THE UNDERCLASS SOCIOLOGY REFLECTION

As understandable as Murray’s theory is, I believe it could be argued that the reasoning to youth unemployment and increased use of welfare state is a result of poor governmental processes and continuous pressure on juveniles to create a better future for the one their predecessors have butchered.

I agree to an extent that the welfare state is overused and publicised as an opportunity for laziness and money grabbing; however, I team this with parental behaviour and a lack of hope for young beings.

Society presently is consumed with negativity. Children are raised in a world threatened with mental health issues, economic failure, climate change and more, as found in my primary research- it raises the question- what do they have left to look forward to? If the welfare state is openly available for so many, why wouldn’t they take it?

Personally, it is the government at fault for initiating and not controlling the system correctly. Perhaps, if they acknowledged the future, the future would do better for them. His theory belittles those who do need the necessary help and pinpoints them as something to be looked down upon. Not all members of subcultures are from an ‘Underclass’ background yet are stapled with this title due to projecting their frustrations to a government, which again failed the system and wouldn’t listen to them. As youths, they shouldn’t be partitioned when they have a lifetime to change their ways, and I feel this stands for everyone. The Underclass is now a label negatively connotated, almost a word to condemn.

Social class is nothing new, and it is still present today in individuals judging and segregating one another based on monetary values and worth. Designers have homed in on this and established products with logos plastered all over the garment. The point of this? To make the working class spend their money to prove a status.