America's Four Middle Classes

[Bud Struggle]

An interesting study:

There isn’t one American middle class; there are four. Each is different from the others in its attitudes, outlook and financial circumstance—sometimes in ways that defy traditional stereotypes of the middle class, according to an analysis of a recent national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends project.

One middle class is doing quite well, thank you. And members of this group—predominantly male, disproportionately well-educated and financially secure—expect to do even better in the future. It’s the largest of the four groups, comprising slightly more than a third of the 53% of Americans who identify themselves as "middle class" in the Pew Research survey. Call them The Top of the Class.

Life is considerably tougher for The Struggling Middle, a group disproportionately composed of women and minorities. In fact, many members of the Struggling Middle have more in common with the lower class1 (http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/707/four-middle-classes#endnote-1) than they do with those in the other three groups and actually have a lower median family income than Americans who put themselves on the lowest rungs of the social ladder. About one-in-six self-identified middle class Americans fall into the Struggling Middle.

The Satisfied Middle has everything but money; their comparatively modest incomes have not muted their sunny outlooks or overall satisfaction with their lives. This group is disproportionately old and disproportionately young; middle aged adults are relatively scarce in the Satisfied Middle. They make up a quarter of the middle class.

By the conventional yardsticks of income, education, age, employment and family status, the fourth middle class group is the most middle class of all—and the most dissatisfied and downbeat of the four groups. While they enjoy some of the economic advantages of the Top of the Class, they express many of the same bleak judgments about their lives as those in the Struggling Middle. Call them The Anxious Middle; they make up slightly less than a quarter of all middle class Americans...

http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/707/four-middle-classes

[mikelepore]

the 53% of Americans who identify themselves as "middle class"

What people identify themselves as contains no information about reality. Various people have identified themselves as many things, descendents of the lost continent of Atlantis, the favorite people of a god, the master race, and all sorts of things. What a society is is not determined by what it believes about itself.

Regardless of what people may think about themselves, the concept of a middle class is a useless concept. The economic system is based on two main sources of income, profits and paychecks, and the people who receive these two sources are the society's two classes.

[Bud Struggle]

the concept of a middle class is a useless concept. The economic system is based on two main sources of income, profits and paychecks, and the people who receive these two sources are the society's two classes.

No it isn't a useless concept--that's what America is--Middle Class. And until Communism addresses that issue Fox and Glenn Beck will rule the hearts and minds of Americans.

Seriously, the Middle Class is a gross 20th Century oversight in a 19th Centruy theory, don't you think? I know--Communism says, "Proletarian this and Proletarian that"--but really who think of themselves as Proletarian in the real world besides for you guys?

For Communism to succeed in the 21th Century it would be best to address the needs of a problematic semi skilled office bound Middle Class "Assistant Manager" instread of addressing the needs of a 19th Century textile mill worker.

[mykittyhasaboner]

It's a useless study, and "middle-class" is a useless label--let alone the "four middle classes", which is just adding more uselessness.


One middle class is doing quite well, thank you. And members of this group—predominantly male, disproportionately well-educated and financially secure—expect to do even better in the future. It’s the largest of the four groups, comprising slightly more than a third of the 53% of Americans who identify themselves as "middle class" in the Pew Research survey. Call them The Top of the Class. So does this take into account any other factors besides what people "identify themselves as"? I wouldn't think so. I mean, if were going to judge economic classes by what people think of themselves then why don't I just think of myself as a filthy rich person? I'll be rich then right? No hard work necessary. :)


Life is considerably tougher for The Struggling Middle, a group disproportionately composed of women and minorities. In fact, many members of the Struggling Middle have more in common with the lower class1 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/707/four-middle-classes#endnote-1) than they do with those in the other three groups and actually have a lower median family income than Americans who put themselves on the lowest rungs of the social ladder. About one-in-six self-identified middle class Americans fall into the Struggling Middle. If they actually have a lower income than those on the "lowest rungs of the social ladder" then what's the point of them being classified as "middle class"?


The Satisfied Middle has everything but money; their comparatively modest incomes have not muted their sunny outlooks or overall satisfaction with their lives. This group is disproportionately old and disproportionately young; middle aged adults are relatively scarce in the Satisfied Middle. They make up a quarter of the middle class.
Uh, there satisfied because they don't have money? There middle class because they have sunny outlooks on life? What the hell is this crap?


