Social Classes in New South Wales - Term Paper Example

Social Classes In New South Wales Introduction Migration in Australia was an issue that was orchestrated in the early years of 20th century to help refill the relatively low populations. There were restrictions and permissions on certain races of people who came to be noted as enemies. However, the relatively low population forced the government to enforce policies that would allow foreigners into the nation. The foreigners came for various reasons including work, settlement, and humanitarian work among other duties. This immigration caused emergence of classes of people based on prior perceptions. This paper seeks to analyze social classes in the state of New South Wales. In view of this, it will attach a Marxian and Weberian approach based on economic class and other sociological components. Marxian and Weberian Approach to Class According to the Marxian class theory, the production position held by an individual determines the class they hold in the society. The political and ideological consciousness determines the position of the person. Therefore, he production process structure determines the construction of the class. Max distinguished two classes by use of two criteria; the ownership of production means and the ability to control the power of the labor. In fact, he divided the class into three regions; the bourgeoisie, proletariat and petite bourgeoisie. By social means, these three classes are always at conflict. The Weberian approach takes a similar look at class with a famous definition. He defines class as the ability of a given actor in the society to be able to dispose his will accordingly regardless of resistance from other members of the society. The power in society therefore rests on class, status groups as well as parties. Proliferation of economic classes is rife and just like Marx; there are class groups; the dominant entrepreneurs or the propertied groups, petty bourgeoisie, the middle class and the working class (Breen, 2004, p. 5). Social class in New South Wales New South Wales borders victoria state to the south and Queensland to the northern side. This gives it close proximity to the capital cities of Australia in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane as well as Hobart in further south Tasmania. Therefore, these are some of the areas that recorded a very high level of migrations to Australia. With due permission from the Australian government, the highest number of immigrants were the British, Chinese and Indians with over 10% of the population. There is however a high presence of other people in the state with minimal percentages being from developing nations such as Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Sudan among others. Migration to this region is based on three reasons; perceived opportunities in the region, political reasons especially based on the home countries and family reunions. It is however based on opportunities that social classes emerge. Immigrants from perceived English developed nations tend to have set rolling a high living standard and the least they can accommodate is the Weberian petty bourgeoisie. Otherwise they are accommodated in the dominant entrepreneurial group. Those who come from developing nations usually escape from political strife in their home countries and therefore, they may only be having labor power as their only asset. According to weber, such people occupy the working class positions automatically. Even those who come with a high sense of knowledge usually lack the monetary strength to put them in upper positions. They then end up positioning themselves automatically either in middle class or the working class. Most of the dominant class groups are people from the UK and the USA whereas the lower positions are usually occupied by people from the developing nations. Some of these positions are not planned to be so but come out automatically. There are reasons as to why there is a high profile class positioning in the state of New South Wales. The first is historical reasons. In the 18th century, there was the policy of ‘Keeping Australia British’. To this end, New South Wales saw a UK immigration of over 80,000 between 1788-1840. According to New South Wales migration center, a new change to migration happened with the discovery of gold in Bathurst. A large population of entrepreneurs from china, developed European nations and USA came to his place in large numbers. This started creating classes of people given that these were people with enough finances and could dominate production. This clearly put these groups in the higher classes than those who came later. Government policies also dictate the class positioning in New South Wales. Class positioning is based on two government policies; labor market positioning and restructuring and social justice development and multiculturalism. Australia does not recognize the qualifications of education from many countries especially the non-English speaking nations. Therefore, if the reason of immigration to Sydney for instance was to work, there will be a high determination base on the country of origin. This automatically puts some groups in automatic classes. Moreover, immigrants from developing nations without a capital base to develop their own businesses find themselves dependent on their human capacity as an asset to sustain themselves. This automatically creates class which is in most cases the working class as defined by Marxian analysis. There are some immigrants who get to Australia as refugees. These have no choice on the type of class but to occupy the lowest. This is because they may lack any form of value in terms of human or financial capacity. Immigrants from different countries occupy different class positions in New South Wales. As stated above, the economy of the nation is a dynamic one and it seeks for value from the international and internal immigrants. A historical perspective puts the UK and North American nationals at an advantage that those from other places of the world. Moreover, earlier settlers in the state tend to occupy high class positions than the recent immigrants. This is because people like the Chinese started arriving there in the 18th century though they were not part of international community regarded as friendly. These started working on mines and in that case developed classes. All other Chinese tend to follow the same nature of life and settlement. China is now an emerging market. The immigrants from developing nations tend to occupy lower positions based on their dependence on labor power only. This leaves immigrants from the developed nations in the high power realms than the others. This also explains why the British make the highest number of immigrants in the nation. The heritage of migration in New South Wales is a very critical issue. It puts families and groups of people into diverse categories. These categories are based on families, education, work, housing, politics and place in the society. In Australia, a small number of social minorities have become entrepreneurs and therefore moved to different classes of people. From the policy of an all British Australia, there is therefore a high level of discrimination in terms of accessibility to some facilities. For instance, children from the minority non-English speaking immigrants are not able to access some high quality education in good schools based on their inability to speak English. It therefore stands to reason that the heritage of the immigrants play a big role in lineation these in some social positions in the state. Some schools are not willing to teach English or accept non-English students as they believe the educations standards would be jeopardized. The immigrants’ sense of their own identities in some way is related to their social classes. The British are highly acceptable and usually view their heritage as that one of high pride. Most immigrants from third world nations usually escape political strife and therefore put them in the low social classes. However, the policy of multiculturalism in the nation is related to the fact that all ethnicities are acceptable and capable of developing the economy. Industrialists, politicians and bureaucrats set a pace in the 1950s on the positioning and migration. This was therefore of the meaning that all the Australians were to belong to their economic ability as opposed to judgment based on their ethnicity (Jupp, 2001, p. 59). Australia has shown a lot of discrimi8nation based on social class. Application for immigration for people from impoverished nations has been toughened to deny entry. However, this is not the case in all situations. Mike Head (1999) indicated that corporate elite from an impoverished nation can literally buy himself into Australia by investment into the country. The government stipulates that those who are able to invest more than $300,000 automatically qualify on the basis of “business skills’. The interpretation of this is that the high class is able to get accessibility to the country as opposed to the low class. Moreover, the high class is able to access many government facilities especially if they are white. This has however been lessened by the multiracialism policy. Even at airports, these high class people tend to receive preference when it comes to queuing. Some immigrant communities are better organized than other communities based on their subsequent historical settlements. Those who settled in the country in earlier centuries are able to organize their lifestyles and the positions they take in life as opposed to those that recently settled to seek for opportunities (Head, 1999, p. 1). Conclusion Social class in New South Wales, Australia is openly defined by four features according to Max and Weber. These are the propertied, the petty bourgeoisie, the middle class and the working class. The immigrants are still unable to cope with the situation that places them in different classes although there has been a grea6 improvement in the way they live and associate. Reference Breen, R. (2004). Foundations of a Neo-Weberian Class analysis. Retrieved 5 11, 2013, from http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Chapter%202%20--%20Breen%20Jan%202004.pdf Head, M. (1999, 1 26). The new "White Australia" Policy. Retrieved 5 26, 2013, from World Socialist : http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/01/imm3-j26.html Jupp, J. (2001). The Australian People: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, Its People and Their Origins. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Read More