When we review the current economic climate in the United States based on the plan of action as purposed by millionaire Warren Buffet, we are able to draw some parallels and disparities in the theories of some of the popular sociologist theories of Karl Marx, Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu. Warren Buffet has long championed the cause of the economically population in the country. In his article “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich” (2011), he pinpoints the main reason of the economic disparity within the United States as the taxation policies of the Government.
There is an increasing divide between the rich and the poor where the rich are becoming richer because of the government’s capitalist policies towards projecting United States as a wealthy first world country in the eyes of the World. As a result the poor get taxed substantially to make up for the low taxes imposed on the rich. Buffet does not subscribe to the government’s point of view that high taxes for the rich would have a domino effect on the working class by way of rise in unemployment rates.
He insists that the rich will still look for avenues to make money. Bourdieu and Weber would have agreed with him on that front. They have always insisted that economic disparity is not limited just to social class; it has as much to do with cultural divisions. Bourdieu’s theory propounds that people acquire their aesthetic values based on their cultures and the class of society that were born into. People like Buffet and the other millionaires that Buffet refers to in his article, were born into a cultural setting and background that will inherently push them to make money to maintain their lifestyle against all odds.
In this aspect Max and Bourdieu differed from the Marxian theory of social class being defined by economic standards alone. Warren Buffet’s success story also goes to illustrate Bourdieu and Weber’s theory. His is not a quintessential rags to riches success story. He was born into a distinguished family and the son of a former congressman, thereby already inculcated with a certain culture and lifestyle. He admits in his interview with Time magazine that he definitely formulated his life on high ideals and morals that he acquired from his father, but also set his goals on making money as he had to maintain and substantiate the standard and lifestyle he was used to.
(Foroohar, 2001) In support of Marx’s theory of distribution of wealth, Buffet has been fighting for higher taxes for the rich. He proposes a progressive tax plan, which reaches a higher percentage when it reaches the million-dollar income bracket and rises progressively at the 10 million brackets and so forth. He does not believe that this would in any way discourage or stop Wall Street investors from continuing with their moneymaking ventures. “ I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.
9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off.” (Buffet, 2011). Buffet sees these changes in tax policies as the most important policies that the government can undertake to lower the extreme economic inequality that exists in the United States now. Weber and Bourdieu’
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