As a sociology student, I think this video was very well presented and offered a clear explanation of the basics of social stratification. Great to see.
Thanks crash course sociology team for all the hard work you do to inform people on the subject but I'm not going to lie the comment section is the most fun part of the series.
Thank you for making my life easier. Your videos assuaged my concerns about all those concepts and terms I should know about the subject. Now, I have a better understanding of them.
i would like to see crash course do a segment on Post-Modernism. In this post-truth, post-fact era that we live in many people have turned away from reason and rationalism and have instead turned to emotionalism and tribalism. As one person stated it's now emotion versus the logos. Many have shown a great distrust in science, educators, government and modernism. I would like to know a little more about that.
"It still maintains a limited caste system of nobility as a legacy of the feudal system of estates," lmao CrashCourse this is the reason I have to have all your videos at 0.75 speed and with the captions on😂 Don't get me wrong though I love the info! Keep up the education!
Rob McCune most of the trolls on here are threatened by any form of social discourse, especially when initiated by a female. I think MGTOW is more their speed 😂 which says a lot.
I hate that phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". If you've ever tried it, you'll find it's physically impossible. No matter how much force you exert, the most you'll end up doing is snapping the straps.
It would be nice if you could bring this back to Durkheim and talk about how social changes (trending toward class from cast) effects people's feelings of satisfaction and meaning.
Thank you for taking the Caste System in India as an example. But the thing is, it is nowhere near declining it is becoming more and more rigid every day. So, when you talk about caste, do not use the past tense. And the caste system doesn't only hold sway in rural India but plays an equal or even more significant role in urban India too.
I appreciate the honesty with which the closed stratification of the traditional Indian society (Indian caste system was described and I agree with the fact that it still exists today!! but the Indian caste system was a result of the degradation of the merit-based open stratification present in Ancient India Called "the Varna System " it was a merit-based system which allowed social mobility. but due to the arrogance of the INDIAN CLERGY CLASS i.e Brahmans, it was reduced to a closed stratification system.
This is, as could only be expected from such a short video, a simplification. For instance many scholars argue a clear distinction between stratification (drawn out based on systems of distinction) and classification (how income is generated in unequal ways) - a difference which isn't developed here. This may be in part due to the influence of American sociological traditions upon this course content. Bourdieu influenced the trajectory of European sociology more than that of America, and his work paid a great deal more attention to stratification as a non-economic (but connected) force based on social networks and the propagation of cultural taste, which translate through complex exchanges into economic value. Though Bourdieu's key weaknesses come in his lack of theorisation of capital. Here we can turn to the work of more recent scholars such as Beverly Skeggs who develop more complex models of class that are linked in important ways to stratification but also the economic models which underlie much of the social difference we experience today.
Since they're not really giving citations or named who worked on a lot of the research, or putting up mathematical models, or anything that lets us confirm their science, it's hard to say people disagreeing, are people disagreeing with science. I could give 50 people of a minority group an IQ test, and if those 50 happened to score low scores, I could say my research shows, X minority is scientifically less intelligent; but 50 is a bad sample size for large populations of people, and was their a control group, was the same test give to the groups I'm now claiming are of higher IQ than people who just scored low. A person needs to record their data well, and show that data, you can't just make statements, and when people question them, say that those people don't get science... in fact questioning things is about as big a part of a scientists job as proving things. Answers start with questions, and those answers are further refined by more questions. Social science is considered a soft science in many way because of the high difficulty in creating predictive models, and very often when predictive models are made in social science, the prove the opposite of what academic currently would like to be true, thus those predictive models are ignored. Your example, those productive in terms of making people chuckle, is not productive in terms of assessing the situations, largely do to over simplification.
btdtpro Most of what they talk about here is pretty widely accepted. You probably don't ask for citations when watching 10 minute divulgative videos about quantum field theory either but you trust they're talking about mainstream physics.
Why do we bash on sociology when it does actually have research-defended observations about how recurring societal structures function, when psychology is generally accepted at face value but often has limited studies and inconclusive results? How is studying the complex mind of the individual so much more important than studying how many complex minds interact with each other?
btdtpro I'm not sure where you get that people interested in the topic can't question sociological findings with valid inquiries, if they're not simply statements of disbelief and criticism.
