"Competing" with China is a recipie for disaster. A better strategy is to cooperate with China by allowing mutual free trade. Then, China and the US are one lar

"Competing" with China is a recipie for disaster. A better strategy is to cooperate with China by allowing mutual free trade. Then, China and the US are one large market, and their success is Americans' success. what America needs to maintain the middle class throughout the 21st century 20th century notions of the "middle class" are probably already becoming obsolete; talking about "throughout" the 21st century is really premature. Going from 2000 to 2100 is like going from 1900 to 2000, but faster. It seems likely that we're moving into more of an "information age" where you will basically have a prosperous and successful "information class" (with a huge variation in income, but even those at the bottom will be living comfortably), and a "labor class" for which there is less and less labor over time. Fortunately, these "classes" are not fundamentally based on birth (as classes were originally envisioned). Also, I think it's perfectly feasible for the size of the "labor class" to shrink at a comfortable rate (i.e., people needing jobs will not outstrip available work to the degree that lots of people have to be living in extreme poverty). But for that to happen, it will be necessary to abandon strong welfare policies in countries with large segments of society that are "stuck" in the "labor class" (America in particular comes to mind). This is just off the cuff thinking... I may want to retract some of this later on.