By the conventional yardsticks of income, education, age, employment and family status, the fourth middle class group is the most middle class of all—and the most dissatisfied and downbeat of the four groups. While they enjoy some of the economic advantages of the Top of the Class, they express many of the same bleak judgments about their lives as those in the Struggling Middle. Call them The Anxious Middle; they make up slightly less than a quarter of all middle class Americans...So their down beat, but some of them enjoy the privileges of the "top of the class"?

This over classification of "middle classes" makes the label even more ridiculous; but I'm not surprised since the author is using the "conventional yardsticks" to determine what the class divisions are, rather than a scientific analysis of their relations to the production process.


No it isn't a useless concept--that's what America is--Middle Class.America is made up of more than one class. Now that we've got that out of the way, we must ask what classes make up the USA? Now surely it is a reductionist practice to assume that there are only two classes of individuals in the US, however we can be sure that American society, broadly speaking, is constantly being divided more and more between two camps, the laboring classes and the owning classes.


And until Communism addresses that issue Fox and Glenn Beck will rule the hearts and minds of Americans.You really are arrogant. Communists have addressed the "issue" of a "middle-class", you just don't know it. Which is highly unsurprising. A large part of Lenin's contribution to Marxism has to to do with labor aristocracy, a more accurate label for this "middle class", and how it ties into imperialism. Glenn Beck and FOX have a large degree of influence over the consciousnesses of people in the US because they have the means to broadcast their media content; not because they have some how addressed some concept of a middle class. In fact, the whole reason why were talking about the "middle class" is because the label was originally used by US media corporations to refer to individuals in the US who have attained a certain amount of wealth. By doing this they have steered the question of class away from ones relations to the means of production, to whether or not you have a suburban home and large obnoxious vehicles and other stereotypical assets of "middle class" suburban America. The idea of breaking this label down into four sections might seem prudent and logical if you want to more precisely define class structures in the US, but its doing so on a flawed premise.


Seriously, the Middle Class is a gross 20th Century oversight in a 19th Centruy theory, don't you think?No.

I know--Communism says, "Proletarian this and Proletarian that"--but really who think of themselves as Proletarian in the real world besides for you guys?


What people identify themselves as contains no information about reality. Various people have identified themselves as many things, descendents of the lost continent of Atlantis, the favorite people of a god, the master race, and all sorts of things. What a society is is not determined by what it believes about itself.


For Communism to succeed in the 21th Century it would be best to address the needs of a problematic semi skilled office bound Middle Class "Assistant Manager" instread of addressing the needs of a 19th Century textile mill worker.It wouldn't be best to address this phantom "middle class" or the needs of a 19th century textile worker. It would probably be successful for communists, and well, individuals who possess common sensibility to address the needs of all exploited and oppressed peoples, regardless of what sub-section they find themselves in. Most of what makes up your lovely "middle class" are just laborers who have been relatively successful in selling their labor and accumulating enough wealth to exceed their basic needs, or laborers who have become small owners themselves. Proletarians, and the petit-bourgeoisie.

[Bud Struggle]

You really are arrogant. Communists have addressed the "issue" of a "middle-class", you just don't know it. Which is highly unsurprising. A large part of Lenin's contribution to Marxism has to to do with labor aristocracy, a more accurate label for this "middle class", and how it ties into imperialism. I must agree there. Most Assistant manger/office workers in America definitely identify their major cause of their plight in life as being caused by Imperialism.


Glenn Beck and FOX have a large degree of influence over the consciousnesses of people in the US because they have the means to broadcast their media content; not because they have some how addressed some concept of a middle class. Again I agree. People so would want to watch the "Stalin Channel" if only it became available.


The idea of breaking this label down into four sections might seem prudent and logical if you want to more precisely define class structures in the US, but its doing so on a flawed premise. Of course. No one really identifies themselves as being Middle Class. Most people I know believe themselves to be Aristocrats of Labor or petit-Bourgeoise, Proletarians or (occasionally) Peasents.


It wouldn't be best to address this phantom "middle class" or the needs of a 19th century textile worker. It would probably be successful for communists, and well, individuals who possess common sensibility to address the needs of all exploited and oppressed peoples, regardless of what sub-section they find themselves in. Most of what makes up your lovely "middle class" are just laborers who have been relatively successful in selling their labor and accumulating enough wealth to exceed their basic needs, or laborers who have become small owners themselves. Proletarians, and the petit-bourgeoisie. All we need to do is convice people of it. It shouldn't take any time at all. Seems like we have a plan. :)

[Bankotsu]

The United States and the Middle-Class Crisis

The character of any society is determined less by what it is actually like than by the picture it has of itself and of what it aspires to be. From this point of view, American society of the 1920's was largely middle class.