Marc AG, check out PBS Space Time, when they talk, they put equation and charts on the screen, they talk about who discovered what's being talked about. The stuff PBS Space Time is talking about is not just "widely accepted", they're proven with highly predictive models, but nonetheless, they include the data, cause that is how you teach people science. You don't tell them what to think, you show them how we got to what we currently think. There is a LONG list of widely accepted things that turned out to be wrong.. not to say "widely accept" in any way means wrong, but to point out that it's not a replacement for data, which can people show on screen or linked to.
Because crash course is mainly watched by the white, upper middle class STEM students. Sociology is a social science, not a pure science, that exposes the lie of meritocracy that all these upper middle class geeks rely on for self esteem. I'm not saying you haven't worked hard I'm saying it's seen comparitively easier btw
To all the people saying this is liberal bias, just look out your window. There are poor people all over the place, just ask them. Oh wait I forgot, you're too scared to leave your bubble of society, and only congregate with people of a similar race, ethnic background, and income.
That's false because I do congregate with individuals of different ethnic background, race, and income. Ur a liar because the people outside my window aren't homeless or poor
Well, this *is* liberal bias. Try talking to those who are saying that it is. You might actually hear from a lot of people working to do good for others, and serving their community regardless of race, gender, class, blah, blah, blah. Oh wait...I forgot you're too busy hiding in your propaganda bubble where anyone on "the other side" is an evil bigot.
oh yeah because you congregate with people of all races, ethnic background and income, meaning i will see you chilling with a homeless dude, in a chinese restaurant with your half black half mexican friend or having business dinner with Bill Ghates.
There was really mostly one way to move in the Feudal system of Medieval Europe: whoever you were, you could join the Clergy, become a Priest, a Monk or a Nun, that is, if you were willing to not have children or property of any kind.
The term social inequality is the existence of social stratification , within a community, which refers to the unequal opportunities and benefits for different social roles within the society. These unequal distribution of social, political and economic assets within a social community and social trends include depending on a person's class, ethnicity, location, tradition,level of education, gender and age. Based on the individual's place in the social stratification, this depends on the person's access to resources, money, and source of income, and have a great influence on how they live their lives.
I see, you are attempting to be funny by mixing in role-playing game character attributes. (e.g. The six attributes used in D&D are Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma.)
"Stratification is a characteristic of society and not a matter of individual differences." Ok that I can understand and agree with, either my teachers aren't doing it right or idk
I think america has a sort of loophole based caste system. While its true that being apart of the underclass isnt close to being the same as untouchables, but being a felon isnt all that distant.
There is no middle ground in open or closed systems. A mixed system is really a closed system with a large section of the country's unable to transfer into the levels of the closed system.
Love, love, LOVE this series!!! Meritocracy is a myth! It's a social construct that stratifies the human race and perpetuates inequality. It's counterintuitive and counterproductive to our survival as a species. "The resources of the planet are the common heritage of ALL its inhabitants." -Jacque Fresco (The Venus Project)
Class is so weird here in the UK... we have this bizarre 'deference' to people of 'higher class' (often Eton/Oxbridge grads), which explains the success of certain politicians...
What really weirds me about about British notions of class is that "upper class" people can be poorer than "lower class" people, and yet still have that class relation.
That's in part a heritage of the earlier stratification into estates (i.e. clergy, nobility, commoners). In that kind of society (usually called "medieval", though it persisted, with modifications, until the early 1800s), social stratification was _not_ congruent or dependent on wealth but on rights and privileges. While the nobility _on average_ had more wealth than commoners, of course, that didn't need to be true on an individual basis. There were very wealthy commoners (like merchants) and rather poor nobles. What distinguished them, were their estate - i.e. the rights and privileges they had inherited from birth. (That's the most frequent misconception about that three estates model. It was not based on wealth, and getting rich didn't necessarily help you into becoming nobility.) The British upper class is a remnant of that era that developed in the 19th century when social stratification became more open, and the more land-based nobility was regularly outperformed by the new businessmen with industrial or commerical enterprises. It's changed quite a bit in the last 100 or so years, but that's where that distinction comes from. In America, there never was a truly hereditary upper class, and socal stratification is _a lot_ more tied to personal wealth and success than in the Old World.
Absolutely, The work of Bourdieu is good on this. Class is also about culture and social capital, as well as honours and titles (which we love in the UK for some reason).
you don't think the homeless are "untouchables"? check your privilege. and, just so ypu know, "the american dream" is a joke. work as hard as you like at a minimum wage job, you still won't be able to buy your own house.
