. It's not singular, but bigger picture. 

China is a socialist economy. You asked a question, I gave you an answer. I'm not saying that everybody's quality of life is the same. I'm talking about how it's perceived by the culture. People will be people. A person might view themselves as better or worse than another, but it's different when society does it. This happens all over the place, but the worst I have seen it is in the US from my experinces. Oddly enough the least I have personally seen it is in Cuba. It was really interesting.

Sure, but not all poor live in impoverished areas, and the point made was that it is due to the associated cultures (trailer trash, gang culture, etc) that make those places undesirable. Not the poverty. I am sure you have the same thing in Canada by the way. ;)

China is a socialist country in name only. The structures for the mode of production are all capitalist structures, there is a large inequality (much larger than in the U.S or free market capitalist Hong Kong) in the population, and materialism runs just as rampant as it does in the West. While there is strong government influence and ownership, one can just call that corporatism or a mixed-economy at best. China was socialist and that didn't work out. Now it is a state capitalist economy.

I have never experienced anyone feeling better or worse than another because of their income here, except the caricatures like Donald Trump (essentially not real people you meet on the street.) In most cultural analyses the U.S is noted as not having much social stratification between economic classes, but more between ethnicity and race as it had no history of feudalism, but had a strong racial history, when compared with Europe. Much of what you are seeing is cultural/ethnic conflict, not class conflict.