Its values and aspirations were middle class, and power or influence within it was in the hands of middle-class people. On the whole, this was regarded as proper, except by iconoclastic writers who gained fortune and reputation simply by satirizing or criticizing middle-class customs.

To be sure, even the most vigorous defenders of bourgeois America did not pretend that all Americans were middle class: only the more important ones were. But they did see the country as organized in middle-class terms, and they looked forward to a not remote future in which everyone would be middle class, except for a small, shiftless minority of no importance.

To these defenders, and probably also to the shiftless minority, American society was regarded as a ladder of opportunity up which anyone could work his way, on rungs of increased affluence, to the supreme positions of wealth and power near the top. Wealth, power, prestige, and respect were all obtained by the same standard, based on money. This in turn was based on a pervasive emotional insecurity that sought relief in the ownership and control of material possessions. The basis for this may be seen most clearly in the origins of this bourgeois middle class.

A thousand years ago, Europe had a two-class society in which a smal1 upper class of nobles and upper clergy were supported by a great mass of peasants. The nobles defended this world, and the clergy opened the way to the next world, while the peasants provided the food and other material needs for the whole society.

All three had security in their social relationships in that they occupied positions of social status that satisfied their psychic needs for companionship, economic security, a foreseeable future, and purpose of their efforts. Members of both classes had little anxiety about loss of these things by any likely outcome of events, and all thus had emotional security.

In the course of the medieval period, chiefly in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, this simple two-class society was modified by the intrusion of a small, but distinctly different, new class between them. Because this new class was between, we call it middle class, just as we call it "bourgeois" (after bourg meaning town) from the fact that it resided in towns, a new kind of social aggregate.

The two older, established, classes were almost completely rural and intimately associated with the land, economically, socially, and spiritually. The permanence of the land and the intimate connection of the land with the most basic of human needs, especially food, amplified the emotional security associated with the older classes...


Nothing could be more sharply contrasted than these two points of view, the orthodox and the puritanical. The contrasts can be summed up thus:



Orthodox

Evil is absence of Good.
Man is basically good.
Man is free.
Man can contribute to his salvation by good works.
Self-discipline is necessary to guide or direct.
Truth is found from experience and revelation, interpreted by tradition.



Puritan

Evil is positive entity.
Man is basically evil.
Man is a slave of his nature.
Man can be saved only by God.
Discipline must be external and total.
Truth is found by rational deduction from revelation.

The puritan point of view, which had been struggling to take over Western Civilization for its first thousand years or more, almost did so in the seventeenth century. It was represented to varying degrees in the work and agitations of Luther, Calvin, Thomas Hobbes, Cornelius Jansen (Augustinus, 1640), Antoine Arnauld (1612-1694), Blaise Pascal, and others.

In general this point of view believed that the truth was to be found by rational deduction from a few basic revealed truths, in the way that Euclid's geometry and Descartes's analytical geometry were based on rational deduction from a few self-evident axioms.

The result was a largely deterministic human situation, in sharp contrast with the orthodox point of view, still represented in the Anglican and Roman churches, which saw man as largely free in a universe whose rules were to be found most readily by tradition and the general consensus.

The Puritan point of view tended to support political despotism and to seek a one-class uniform society, while the older view put much greater emphasis on traditional pluralism and saw society as a unity of diversities.

The newer idea led directly to mercantilism, which regarded political-economic life as a struggle to the death in a world where there was not sufficient wealth or space for different groups.

To them wealth was limited to a fixed amount in the world as a whole, and one man's gain was someone else's loss. That meant that the basic struggles of this world were irreconcilable and must be fought to a finish. This was part of the Puritan belief that nature was evil and that a state of nature was a jungle of violent conflicts...


In America, as elsewhere, aristocracy represents money and position grown old, and is organized in terms of families rather than of individuals.

Traditionally it was made up of those whose families had had money, position, and social prestige for so long that they never had to think about these and, above all, never had to impress any other person with the fact that they had them.

They accepted these attributes of family membership as a right and an obligation. Since they had no idea that these could be lost, they had a basic psychological security, similar to that of the religious and workers.

Thus like these other two, they were self-assured, natural, but distant. Their manners were gracious but impersonal. Their chief characteristic was the assumption that their family position had obligations.

