Social Stratification in the United States: Lessons to reconcile the self and others for new policy making

Drawing on the identity literature in social sciences, this paper investigates the nature of the social stratification by identity groups in the US society as a potential cause and consequence of the global crisis. The recent experience of the US society reflects the exacerbation of class, race and gender stratification since the 1980s. In effect, the consumerist society has reinforced the historical stratification of social identities with white men in high-paid, high-social status managerial and financial occupations at the top, and black women in low-paid, low-status service occupations at the bottom. This paper calls for a deconstruction of the neo-classical individual in mainstream economic theory and policy into a representation of the individual “with multiple faces” (EvangeliiGaudium 2013). As such, each individual is understood to be a unique combination of evolving identities in a stratified society where the other can become part of the self. In effect, the particularity of the capitalist society is to have reduced the individual to its top identity which has led to the rejection of human diversity within the self, and to the exacerbation of stratification within the society. Therefore, the paper concludes on the importance of reconciling the self and others by placing individuals with diverse identities at the top of political, financial and economic institutions in order to address the needs of people at the bottom of social stratification.