So much talk of caste vs class and endogamy and the Indian caste system, but no mention of Ambedkar, the man who wrote about it all before anyone else. The western sociologists are quoted, but what about the others 🤔
In USSR it was possible to move to any position, without a problem Those classes are more like types, how to distinguish people, and what are they specializing for You could be just a villager from a far-far settlement, and you could become the leader of some state, or even USSR if you wanted to Plus, party membership, anyone could assign and become the political power of the country
Interestingly enough, social stratification describes core differences between the European mindset and the United States mindset. Europeans, mainly, believe that there are strong outside factors that contribute to a person's status, hence, such vast government social programs are so popular. It is due to a long-standing feudal history that had a very fixed social hierarchy and if you were poor, you were considered the unfortunate one. Furthermore, Europe has a very strong Union tradition that is very much respected in majority of European countries. Also is the place of birth of proto-modern public education and other vast majority of social programs that had/have been in different forms present for centuries in Europe. Americans on the other hand have a very distinct John Locke approach to liberalism that came with the Enlightenment. It is also supplemented with the agrarian ideal of self-sufficiency found in Jefferson and distrust of centralized powers found in Thoreau. It's a very strong tradition of abolishing social distinctions but it is very superficial on many levels if someone cares to read Tocqueville and his thoughts on the American experience. The core underlining factor of success in life is accumulating wealth and that is the basis for majority of American social hierarchy. Europe has a much more vague distinction of social class that is based on birth, education, occupation, and focuses little on accumulated wealth.
10 minutes for my 3 hour paper tomorrow. Bless up
If one 10 minute video is enough for a 3 hour paper you must be in high school.
If 3 hours is enough to write a paper, you must be in high school..
As a sociology student, I think this video was very well presented and offered a clear explanation of the basics of social stratification. Great to see.
Thanks!
Thank you for supporting our channel!
Thanks crash course sociology team for all the hard work you do to inform people on the subject but I'm not going to lie the comment section is the most fun part of the series.
I study social linguistics and struggled to understand class stratification. Now it makes sense to me! Thank you!
I will say, i am a Sociology student and your videos have helped me pass a million tests! Thank you!
I appreciate the fact that you summarised what we've learnt, very professional.
I really love this Crash Course series. Thank you people of Crash Course!
Crystal Roberts Yup tc
10 minutes worth 15% of my course, thank you
But how does the adjunct professor improve speed and defense?
+Mikhail Rezanov
+Mikhail Rezanov
Boots of mobility and Chain armour i would say.
run and hide
not enough passive traits to help warmogs is better but with less pay they cant get it lmao
Thank you for making my life easier. Your videos assuaged my concerns about all those concepts and terms I should know about the subject. Now, I have a better understanding of them.
i would like to see crash course do a segment on Post-Modernism. In this post-truth, post-fact era that we live in many people have turned away from reason and rationalism and have instead turned to emotionalism and tribalism. As one person stated it's now emotion versus the logos. Many have shown a great distrust in science, educators, government and modernism. I would like to know a little more about that.
DON'T GO TO THE COMMENT SECTION! TURN BACK!
I MADE A HUGE MISTAKE!
wait, I thought all comment sections were full of highly intellectual people who make clear and concise points
Planetbustard Nah fam, came here for lolz
thank you
The first comment I see😂 and I shall turn back around.
finally spending my time on YT wisely
The best episode of Crash Course Sociology so far!
"It still maintains a limited caste system of nobility as a legacy of the feudal system of estates," lmao CrashCourse this is the reason I have to have all your videos at 0.75 speed and with the captions on😂 Don't get me wrong though I love the info! Keep up the education!
Social Stratification: That thing the trolls feel is threatened by these videos but are unable to articulate how or why.
Rob McCune most of the trolls on here are threatened by any form of social discourse, especially when initiated by a female. I think MGTOW is more their speed 😂 which says a lot.
Rob McCune, i love you more than you could ever know right now,
You ever tried shutting up. I wanted to say to some random
I hate that phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". If you've ever tried it, you'll find it's physically impossible. No matter how much force you exert, the most you'll end up doing is snapping the straps.
It would be nice if you could bring this back to Durkheim and talk about how social changes (trending toward class from cast) effects people's feelings of satisfaction and meaning.