This noblesse oblige led them to participate in school sports (even if they lacked obvious talent), to serve their university (usually a family tradition) in any helpful way (such as fund raising), to serve their church in a similar way, and to offer their services to their local community, their state, and their country as an obligation.

They often scandalized their middle-class acquaintances by their unconventionality and social informality, greeting workers, recent immigrants, or even outcasts by their given names, arriving at evening meetings in tweeds, or traveling in cheap, small cars to formal weddings.

The kind of a car a person drove was, until very recently, one of the best guides to middle-class status, since a car to the middle classes was a status symbol, while to the other classes it was a means of getting somewhere. Oversized Oldsmobiles, Cadillacs, and Lincoln Continentals are still middle-class cars, but in recent years, with the weakening of the middle-class outlook, almost anyone might be found driving a Volkswagen.

Another good evidence of class may be seen in the treatment given to servants (or those who work in one's home): the lower classes treat these as equals, the middle classes treat them as inferiors, while aristocrats treat them as equals or even superiors.

On the whole, the number of aristocratic families in the United States is very few, with a couple in each of the older states, especially New England, and in the older areas of the South such as Charleston or Natchez, Mississippi, with the chief concentrations in the small towns around Boston and in the Hudson River Valley.

Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt would be an example.

A somewhat larger group of semi-aristocrats consist of those like the Lodges, Rockefellers, or Kennedys who are not yet completely aristocratic either because they are not, in generations, far enough removed from money-making, or because of the persistence of a commercial or business tradition in the family.

But these are aristocrats in the sense that they have accepted a family obligation of service to the community. The significance of this aristocratic tradition may be seen in Massachusetts politics; there two decades ago, the governorship and both senatorial seats were held by a Bradford, a Saltonstall, and a Lodge, while in 1964 two of these positions were held by Endicott Peabody and Leverett Saltonstall.

The working class in the United States is much smaller than we might assume, since most American workers are seeking to rise socially, to help their children to rise socially, and are considerably concerned with status symbols. Such people, even if laborers, are not working class, but are rather petty bourgeoisie.

The real working class are rather relaxed, have present rather than future preference, generally worry very little about their status in the eyes of the world, enjoy their ordinary lives, including food, sex, and leisure, and have little desire to change their jobs or positions. They are generally relaxed, have a taste for broad humor, are natural, direct, and friendly, without large basic insecurities of personality. The world depression, by destroying their jobs and economic security, much reduced this group, which was always proportionately smaller in America, the land of aspiration for everyone, than in Europe.

The second most numerous group in the United States is the petty bourgeoisie, including millions of persons who regard themselves as middle class and are under all the middle-class anxieties and pressures, hut often earn less money than unionized laborers.

As a result of these things, they are often very insecure, envious, filled with hatreds, and are generally the chief recruits for any Right, Fascist, or hate campaigns against any group that is different or which refuses to conform to middle-class values.

Made up of clerks, shopkeepers, and vast numbers of office workers in business, government, finance, and education, these tend to regard their white-collar status as the chief value in life, and live in an atmosphere of envy, pettiness, insecurity, and frustration. They form the major portion of the Republican Party's supporters in the towns of America, as they did for the Nazis in Germany thirty years ago.

In general, the political alignments in the United States have been influenced even more by these class and psychological considerations than they have been by income, economic, or occupational considerations. The Republican Party has been the party of the middle classes and the Democratic Party has been the party of the rest.

In general, aristocrats have tended to move toward the Democrats, while semi-aristocrats often remain Republican (with their middle-class parents or grandparents), except where historical circumstance (chiefly in New England, the Middle West, and the South, where Civil War memories remained green) operated.

This meant that the Republican Party, whose nineteenth century superiority- had been based on the division of farmers into South and West over the slave issue, became an established majority party in the twentieth century, but became, once again, a minority party' because of the disintegration of their middle-class support following 1945.

Even in the period of middle-class dominance, the Republicans had lost control of the Federal government because of the narrowly plutocratic control of the party that split it in 1912 and alienated most of the rest of the country in 1932.

Twenty years later, in 1952, the country looked solidly middle class, but, in fact, by that date middle-class morale was almost totally destroyed, the middle classes themselves were in disintegration, and the majority of Americans were becoming less middle class in outlook.

This change is one of the most significant transformations of the twentieth century. The future of the United States, of Western Civilization, and of the world depends on what kind of outlook replaces the dissolving middle-class ideology in the next generation.

