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The American term "middle-class" means something far less specific than the original British meaning of "well to do, town dwelling, non-aristocratic business ow
by danans 8y ago
The American term "middle-class" means something far less specific than the original British meaning of "well to do, town dwelling, non-aristocratic business owner". In that definition, a "middle-class" person is never an employee (which would make someone "working-class").
The American use of the term reflects (whether or not it is borne out in reality) the achievement of a comfortable and secure lifestyle (relative to the current time period) by an employee. In a way, it's a more flexible definition than the British one. The post WWII economic boom was the first time that, en-masse, people who were not inheritors of significant educational or monetary capital or status could achieve that lifestyle.
However, the problem with the American definition is that it chooses to ignore how much that achievement actually has to do with class and other inertial societal constructs, perhaps because frank discussion of class effects is still considered taboo in American society, whereas older societies with openly acknowledged class structures can actually have that discussion.
- cat199 8y agowell put it also helps us to conveniently ignore economic sovereignty when contemplating 'success' or 'prosperity' which of course is a useful frame given the bulk of the post war american middle class was created by essentially trading economic sovereignty in the form of small farms for corporatism not sure how it could have developed otherwise given the rise of factory farms, etc, but this direction was certainly influenced by large players as well..
- hoaw 8y agoThe most concise modern class definition I have seen goes something like this: Working class: work to survive. Middle class: work to do other things. Upper middle class: work for wealth. Upper class: work optional. People rightfully like to talk about the working poor and the disappearing middle class, but I think we are actually already past that. What we are seeing now is that between education, housing and financial insecurity it is hard to be even upper middle class anymore without existing wealth.
- nostrademons 8y ago"What we are seeing now is that between education, housing and financial insecurity it is hard to be even upper middle class anymore without existing wealth." I'm not sure that's really true - or at least, it's an incomplete model. Rather, what's happening with education, health care, & housing is that you have three sectors with flat productivity growth and large barriers to entry, which implies that the number of people they can serve remains constant. The population is growing. When you can provide a service to X people but there are Y > X people who need that service, Y - X people will necessarily end up going without. The financial insecurity is because of the mad scramble to avoid being part of the Y - X who get left out in this game of musical chairs. The reason the middle class (using danan's definition of "employees with a comfortable and secure lifestyle") expanded so much after WW2 was because we had a number of technological breakthroughs that dramatically increased the productivity of these sectors. Antibiotics and vaccines meant that illnesses which previously would kill or require long medical care could be prevented by a simple shot. The green revolution increased the yields on crops by 10x. The interstate highway system and automobile opened up vast suburban areas for development, and developers (like our current president's father) became wealthy applying mass-production techniques to building housing. The number of skilled scientists in the U.S. increased dramatically during WW2 as they left turmoil in the rest of the world, which could support larger college populations. We still see those technological breakthroughs in other areas like computers & media, but they don't happen anymore in fundamental areas of life like health care & education. Some of this is probably inherent in the problem domain (with all the easy diseases cured, we now die of heart disease, cancer, suicide, overdoses, etc, most of which have proven stubbornly resistant to cures) while some is because of artificial restrictions (like housing zoning laws).
- grigjd3 8y agoIn higher ed, at least, we have an abundance of people with PhDs that could theoretically teach at a college level - which is why a single tenure-track job will have 300 applicants. Not saying that supply and demand aren't involved here, but a simple application of supply and demand like you suggest isn't an adequate description.
- village-idiot 8y agoYou’ll also find that Americans regularly connotate social class with economic class, because talking about the former makes us uncomfortable. I believe that the push to educate all young Americans was a push to expand the power of the middle social classes at the expense of the typically uneducated lower classes. Success in this endeavor is measured by the proliferation of middle class norms and tastes, not necessarily the expansion of middle class economic prosperity. This is also why so many Americans talk about being “middle class”, even if they fall well outside the middle of the economic range, because they’re talking about the middle social class(es), not the middle economic class.
- idontpost 8y ago> You’ll also find that Americans regularly connotate social class with economic class, because talking about the former makes us uncomfortable. Also because money is the only god in this country.
- village-idiot 8y agoThat’s true, but our nominal classlessness was a big point of pride and distinction from old Europe and it’s explicit class system.
- gwatstime 8y agoIn my experience, in Britain middle class means driving an Audi and eating hummus (eg a lifestyle), nothing to do with owning a business