Despite its position as the world's leading democracy based on principles like equality, freedom, and opportunity, the U.S. is a society that is rigidly defined along class lines based on power, wealth, and status. No longer a nation that offers all individuals from all classes of society an opportunity for upward mobility, the gulf between rich (i.e. powerful) and poor (i.e. weak) in U.S. society continues to widen. Despite the unique writings provided, the materials from James C. Scott, Franz De Waal and Malcolm Gladwell all reinforce the notion that the distribution of power, wealth, and status has an impact on the nature of "truth" that evolves in societies. From control by the wealthy of the media to enormous influence of special interest groups over legislators, the distribution of power, wealth, and status in the U.S. has a significant affect on truth that narrows it and presents it so that what is disseminated and reinforced is what reinforces the power, wealth, and status of the status quo.
The way in which truth is presented in society is a direct product of the distribution of wealth, power, and status in society. The wealthy control the media, maintain the highest positions of power in business, politics, and other social institutions; and have the most influence and control over the criminal justice system. This unequal distribution of wealth, power and status in society provides elites with the power to shape and disseminate truth - reinforced and perpetuated by social institutions - in ways that reinforce and validate their own wealth, power, and status. James C. Scott (523) argues that elites do so through "public transcripts" that often masks the higher "truth" these transcripts are crafted to disguise. We see such a transcript in the actions taken by New York City officials to end crime in the city. Officials constructed a public transcript through various surveillance and increased law enf...