The weakening of this middle-class ideology was a chief cause of the panic of the middle classes, and especially of the petty bourgeoisie, in the Eisenhower era. The general himself was repelled by the ...

In these terms the political struggle in the United States has shifted in two ways, or even three. This struggle, in the minds of the ill informed, had always been viewed as a struggle between Republicans and Democrats at the ballot box in November. Wall Street, long ago, however, had seen that the real struggle was in the nominating conventions the preceding summer.

This realization was forced upon the petty-bourgeois supporters of Republican candidates by their antipathy for Willkie, Dewey, Eisenhower, and other Wall Street interventionists and their inability to nominate their congressional favorites, like Senators Knowland, Bricker, and Taft, at national party conventions. Just as these disgruntled voters reached this conclusion, with Taft's failure in 1952, the new wealth appeared in the political picture, sharing the petty bourgeoisie's suspicions of the East, big cities, Ivy League universities, foreigners, intellectuals, workers, and aristocrats....

http://real-world-news.org/bk-quigley/20.html#75

[RGacky3]

Bud Struggle you are so dillusional its painful.


No it isn't a useless concept--that's what America is--Middle Class. And until Communism addresses that issue Fox and Glenn Beck will rule the hearts and minds of Americans.

Seriously, the Middle Class is a gross 20th Century oversight in a 19th Centruy theory, don't you think? I know--Communism says, "Proletarian this and Proletarian that"--but really who think of themselves as Proletarian in the real world besides for you guys?

For Communism to succeed in the 21th Century it would be best to address the needs of a problematic semi skilled office bound Middle Class "Assistant Manager" instread of addressing the needs of a 19th Century textile mill worker.

Fox and Glen Beck do not rule the heards and minds of Americans, not even close, just a radical idiotic right wing minority.

I for one rarely use the word Proletarian. I use the word worker, or wage worker, most Americans make most of their money earning a wage for their work.

The IWW, focuses just as much on white collar workers as blue collar, skilled and unskilled (in fact they were one of the first union to do this), its not only the IWW, but also many other working class organizations.

This type of analysis has many flaws, for example, whats considered middles class in Manhatten will be something quite different from East Los, or Luisiana from Dallas, they will be different, also, in modern times, anxious means, your worried about loosing your job.


Again I agree. People so would want to watch the "Stalin Channel" if only it became available.

I guarantee you if there was a real social voice it would be really popular, there are a couple problems, any thing socially conscious is against the set Status quo, so it would suffer tremendous troubles for that, also it would have very little corporate funding (and corporations have a ton of money if you hav'nt noticed), and it would og against conventional wisdom which would put it in the media as the "far left."

Lets take Michael Moore as an example, he is painted as the far radical left, just look at how he is discussed in the Media, as someone who might have some points, but over all is far far far left. WHen in reality, he is much closer to the general publics values than the so-called "status quo."

The only reason Michael Moore has been able to get out there is his uncanny ability to make lots and lots of money for studios, and believe me, its harder for anyone on the left to get a voice, than on the right, people on the right will have commercial support before anyone on the left, regardless of the money, what Michael Moore did is incredible.


A large part of Lenin's contribution to Marxism has to to do with labor aristocracy, a more accurate label for this "middle class", and how it ties into imperialism. Glenn Beck and FOX have a large degree of influence over the consciousnesses of people in the US because they have the means to broadcast their media content; not because they have some how addressed some concept of a middle class. In fact, the whole reason why were talking about the "middle class" is because the label was originally used by US media corporations to refer to individuals in the US who have attained a certain amount of wealth. By doing this they have steered the question of class away from ones relations to the means of production, to whether or not you have a suburban home and large obnoxious vehicles and other stereotypical assets of "middle class" suburban America. The idea of breaking this label down into four sections might seem prudent and logical if you want to more precisely define class structures in the US, but its doing so on a flawed premise.


The labor aristocracy is a rediculous concept that has been proven wrong over and over and over again, if the American public actually benefited from Imperialism more than they suffered from Capitalism, why the need for vast manufactured consent? WHy the need for labor repression? Why the need for the most advanced propeanda system in history? Why are American copanies making huge profits from American labor?

The theory has more holes in it than it has substance.

[mikelepore]

The working class in the United States is much smaller than we might assume, since most American workers are seeking to rise socially, to help their children to rise socially, and are considerably concerned with status symbols. Such people, even if laborers, are not working class, but are rather petty bourgeoisie. The real working class are rather relaxed, have present rather than future preference, generally worry very little about their status in the eyes of the world, enjoy their ordinary lives, including food, sex, and leisure, and have little desire to change their jobs or positions.

