Firstly, I would like to define the different social class as the differentiation of people in a society based on several social factors, which may vary from societies to societies, such as income level, education, ethnicity and religion. I would define inequality as the uncompromised standards within a country as well as between countries.

In my opinion, class division and inequality within a country and among countries is impossible to eradicate totally. In different times, societies will be classified differently as according to the specific time’s assumption of power. It could be financial wealth at one time or military power at another time. Also, as one wise man said, nothing is fair. If someone is rich, someone else would be richer and poorer; if someone is strong, someone else would be stronger and weaker.

I would first like to examine the division within a country.

Every single person is born into different family with different social status, nurtured and equipped with different skills and taught in different (religious) ways from one another. As such, the division among people of a country would already start from birth for some. In many countries where social status is determined by income level wealthier families would have an advantage over the less wealthy families in terms of their exposure to better education and opportunities for success, such as special skills, which often come with a cost. This would eventually widen the gap between the higher class (the rich) and the lower class(the poor) when the rich gets better paying jobs when equipped with better skills, and the poor gets low paying jobs with their mediocre skills. Of course, there are bound to be people who successfully break out of their born-into social status, moving from lower class to higher class or even vice verse, but the initial division may be crucial reasoning to why social classes can never be dissolved. Religious teachings also play an important role in determining a society’s willingness to adhere to the state’s policies for change. In extreme cases, people may hold on to their beliefs and be left out in the nation’s progress.

Between countries, there have been several different groupings: Developing-developed, rural-urban, mega-city-third world countries and the list goes on. To begin with, nothing is ever fair in the world. Some countries found it easier than others to develop because of favourable endowments found within the country itself, such as timbre, oil and quarries. Many countries in Africa could not get a good head start in developing because of the lack of fertile land for agriculture in the continent. Countries with good geographical location also has an advantage of attracting more trade, which generates revenue which could partially be used for social welfare purposes, over other countries in the early days when trade was carried out mainly by waters. In my opinion, a country’s class in the world is greatly affected by the ruling body of the nation. In many poor countries, the people are suffering form poverty due to poor governance or corruption, such as in Indonesia and Malaysia. In today’s context, there are several international bodies which provide aid to needy countries to kick start urban development to bridge the gap between the poor and rich nations. In my opinion, with reliable and capable leaders, and the help of such bodies, the development of poor countries can see improvements eventually. However, by then, the rich countries may have become richer again. But the competition goes on forever.

The link below is of an article I found online which is closely related to the topic we touch this week. It’s just for reference reading. :)

http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/workingpapers/06-02-006.pdf

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