I just love your videos... they are too clear and just so amazing
just read chapter 8 from macionis & plummer's introduction to sociology and THIS SUMS IT UP PERFECTLY
Thank you for taking the Caste System in India as an example. But the thing is, it is nowhere near declining it is becoming more and more rigid every day. So, when you talk about caste, do not use the past tense. And the caste system doesn't only hold sway in rural India but plays an equal or even more significant role in urban India too.
And I'm making through the semester exams because of you ❤️
For me both deserve the wealth but just the one who work deserve recognition
Great video, thanks CrashCourse! I couldn't get good grades without your videos!
The caste system is so f-ed up in almost every way, even though other class systems aren't the best at times too.
Thank, for such a good lecture on social stratification
This video is going to save my butt for my next quiz 🤩 I was struggling with class/caste so much
I like this video. It put a lot of info and explains a lot. Well presented too.
I appreciate the honesty with which the closed stratification of the traditional Indian society (Indian caste system was described and I agree with the fact that it still exists today!! but the Indian caste system was a result of the degradation of the merit-based open stratification present in Ancient India Called "the Varna System " it was a merit-based system which allowed social mobility. but due to the arrogance of the INDIAN CLERGY CLASS i.e Brahmans, it was reduced to a closed stratification system.
It's probably dumb to comment about the narrator on an educational video but I'm gonna do it anyway:
She has such gorgeous hair!
lol
Good explaination thanks😊
Speed and defense of teachers are underrated. 😂
well explained ,, makes a sociologist student's life more positive and comfortable...
👍🏿
Covering and presentation method
Of charectiristics and stratification of defferent types society in a short lecture was realy nice..
The suggested scenario immediately brought The Great Gatsby to mind...
Thank you so much for this crash course. It was very helpful.
Loving the new lighting!
finally understood this chapter. thnx a lot
These videos have saved my exam scores. Genuinely thank you so much
That blouse is so adorable! This is my favorite Crash Course series right now; I always watch it the day it comes out! Thank you for making it! (^^)
This is, as could only be expected from such a short video, a simplification. For instance many scholars argue a clear distinction between stratification (drawn out based on systems of distinction) and classification (how income is generated in unequal ways) - a difference which isn't developed here. This may be in part due to the influence of American sociological traditions upon this course content. Bourdieu influenced the trajectory of European sociology more than that of America, and his work paid a great deal more attention to stratification as a non-economic (but connected) force based on social networks and the propagation of cultural taste, which translate through complex exchanges into economic value. Though Bourdieu's key weaknesses come in his lack of theorisation of capital. Here we can turn to the work of more recent scholars such as Beverly Skeggs who develop more complex models of class that are linked in important ways to stratification but also the economic models which underlie much of the social difference we experience today.
Thank you so much for these lectures
thanks for this video very easy to remember key definitions
😀
I wish social class wasn't a 'reason' to treat someone with more or less respect.
Trolls are the lowest of the low. The proper way to deal with them is not to deal with them.
Goobers: "I love science, me."
Crash Course: "Here's important social phenomena supported by research."
Goobers: "Science is fake actually."
Since they're not really giving citations or named who worked on a lot of the research, or putting up mathematical models, or anything that lets us confirm their science, it's hard to say people disagreeing, are people disagreeing with science.
I could give 50 people of a minority group an IQ test, and if those 50 happened to score low scores, I could say my research shows, X minority is scientifically less intelligent; but 50 is a bad sample size for large populations of people, and was their a control group, was the same test give to the groups I'm now claiming are of higher IQ than people who just scored low.
A person needs to record their data well, and show that data, you can't just make statements, and when people question them, say that those people don't get science... in fact questioning things is about as big a part of a scientists job as proving things.
Answers start with questions, and those answers are further refined by more questions.
Social science is considered a soft science in many way because of the high difficulty in creating predictive models, and very often when predictive models are made in social science, the prove the opposite of what academic currently would like to be true, thus those predictive models are ignored.
Your example, those productive in terms of making people chuckle, is not productive in terms of assessing the situations, largely do to over simplification.
btdtpro Most of what they talk about here is pretty widely accepted. You probably don't ask for citations when watching 10 minute divulgative videos about quantum field theory either but you trust they're talking about mainstream physics.
Why do we bash on sociology when it does actually have research-defended observations about how recurring societal structures function, when psychology is generally accepted at face value but often has limited studies and inconclusive results? How is studying the complex mind of the individual so much more important than studying how many complex minds interact with each other?
btdtpro I'm not sure where you get that people interested in the topic can't question sociological findings with valid inquiries, if they're not simply statements of disbelief and criticism.
