Are "squeegee kids" and "street people" a threat to society or a version
of the American Dream?
Homeless people and “squeegee men” on the streets is a disturbing issue in many developing countries. However, this social phenomenon is a typical feature of life in the USA. For example, “squeegee kids” had become prevalent in the New York City since 1980 despite of measures were applied. The number of homeless people had significantly increased throughout the country when social payments were reduced in the 1980s. This paper is to explain the phenomenon of "squeegee kids" and "street people" and the reasons of its emergence. It aims to evaluate the effectiveness of government measures applied to eliminate this social phenomenon. Also, the phenomenon will be analyzed with the help of Max’s, Weber’s and Durkheim’s ideas.
Comparatively to other countries, such as Russia, India or Bangladesh, the number of homeless people in the US is small. In 2009 the figure made up 656,129 of people while in developing countries and countries with deteriorating economies this figure exceeded one million and over (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2011). However, a reporter of the US Today Bello (2011), stated that the number of homeless people, especially children, was significantly higher because HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) report included only people living on the streets and in emergency shelters. In accordance with other sources the number of homeless children made up 1.6 million that is much higher than was officially reported (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2011). This number has a tendency to increase partially due to the economy recession that took place in 2007.
Interestingly, many of homeless people or people who experience homelessness from time to time have full or part time work. Thus, if one attempts to work he or she is not insured against homelessness. The main aim of the state is to defense the interests of working individual and encourage him or her to earn money by legal means. It is natural to assume that a person will seek for any means to earn money if he or she failed to earn money for providing primary needs by legal means. Statistics on crimes in the poorest neighborhoods confirms this assertion. Some researches started to talk about the reconstruction of the free market system towards partially planned economy to remove poverty and social inequality. The US government and President regularly develop various programs aimed to support ill-fated citizens. Development of support programs for low-income people is not the issue, encouraging capitalists to stop using low-wage labor is more important. However, capitalists are prone to accept support programs and rely on the government subsidy. The state is ruled by the large corporation which used to dictate their will. Thus, the Head of the US government and the President are involved in the solution of this problem. Meanwhile officials are inclined to mute the actual problem. In order to resolve the issue there is need to at least recognize it. Reporting a little bit more than 600,000 homeless people instead of 23 million of people who permanently or periodically experience financial issues, homelessness or other severe problems cannot be called recognition of the problem. The issue of “street people” is social issue rather than political or economical. “Street people” and “squeegee kids” are the product of inequality that inherent in capitalist society. The government should take steps to restructure capitalist system rather than assigning comparatively small amounts from the budget to just report on performance (Domhoff, 2005).
Being an adherent of communist economic structure, Marx considered capitalism an unfair form of socioeconomic formation which was to be replaced by classless communist society using radical actions (revolution) (Morrison, 2006). His historical materialism included splitting of a society on classes of exploiters and exploited. On the contrary to Weber, Marx represented the process of historical development as the history of human sociality rather than human spirituality paying much attention to the struggle of classes.
According to Marx’s, “squeegee kids” and “street people” could be a threat to society if one of these days they decide to change their lives starting revolution. Marx supported the idea that communism can provide equal opportunities for everyone. Capitalist society does not provide such an opportunity because money grubbing prevail in it disturbing realization of this idea. Thus, capitalism appreciates social stratification and inequality. Marx stated that it was impossible to define whether workers are fairly paid because the extent of their exploitation is concealed by existing wage relationships. He explained that workers are deprived of capital forces, but they have to work to at least earn their daily bread therefore they are forced to sell their labor in the labor market where capitalist sets the price for labor. Meanwhile capitalists multiply their profits while the earnings of workers remain the same or decrease because competition forces capitalists seek for opportunities to reduce costs. Thus, the problem of “street people” in American society can be described by the main theoretical point of Marxian theory – hidden exploitation of working class (Giddens, 1973).
Max Weber is often cited with Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim who are considered the founders of the modern sociology. He had created one the most important theories in the history of classical sociology – a theory of rationalization.
The main idea of Weber’s theory of rationalization is that the capitalist society is prone to suffer from social inequality bureaucratization and deprivation of moral values. American society becomes more and more rational. Everything can and must be calculated and figured. Little attention in the society is paid to compassion, kindness, sincerity and other human features that make a society humane. Individual consumer preferences must not dominate collective purposes. Weber predicted a possibility of market failures inherent in capitalist economy. An existence of “street people” or healthcare issue can be examples of such market failures (Giddens, 1973).
The conclusion is that the solution is not possible without government intervention though regulation, subsidies, taxes, and government purchases. The society cannot be ruled by the head of large corporations and politicians sponsored by them. Consciousness of human beings cannot be ruled by greed and rationalism only. The government policy must be directed at raising appropriate incentives in collective consciousness to eliminate side effects of capitalism (Domhoff, 2005).
