John Porter- the Vertical Moasic

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Many people considered Canada to be a well off country. Canada portrays and claims itself to be a country that is ethnically diverse, middle-class, egalitarian and democratic. Canada is seen as a mosaic in the sense that it is made up many ethnic group and classes. However, John Porter argued against this and agrees that Canada is a mosaic however, it is a vertical mosaic. He presented Canada as not the egalitarian country it claims to be but instead it is a flawed democracy due to the class inequality and the power of the elites. John Porter argues that Canada’s mosaic overlaps between class and ethnic inequalities. Porter draws from Leonardo Marsh’s study of class structure that there are four types of class structure the well-to-do, the middle-class, the working class and the farm class. Marsh argued that many Canadians were not from the middle class but rather from the working class or farm class. Porter did not draw ideas on Marsh but his later studies on the vertical mosaic shows similarities that resembles Marsh’s studies. Porter based his conception of the class and ethnic inequalities is based on five variables in which will be discussed in details: income and wealth, lifestyle, occupational stratification, education attainment and educational opportunity. According to Porter, he distinguished the difference between income and wealth (p.107). Income is the annual individual earnings and wealth is the total financial resources. Porter suggests that wealth is a much better indicator of class inequality. A person’s income was not enough to determine if they were rich or not. Wealth that was already in the family contributed to a person’s overall class. Income and wealth determines a person’s lifestyle. Porter reveals that to achieve that lifestyle Canadians has to have the standard of living which is healthcare, food, shelter, electricity and heat. Canada
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