Marc AG, check out PBS Space Time, when they talk, they put equation and charts on the screen, they talk about who discovered what's being talked about.
The stuff PBS Space Time is talking about is not just "widely accepted", they're proven with highly predictive models, but nonetheless, they include the data, cause that is how you teach people science.
You don't tell them what to think, you show them how we got to what we currently think.
There is a LONG list of widely accepted things that turned out to be wrong.. not to say "widely accept" in any way means wrong, but to point out that it's not a replacement for data, which can people show on screen or linked to.
Tommorow is my paper of sociology , this lecture helps me alot to attempt a good paper Thankyou so much
I’ll rise above my station, organize your information till we rise to the occasion of our new nation...
Here comes the general!
Anyone have an idea of where to get her glasses? They're awesome!
Great explanation!
U presented it beautifully
Very impressive,keep doing your great work.
Why so many dislikes for a free, quality, professional, educational course????
because it isn't quality and educational
You answered your own question.
Because they feel threatened by knowledge.
Because crash course is mainly watched by the white, upper middle class STEM students. Sociology is a social science, not a pure science, that exposes the lie of meritocracy that all these upper middle class geeks rely on for self esteem. I'm not saying you haven't worked hard I'm saying it's seen comparitively easier btw
To all the people saying this is liberal bias, just look out your window. There are poor people all over the place, just ask them. Oh wait I forgot, you're too scared to leave your bubble of society, and only congregate with people of a similar race, ethnic background, and income.
That's false because I do congregate with individuals of different ethnic background, race, and income. Ur a liar because the people outside my window aren't homeless or poor
Well, this *is* liberal bias. Try talking to those who are saying that it is. You might actually hear from a lot of people working to do good for others, and serving their community regardless of race, gender, class, blah, blah, blah.
Oh wait...I forgot you're too busy hiding in your propaganda bubble where anyone on "the other side" is an evil bigot.
oh yeah because you congregate with people of all races, ethnic background and income, meaning i will see you chilling with a homeless dude, in a chinese restaurant with your half black half mexican friend or having business dinner with Bill Ghates.
Thankyou ma'am.
Class system and Caste system are the same thing once you read between the lines of the unwritten laws of society.
Now I can write my discussion board thank you so much
There was really mostly one way to move in the Feudal system of Medieval Europe: whoever you were, you could join the Clergy, become a Priest, a Monk or a Nun, that is, if you were willing to not have children or property of any kind.
nice explanation
Very very awesome speach, u clr my confusion
Safikul Islam Uhhhhh. WHAT?!
Can you please mention important authors of the theories? Like Pitirim Sorokin who was the author of the term "social mobility"🌚
i got sociology exam tomorrow n m done. 😶
Great video!
I really hope you talk about post-structuralism and its critiques on the structure of language and reality
Really good content!
The term social inequality is the existence of social stratification , within a community, which refers to the unequal opportunities and benefits for different social roles within the society. These unequal distribution of social, political and economic assets within a social community and social trends include depending on a person's class, ethnicity, location, tradition,level of education, gender and age. Based on the individual's place in the social stratification, this depends on the person's access to resources, money, and source of income, and have a great influence on how they live their lives.
Very helpful, thanks!
thank you so much
Please explain the Income, Education, Prestige, Defense, Speed pentagon diagram. What is Defense & Speed?
I see, you are attempting to be funny by mixing in role-playing game character attributes.
(e.g. The six attributes used in D&D are Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma.)
very nice glasses ma'am
Love these!
Gandalf's granddaughter
right in front of my salad!
"Stratification is a characteristic of society and not a matter of individual differences."
Ok that I can understand and agree with, either my teachers aren't doing it right or idk
Kshatriya's is misspelled on the video.
Shut up
I think america has a sort of loophole based caste system. While its true that being apart of the underclass isnt close to being the same as untouchables, but being a felon isnt all that distant.
Mam u did a tremendous job..u help me alot..tmrw is mah sessional..nd m vry stsfied by watching this video...thanks mam..
yea,missoula,mt.! do net neutrality. so we can all move up or be equal if we want in class. good theory here.
Awesome!
There is no middle ground in open or closed systems. A mixed system is really a closed system with a large section of the country's unable to transfer into the levels of the closed system.
How do i increase my speed and defense though.....
You are great.
