Quote:
Originally Posted by Thremp
Could you explain how the amount of money you have corresponds to social class?
I'm interested how the ultra-rich who file bankruptcy are now members of the underclass. And its interesting you bring up correlation when you probably need to understand what it means.
More important, I think, is that you need to learn what "nothing to do with" means.
You're smarter than this. But if you want me to explain something super obvious, it is fine.
First thing you need to understand is that if two things are correlated, then there is not necessarily a causal relationship. However, if there is a causal relationship between two things, then they are correlated. If two things are correlated, there may (or may not) be a causal relationship (as there is here), and that's how I intended to use the term in my response to you.
The second thing you need to understand is that two things can have a causal relationship even if the outcome is not guaranteed 100%. For example, shooting someone in the head generally causes that person to die. Those two events (shooting in head and death) are causally linked, even though shooting someone in the head will not result in death 100% of the time.
Now, lets move to the statement in question.
So the causal relationship here is that, generally speaking, people with higher net worths associate with people who they work and go to school with, who because of their similar jobs and schooling, generally also have high net worths. When these high net worth indivuduals interact, they pursue expensive hobbies, join country clubs, etc. and do the things that one generally considers to be "high class".
The causal relationship is not near 100% percent in the sense that shooting you in the head will almost certainly cause you to die. But it's still a causal relationship.
Yes, it is true that you can have a low net worth and live a high class life (like the example you gave) and it's also true that you can have a high net worth and live a lower class life. That doesn't change the fact that the assertion that net worth has *nothing* to do with class is inaccurate.