People can prove anything if they redefine the words. Want me to prove that pigs have wings? Just define the word "pig" to mean a cat, define "have" to mean chasing, and define "wings" to mean a mouse, so if a cat chases a mouse, then pigs have wings.

[Bud Struggle]

People can prove anything if they redefine the words. Want me to prove that pigs have wings? Just define the word "pig" to mean a cat, define "have" to mean chasing, and define "wings" to mean a mouse, so if a cat chases a mouse, then pigs have wings.


But see--it's not as things are but as things are perceived. People believe they are "moving on up." That's all that's needed. One of the most interesting things I learned here on RevLeft is how much Caitalists play the Materialist/Post-Modernist card of the Communists--and how much better they play it.

[mikelepore]

Where did you get this explanation that people's class is determined by what they perceive it to be? I've been around along time and I've never heard that suggested before. We know about the Marxists, who say class is detemrined by whether you own a significant amount of capital assets, and then there are the average university sociologists, who use the word "class" simply to mean quantity of income, and there is even an "intellectual capital" theory that says class is partly determined by knowing how to do certain things. But just this week have I heard that your class is detemined by your perception of your class.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Workers in the US consider themselves to mostly be "middle class" just as in Austrailia there is the myth of the nonexistence of class. Mostly people believe this because this is what the school textbooks, politicians, religious figures, and entertainment media all say.

When I lived in an apartment growing up, everone who lived int he complex with me called themselves "middle class". I remember then going to a classmate's house for a school project. He always describe himself as middle class, but his house was as big as 6 of the apartments in my building and was in a gated community!

So do people call themselves middle class in the US - yes. Does it mean much? No. I say "workers" not proletariat because it gets past some of the semantic BS and people who are working class but do not consider themselves working class would still respond to the idea that they are "a worker".

For the record Bud Struggle, all office workers are workers, assistant managers can be either workers or petit-bourgeois depending on the conditions at a workplace/industry.

Yes people have accepted the definitions of terms as largely defined by the ruling class and academics and politicians and the media. Most people identify "socialism" with government nationalization because of this as most people associate "communism" with USSR style state-capitalism. Most workers in the US would describe themselves as "middle class". But language is fluid, the core, what we are talking about in terms of political relationships in society, is pretty solid. So I actually have little difficulty in bringing up "working class" issues with people who think of themselves as "middle class" because I focus on what's happening at their work-site concretely as well as how this is connected to a bigger picture of what the politicians and corporations are trying to accomplish and do to us.

And yes, Bud, unless you walk up to a co-worker and say: "imperialism is really fucking us over" - it is pretty easy to talk to co-workers about imperialism if you talk about it concretely. In a crude way the gist of the conversation could go something like: "I'm upset about the failure of the government to have a real health-care plan too... why is it that they spend billions on the military and the war, but then claim that our health is 'too expensive' or that you 'can't throw money at schools to fix them' but you can throw more money and troops at a failed occupation to 'fix it'".

What's more proof is that even though FOX and Beck as well as Bush and Obama have the whole world's ear to spread their lies while Marxists are currently confined to marginalized magazines and websites to get their info out there... yet no matter how much O'Reiley or Bush said that the war in Iraq was good and necessary and winning, people stopped believing them. The ruling class has huge powers of illusion and disinformation as well as the biggest soapboxes in the world and yet millions people still hate Wal-Mart, don't like US foreign policy, hate their bosses and job situation. In fact it is the cynical (and often racist) side of this class anger that often attracts people Beck and Dobbs in the first place.

[Bud Struggle]

Where did you get this explanation that people's class is determined by what they perceive it to be? I've been around along time and I've never heard that suggested before. We know about the Marxists, who say class is detemrined by whether you own a significant amount of capital assets, and then there are the average university sociologists, who use the word "class" simply to mean quantity of income, and there is even an "intellectual capital" theory that says class is partly determined by knowing how to do certain things. But just this week have I heard that your class is detemined by your perception of your class.

Well there are a couple of a distinctions. People's actualy class may be somewhat static--but the availability of almost universal credit gives a lot larger buying power to act as if they are wealthier than they really are--any worker can buy a BMW or a plasma TV so they can feel themselves to have more money than what they actually earn--further it seems to me in America what one's actual class is almost unknown and undiscussed--there is no class identity. People identify with what they posess or who they associate with. Further since most major corporations are owned buy tens of thousands of small time stock owners of pension funds the "prolerations" are the woners--and to an extent the beneficiaries of most major companies.