Love, love, LOVE this series!!! Meritocracy is a myth! It's a social construct that stratifies the human race and perpetuates inequality. It's counterintuitive and counterproductive to our survival as a species. "The resources of the planet are the common heritage of ALL its inhabitants." -Jacque Fresco (The Venus Project)
Jamie Dallas
I think a meritocracy is a great idea.
God Bless You😭
I think that the next episode should come first followed by examples...
Can anyone tell me how should I reference this video for an essay? (APA format)
Class is so weird here in the UK... we have this bizarre 'deference' to people of 'higher class' (often Eton/Oxbridge grads), which explains the success of certain politicians...
What really weirds me about about British notions of class is that "upper class" people can be poorer than "lower class" people, and yet still have that class relation.
That's in part a heritage of the earlier stratification into estates (i.e. clergy, nobility, commoners). In that kind of society (usually called "medieval", though it persisted, with modifications, until the early 1800s), social stratification was _not_ congruent or dependent on wealth but on rights and privileges. While the nobility _on average_ had more wealth than commoners, of course, that didn't need to be true on an individual basis. There were very wealthy commoners (like merchants) and rather poor nobles. What distinguished them, were their estate - i.e. the rights and privileges they had inherited from birth. (That's the most frequent misconception about that three estates model. It was not based on wealth, and getting rich didn't necessarily help you into becoming nobility.)
The British upper class is a remnant of that era that developed in the 19th century when social stratification became more open, and the more land-based nobility was regularly outperformed by the new businessmen with industrial or commerical enterprises. It's changed quite a bit in the last 100 or so years, but that's where that distinction comes from. In America, there never was a truly hereditary upper class, and socal stratification is _a lot_ more tied to personal wealth and success than in the Old World.
Absolutely, The work of Bourdieu is good on this. Class is also about culture and social capital, as well as honours and titles (which we love in the UK for some reason).
yeee! Pierre Bourdieu! Where is Pierre Bourdieu in those videos?
He can explain why students can be poor but still belong the future upper class.
Tom Rivlin Things are changing slowly
I moved downwards since birth. Not hit rock bottom yet.
you don't think the homeless are "untouchables"?
check your privilege.
and, just so ypu know, "the american dream" is a joke.
work as hard as you like at a minimum wage job, you still won't be able to buy your own house.
Shirt is adorable :)
What’s an example of closed system and open system from this video? Please help!
So much talk of caste vs class and endogamy and the Indian caste system, but no mention of Ambedkar, the man who wrote about it all before anyone else.
The western sociologists are quoted, but what about the others 🤔
In USSR it was possible to move to any position, without a problem
Those classes are more like types, how to distinguish people, and what are they specializing for
You could be just a villager from a far-far settlement, and you could become the leader of some state, or even USSR if you wanted to
Plus, party membership, anyone could assign and become the political power of the country
does the estate system of social stratification in medieval europe promote to productivity in the society?
Thanks for another great video on Sociology. Ignore the dumb, racists in the comments.
Isn't calling people you don't know dumb and racists slightly hypocritical?
@@jackrabbit1704 I don't have to know someone to see that they've said something dumb or racist.
@@electrafroot344 That sounds very dumb, and racist.
Both deserved their wealth because maintaining money is work too.
this is for gcse sociology right?
0:18 no one deserves wealth
Hey no complaints about the video at all,,, just that its actually spelt kshatriya :)
Interestingly enough, social stratification describes core differences between the European mindset and the United States mindset.
Europeans, mainly, believe that there are strong outside factors that contribute to a person's status, hence, such vast government social programs are so popular. It is due to a long-standing feudal history that had a very fixed social hierarchy and if you were poor, you were considered the unfortunate one. Furthermore, Europe has a very strong Union tradition that is very much respected in majority of European countries. Also is the place of birth of proto-modern public education and other vast majority of social programs that had/have been in different forms present for centuries in Europe.
Americans on the other hand have a very distinct John Locke approach to liberalism that came with the Enlightenment. It is also supplemented with the agrarian ideal of self-sufficiency found in Jefferson and distrust of centralized powers found in Thoreau. It's a very strong tradition of abolishing social distinctions but it is very superficial on many levels if someone cares to read Tocqueville and his thoughts on the American experience.
The core underlining factor of success in life is accumulating wealth and that is the basis for majority of American social hierarchy. Europe has a much more vague distinction of social class that is based on birth, education, occupation, and focuses little on accumulated wealth.