My understanding of the middle class is that they were the mid-small businessmen - merchants - of Europe since the 1600s. Checking wikipedia, it agrees with me.

My understanding of the middle class is that they were the mid-small businessmen - merchants - of Europe since the 1600s. Checking wikipedia, it agrees with me. There's also the idea that the middle class is the high-school degreed people who make "decent" money, perhaps by being in the trades (i.e., plumber) or working in a factory. Edit: this idea is not unique, I've heard it in a variety of places. These two ideas don't really connect too well (although business-minded tradespeople can grow their business to be fairly lucrative). I have no particular comment regarding Marc's statements, but I wanted to point out the varying definitions.