3 ms·

You shouldn't be down voted. Context matters an incredible amount in the English language. Plus, the US doesn't really have classes the way the OP is concerned

You shouldn't be down voted. Context matters an incredible amount in the English language. Plus, the US doesn't really have classes the way the OP is concerned "middle class" will be interpreted. I'd be surprised if anyone misses the point of this analysis either way.

nitrogen 10y ago
I've never heard the class distinctions defined in terms of dependency rather than income before, so I appreciated the comment.
mancerayder 10y ago
As Wittgenstein might put it, there are two language games at play here. The first one takes 'class' as defined in the (legitimate) Marxist way, used to represent the relationship to the means of production (Edit: we don't produce all that much anymore, making that definition harder to parse). The second takes it to be specifically defined as a range of income distribution. That second one is what most people typically take to mean by 'class'. While I agree there's a lot more than income at play in social policy and understanding of society and economics, it's still an absolutely fascinating set of stats to bring up. I will say I'm more disappointed by the huge ranges of the various distributions in the study (as pointed out by other commenters)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dbenhur 10y ago
  > we don't produce all that much anymore If by "we" you mean the US, this is not true. US manufacturing production was as high in 2015 as any prior year. Production took a big hit in the "great recession", it may be on the decline as percent of the total economy or as a percent of global production, but it's still a huge amount. https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/OUTMS https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/OUTMS
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Plus, the US doesn't really have classes the way the OP is concerned "middle class" will be interpreted. The US (like other mixed economies, which retain a basically capitalist system of property and overall structure, despite some public policy measures to address some of the discontents of capitalism) does, in fact, have all the classical relations to a capitalist economy: it does have people who derive support primarily through returns on capital to which others' rented labor is applied (capitalists/bourgeoisie/upper class), it does have small business owners, yeoman farmers (though those are a dying breed), and managers and other elite wage laborers with substantial outside investments who live by a mix of capital and labor (petit bourgeoisie/middle class), and it does have people who are principally dependent on wage labor for their sustenance with no significant capital holdings (proletariat/working/lower class). And, while the income-based breakdown is common in the media, it also fairly consistently conflicts with people's expectations of what "middle class" should mean in lifestyle terms, which is largely shaped by cultural associations with the "middle class" that are tied to the traditional middle class rather than any "middle income" group (and to a time when the middle income group was consistently progressing toward the middle class, making moving into the middle class a not-unreasonable aspirational goal for much of the working class.) So, you also see lots of comments every time there is an article about the income-based "middle class" about how the income cutoffs conflict with what people perceive to be necessary to be "middle class". Because those "middle class" expectations are increasingly out-of-line with any middle income group, because the progress which made "middle class" seem to be even within the reasonable aspirational grasp of the middle income group stalled decades ago.

nitrogen 10y ago

I've never heard the class distinctions defined in terms of dependency rather than income before, so I appreciated the comment.

mancerayder 10y ago

As Wittgenstein might put it, there are two language games at play here. The first one takes 'class' as defined in the (legitimate) Marxist way, used to represent the relationship to the means of production (Edit: we don't produce all that much anymore, making that definition harder to parse). The second takes it to be specifically defined as a range of income distribution. That second one is what most people typically take to mean by 'class'. While I agree there's a lot more than income at play in social policy and understanding of society and economics, it's still an absolutely fascinating set of stats to bring up. I will say I'm more disappointed by the huge ranges of the various distributions in the study (as pointed out by other commenters)

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dbenhur 10y ago
> we don't produce all that much anymore If by "we" you mean the US, this is not true. US manufacturing production was as high in 2015 as any prior year. Production took a big hit in the "great recession", it may be on the decline as percent of the total economy or as a percent of global production, but it's still a huge amount. https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/OUTMS https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/OUTMS

dragonwriter 10y ago

> Plus, the US doesn't really have classes the way the OP is concerned "middle class" will be interpreted. The US (like other mixed economies, which retain a basically capitalist system of property and overall structure, despite some public policy measures to address some of the discontents of capitalism) does, in fact, have all the classical relations to a capitalist economy: it does have people who derive support primarily through returns on capital to which others' rented labor is applied (capitalists/bourgeoisie/upper class), it does have small business owners, yeoman farmers (though those are a dying breed), and managers and other elite wage laborers with substantial outside investments who live by a mix of capital and labor (petit bourgeoisie/middle class), and it does have people who are principally dependent on wage labor for their sustenance with no significant capital holdings (proletariat/working/lower class). And, while the income-based breakdown is common in the media, it also fairly consistently conflicts with people's expectations of what "middle class" should mean in lifestyle terms, which is largely shaped by cultural associations with the "middle class" that are tied to the traditional middle class rather than any "middle income" group (and to a time when the middle income group was consistently progressing toward the middle class, making moving into the middle class a not-unreasonable aspirational goal for much of the working class.) So, you also see lots of comments every time there is an article about the income-based "middle class" about how the income cutoffs conflict with what people perceive to be necessary to be "middle class". Because those "middle class" expectations are increasingly out-of-line with any middle income group, because the progress which made "middle class" seem to be even within the reasonable aspirational grasp of the middle income group stalled decades ago.