To a good extent the lines of who is what is rather blurred. Another example--I own my business but I don't get dividends--I get a salary. I may be the owner--but I'm also a worker like anyone else.

[Bud Struggle]

Workers in the US consider themselves to mostly be "middle class".

Indeed. I don't think I even know anyone that doesn't consider himself middle class. I know guys that own businesses and factories and I know guys that sweep streets and clean bathrooms and they all would consider themselves Middle Class.

I'm Middle Class. I was when I was poor and I am now. Communists say that people aren't class conscious enough, well they are--it's just to the wrong class system.

[Robert]

Where did you get this explanation that people's class is determined by what they perceive it to be?Not to butt in, but may I turn that question around and ask why it is that Bud's class constructs (which I and everyone else I know happen to share) are any less valid than Marx's or some sociology professor at Berkeley? Or yours, for that matter?

I'm going to guess that when he says that [when] People believe they are "moving on up," that's all that's needed, he means "that's all that's needed for them to avoid (or escape) what seems to us a crippling class consciousness." It doesn't mean that a janitor can magically become the CEO of Coca Cola just by thinking that he is. (I tried it ... it didn't work:lol:.)

If people don't suffer from class consciousness and all the negativity that comes with it, then they have a realistic hope of improving their standard of living, gradually over time. In the USA anyway. It's as realistic a hope as what communism offers. Maybe that isn't saying very much. I have heard some of our British friends assert that if you are born poor in the UK, the system does everything in its power to keep you poor and working class. If that's true, I understand the desire for revolution.

on edit: just saw your clarifying post there, Bud Meister. I guess I didn't understand what you meant by the importance of perception.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Not to butt in, but may I turn that question around and ask why it is that Bud's class constructs (which I and everyone else I know happen to share) are any less valid than Marx's or some sociology professor at Berkeley? Or yours, for that matter?Well take my example: families who live in a two-bedroom apartment, work in an office or warehouse or a service job, live paycheck to paycheck, and consider themselves "middle class" - but so do families who run their own business and live in a big house and don't have to worry about the mortgage, invest in stocks or property, hire and fire other people. What's the point of categorizing anything if the category is meaningless?

You could be swimming in the water, get attacked by a shark, and yell: "Help a fish is trying to bite me" and no one will care because the category is too broad to explain anything.

Technically the official academic and governmental understanding of class in the US comes from looking at the range of incomes, splitting it into sections and dividing class along income lines. For Marxists, this kind of categorization is arbitrary and doesn't explain the relationships of one economic group (or CLASS-ification) to another. Someone who works 50 hours a week and someone who does highly skilled contractual jobs like an artist or archetiect but chooses to only work a few jobs a year might make the same income, but putting them in the same category actually tells you little about what their concerns or background or daily life might be like.

On the other hand, if you define class in the Marxist way, which is defined by someone's relationship to production, in my opinion it is an objectively more descriptive categorization.

As with patriotism, I think that the ruling class, the universities, and the media blur class into a meaningless descriptive term to create the illusion that people with different interests are the same and the groups with similar interests are different.

[Bud Struggle]

On the other hand, if you define class in the Marxist way, which is defined by someone's relationship to production, in my opinion it is an objectively more descriptive categorization.


I don't think that's true. There's no objectivity here at all. Let me piggy back on my OI Brother Robert's excellent point above and say that these are ALL artificial constructs--both the Capitalists (Middle Class) and the Marxian (Bourgeoisie/Proletarian.) A are just an idealized way of looking at an actual situation in order for the human mind to classify and process reality.

Neither way actually IS reality--both are just idealized rationalizations. And there's nothing wrong with that as long as you don't present your rationalization of the world as absolute truth to the exclusions of other people's equally valid rationalizations.

[ComradeMan]

I don't think that's true. There's no objectivity here at all. Let me piggy back on my OI Brother Robert's excellent point above and say that these are ALL artificial constructs--both the Capitalists (Middle Class) and the Marxian (Bourgeoisie/Proletarian.) A are just an idealized way of looking at an actual situation in order for the human mind to classify and process reality.

Neither way actually IS reality--both are just idealized rationalizations. And there's nothing wrong with that as long as you don't present your rationalization of the world as absolute truth to the exclusions of other people's equally valid rationalizations.


