social.docx
· I found this chapter to be very enticing and interesting, while putting the world we live in, our communities, cities, etc into perspective and accepting that there are wealthy people, average people, and poor people and not that everyone is equal when it comes to the topic of socio-economic status/ global stratification. According to the text, Social stratification is "a system in which groups of people are divided into layers according to their relative property, power, and prestige. It is important to emphasize that social stratification does not refer to individuals. It is a way of ranking large groups of people into a hierarchy according to their relative privileges" (Pearson 9.1). My interpretation of this and meaning is that people can be categorized into different classifications based on their socio economic status and other factors which stem off of that such as the power you withhold, and the level of stature you have. According to the text "colonialism stresses that the countries that industrialized first got a jump on the rest of the world" (Pearson 9.6). "colonial countries invade weaker nations making colonies out of them to exploit the nation’s labor and natural resources for the benefit of the colonial country"(Pearson 9.7). This benefits the "main" country, but takes advantage of the ones they are taking over. A benefit of Colonialism was that "there was a free-for-all among the industrialized european countries they rushed to divide up an entire continent" (Pearson 9.7). The weakness of this theory is that "colonialism created new states without regard for tribal or cultural considerations" (Pearson 9.8). "According to world system theory, industrialization led to four groups of nations" (Pearson 9.9). This was beneficial for some but came with consequences for others. One benefit of World system theory is that "the countries that industrialized first (Britain, France, Holland, and Germany) grew rich and powerful" (Pearson 9.9). One weakness of this theory is that "the economies of these nations stagnated because they grew dependent on trade with the core nations" (Pearson 9.10). "...these benefited the most industrialized nations at the expense of the poor nations" (Pearson 9.10). Both of these theories had benefits and drawbacks depending on the country or nation it effected.
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