Social Classes Summary

America is not in a downward spiral of mobility. The American dream is the idea that economic mobility is possible. The idea that someone can work their way up the economic ladder and move up in “Social Classes”. Holly Sklar writes a piece entitled “The Growing Gulf between the Rich and the Rest of Us” where she expresses her idea that the rich are only getting richer and there is no idea of the American dream. However, Bruce Barlett argues that the poor are not as poor and the rich are getting richer in his writing “The Truth About Wages”. Michael Kamber also gives a great example in his article “Toil and Temptation” giving a real life story of someone who lived the American Dream. The American dream is possible and people are living it. If people are living the American dream then they must be moving up in economic mobility.

The American
In Kambers piece he tells a story about a man named Lupe Gonzalez. “Lupe Gonzalez came across in 1987, in the trunk of a car with holes cut in the floor. The coyotes gave him a straw through which he sucked fresh air as he bounced on the roads near San Diego” (5). Lupe is immigrant who came across the Mexican border in the trunk of a car, sucking the only air he could get through a straw in the hole of the car. Kamber writes this because he wants to show how hard it was for Lupe and where exactly he came from. Lupe came over when he was 18 and started as a messenger and then soon started working as a hair dresser. Lupe then went on to buy his own place and expanded with two more. “As an openly gay man, a successful business person, a legal resident of the U.S., and a fluent English speaker…” (6). Obviously Lupe is doing well for himself and this is a great example of some one who came from the bottom and now owns three salons in New York City. Lupe came from the bottom and threw the American economy he became a successful business