Class and Prestige

This week in sociology class we talked about prestige, and with that, the actions and ideals of the upper, middle and lower class. Specificly we would read an arcticle called " The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All". This article explains that maybe the only lesson why poverty is so persistent is because it has positive functions for the rest of society. We would learn that the only way that one goes up the socioeconomic ladder is to take someone else down. Amazing, that poverty has made it possible for the existence and expansion of respectable professions like, crimiology, social work and public health. Only because poverty exists, these occupations have strived and evolved. Even today in our major cities of the world poverty has give jobs to law enforcement, health care services and most importantly sociology experts. The lower class seems like the class that does nothing good for society but, in reality it might be the one class that helps more then any other class.