Emile Durkheim was an initiator of social realism. On the contrary to Marx, he considered revolutionary socialism was not acceptable. On his point of view deep social changes were the result of long social and moral evolution. Being convinced and uncompromising rationalist, he thought of society as autonomous reality as opposed to individual reality (Morrison, 2006).
Any individual was considered by Durkheim in a dichotomy of two entities: social and individual. Interestingly, the sides that embodied social reality prevailed over individual sides. According to Durkheim, society was more versatile reality than that of an individual. Society was the source of all supreme values and dominated over individual (Morrison, 2006).
Accordingly to Durkheim, a society with dominance of organic solidarity created conditions for the plant of individualism. He argued that in order to provide peaceful coexistence inside a society there was a need to develop shared incentives and attach authority to collective consciousness. However, he marked out that there was a threat of stratification and social phenomenon in that society. He considered social conflicts abnormal caused by failure to manage the relationships between leading social stratums (Giddens, 1973).
Durkheim raised the issue of individual and collective interest that must be balanced in order to achieve organic solidarity. Undoubtedly, the phenomenon of “street people” and “squeegee kids” is a result of distorted collective consciousness where individual interests or the interest of certain social stratum prevail over the interests of the majority of the nation. Durkheim was an apologist of the idea of developing shared incentives. Thus, business circles, the US government and the representatives of working people (labor union or other organizations) must develop a strategy aimed at achieving balance between equality and efficiency within a market system. According to Durkheim, organic solidarity between the owners of capital and those who are forced to sell their labor can be achieved through bargain avoiding social conflict (Morrison, 2006).
Many used to consider homeless people a burden to the society without thinking of true reasons of homelessness. Meanwhile no one can ever be sufficiently warned against being homelessness because American homelessness is mostly caused by tragic life occurrences such as job loss, divorce, sudden loss of family members, family disputes, mental illness, physical disabilities, natural disasters and other accidents that could happen to anyone any time (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2012).
Therefore street people do not constitute any threat to society. They are victims of unfortunate circumstances and the evidence of society malady. The role of the government is to support weak social stratums with appropriate regulation.
The officials significantly downgrade the number of homeless people stating that homelessness cannot be appropriately defined. An official statistics of homeless people revealed the figure of 656,129 as of 2009 while the number of poor households that experienced severe house cost burden made up 5.89 million. Besides, the number of unemployed persons was 14.27 million and the number of housing units in foreclosure – 2.8 million (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2011). Thus, the actual and potential number of homeless people and children is far greater than it was officially reported. Meanwhile the US government cuts social expenditures each year. Total population of the US is about 313.91 million of people; approximately 7.5% of them are under the poverty line. If this number would further increase, the number of people who are not satisfied with their living conditions increase accordingly. Poverty and social dislocation may cause social conflict that was described by Marx (Giddens, 1973).
It is difficult to call homelessness a part of American dream. It would be rather called a side effect of unfair distribution of the means of production. On the one hand stands social phenomenon of "squeegee kids" and "street people", on the other hand stands 5% of the richest people in the world who live in the US. These facts point at crisis of capitalist method of production mentioned by Karl Marx. Marx predicted the crisis of capitalist society long ago. He described the replacement of materialistic and consumerist society by superior communist society where the resources and the means of production would be fairly allocated (Morrison, 2006).
Max Weber considered that people could form their reality with the help of their consciousness. The development of spirituality and religiousness can help ironing out potential social conflict. Spirituality and religion is often used by the government to decrease the threat of social conflict instead of taking steps to reduce poverty and the number of homeless people. Spirituality and religiousness are people secondary needs; primary needs for shelter and security must be satisfied first (Weber & Henderson, 2012).
When Emile Durkheim described organic solidarity in a society, it was clear that similar ties were inherent in American society. In accordance with Hofstede (2009), American society has the highest level of individualism if compared to the world level. Thus, it is natural to assume that the US society belongs to highly-developed societies with advantages and disadvantages inherent in this type of society. According to Durkheim, a solution of the conflict in this case is possible through developing shared incentives and attachment of particular importance to collective consciousness.
Social phenomenon of homeless people was researched with the help of three different social theories developed by Marx, Weber and Durkheim. The problem that exists in American society was explained using the main concepts of historical materialism, rationalism and social realism. Marx, Weber and Durkheim had greatly contributed into the development of sociology and gave a tool which can be applied to explain most of contemporary social phenomenon. Thus, homelessness in the US is an evidence of the society ailment and officials should pay more attention to the elimination of this problem.
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