Power, Intergroup Conflicts and Social Stratification in the United States: What has the Global Crisis Taught Us?

Drawing on early sociological analyses of how power and intergroup conflicts can affect the development of modern economies, this paper investigates how the recent Global Crisis has affected the stratification of the US society. The paper argues that 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-liberal individual into a unique combination of identities in a stratified capitalist society in order to reveal how social stratification has evolved during the Global Crisis. The paper finally concludes on the importance of heterogeneous identities in reflecting the diversity of societal and economic interests in order to address the issue of financial stability and sustainability at the corporate and societal levels.