Now you are becoming an existentialist I see.... :D

I too have a problem with class paradigms. Sociologists tend to base everything on generalisations yet no one else is allowed to make other generalisations.

I do believe class could be seen as not just being about economic assets but also attitudes and values, but most of these were formed during the industrial revolution and we are now in a post-industrial society in the West at least. A challenge for the 21st century will be to redefine who and what we mean, or we could take the more all-encompassing autonome view of the proletariat.

[Raúl Duke]

I don't think this is that very accurate or more specifically well-detailed...

In PR, "middle class" is broadly used...it basically refers to all who are not in any form welfare/public housing (plus send their kids to some private school) and yet are not millionaires per se.

The term is somewhat used flexibly and isn't well-defined, in a sense it's a worthless term.
Let's assume that my family is part of the anxious middle...well the source that the OP is based on seems to just based it off mostly attitudes...

In the case of my family, it's because they're able to attain what could be described as "top of the class" status previously based solely on credit...now that credit problems have arise obviously they're anxious for their livelihoods since the consequence of their credit lifestyle failing could be worse than if my parent's would have contented themselves to the modest lifestyle of the "satisfied middle."

[Lynx]

I was under the impression Americans defined themselves by what they do for a living, with level of education being an important factor.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't think that's true. There's no objectivity here at all. Let me piggy back on my OI Brother Robert's excellent point above and say that these are ALL artificial constructs--both the Capitalists (Middle Class) and the Marxian (Bourgeoisie/Proletarian.) A are just an idealized way of looking at an actual situation in order for the human mind to classify and process reality.I thought that postmodernism only appealed to liberals... a rejection of pomo assumptions is one of the things I like about a lot of conservatives.:lol:

Well, while I don't expect most non radicals to believe that class conflict is inevitable or exists at all, but yes, objectively, a Marxist definition of class is materialist (weather you agree with the conclusions Marx and radicals draw from this) whereas class by "mood" like in the 4 middle classes listed above is simply idealism and not based on any objective conditions.

Weather someone is "anxious" or "satisfied" or makes a relatively high wage or low wage changes easily whereas someone's relations to production is a more solid and meaningful way of understanding someone's power and position in society.

Even the way US sociologists and the government define class - by income levels - is at least based on something substantive; I just think it is an arbitrary way to define class.


Neither way actually IS reality--both are just idealized rationalizations. And there's nothing wrong with that as long as you don't present your rationalization of the world as absolute truth to the exclusions of other people's equally valid rationalizations.Again, I think it's more a question of how you look at the world when it comes to weather it is good to have the kind of class society we have or if this kind of society can work peacefully or will develop irreconcilable class conflicts, but how you look at the world doesn't effect the empirical fact that some people work for a wage and have no control of the result of their production; some people live (at least in the past) on land owned by an aristocrat who would let them live there and defend them from other aristocrats in return for a cut of the wealth they produce; some people do not directly labor to produce an object or service but own the means to produce this result and hire others to do the labor.

This is solid. Mood is subjective. Wage levels are arbitrary.

[mikelepore]

If people don't suffer from class consciousness and all the negativity that comes with it, then they have a realistic hope of improving their standard of living, gradually over time.

The opposite seems more correct to me. When working class people don't recognize their economically insecure position, they are more likely to spend their savings to pay for vacations, swimming pool, etc. But if they know how economically insecure their future is, they are more likely to save money to the best of their ability.

[Misanthrope]

There isn't a middle class. There is a working class, a group of people forced to sell their labor to survive; a capitalist class, a group of people that benefit from the surplus value of the labor sold to them by the working class.

[RGacky3]

There isn't a middle class. There is a working class, a group of people forced to sell their labor to survive; a capitalist class, a group of people that benefit from the surplus value of the labor sold to them by the working class.

Then there is the self employed, plumbers, handymen, shop keepers, and so on, which I still consider working class, although technically they are petty-bourgious (according to Marx), then you have the ones that do not control the mean of production but are high payed and are usually split between those who identify with hte working class and those who identify with the ruling class, engineers, accountants, proffessors, actors, and the such.

The idea of middles class, is a discription of income rather than actual class in the accepted sociological way its used.


The opposite seems more correct to me. When working class people don't recognize their economically insecure position, they are more likely to spend their savings to pay for vacations, swimming pool, etc. But if they know how economically insecure their future is, they are more likely to save money to the best of their ability.

Exactly.