Middle class
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Middle class and upper-middle class condos as well as upper-class penthouses in Waikiki, Honolulu, starting at $300,000. |
Colloquially, the term is often applied to people who have a degree of economic independence, but not a great deal of social
influence or
power in their society. The term often encompasses merchants and professionals, bureaucrats, and some farmers and skilled workers. While most Americans identify themselves as
middle class, only 20% live the lifestyle indicative of the
American middle class.
These 20%, however, also referred to as the Professional middle class are influencial members society due to the nature of their work and this class has largely been credited with establishing the American mainstream.
Social hierarchies, and their definitions, vary. There are many factors that can define the middle class of a society, such as financial, behavioral and inherited grounds. In the US and many other countries, it is predominantly finance that determines one's place in the social hierarchy. In other societies it can be other social factors such as education, profession (
white collar rather than
blue collar), home ownership, or culture.
The
connotation of the term also varies significantly between nations. US usage is increasingly broad in scope but almost always positive in intent, creating the image of an unpretentious, hard-working person as contrasted to an elitist or exploitative upper class.In the
United Kingdom and many
Commonwealth nations, the term can sometimes be
pejorative, implying a fairly privileged
bourgeois person often simulating upper class mannerisms or attitudes, in contrast to a hard-working and unpretentious
working class. (See also
chattering classes.)
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A Chevrolet Tahoe, a typical middle class family vehicle in the United States. |
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A Mercedes-Benz C-Class which is according to official German car classification, identified as a Mittelklasse Fahrzeug or Middle class vehicle. |
The
middle class in this article refers to people neither at the top nor at the bottom of a
social hierarchy.Not everyone will accept the introductory example given above, for the term "middle class" has a long history and has had many, sometimes contradictory, meanings. It was once defined by exception as an intermediate
social class between the
nobility and the
peasantry of
Europe. While the nobility owned the countryside, and the peasantry worked the countryside, a new
bourgeoisie (literally "town-dwellers") arose around mercantile functions in the city. This had the result that the middle class were often the wealthiest stratum of society (whereas today many take the term to refer by definition to the only-moderately wealthy.)
Descending from this distinction, the phrase "middle class" came to be used in the
United Kingdom during the 18th century to describe the professional and business class, as distinct from both the
titled nobility and the landed
gentry on the one hand and the agricultural and (increasingly) industrial laborers on the other. Throughout the twentieth century, the titled nobility of the United Kingdom became less homogeneous. This was because of the increasingly eclectic background of new creations, most of which were politically driven by the so-called middle class, and the declining power of the
House of Lords relative to the
House of Commons after the
Parliament Act 1911. So far as the hereditary element of class was concerned, the titled upper class became less numerous because of the near cessation of new hereditary creations after the
Life Peerages Act 1958. This was coupled with the natural rate of extinction of existing hereditary titles and the near abolition of the hereditary element of the House of Lords at the end of the twentieth century. At this point, hereditary titles are in no way the key to being "upper class," although they do lend a distinctive panache within the upper class. Middle class helped the French Revolution to start.
In early industrial
capitalism, the middle class was defined primarily as
white-collar workers—those who worked for wages (like all workers), but did so in conditions that were comfortable and safe compared to the conditions for
blue-collar workers of the "
working class." The expansion of the phrase "middle class" in the United States appears to have been predicated in the
1970s by the decline of
labor unions in the US and the entrance of formerly domestic women into the public workforce. A great number of
pink-collar jobs arose, where people could avoid the dangerous conditions of blue-collar work and therefore claim to be "middle class" even if they were making far less money than a unionized blue-collar worker.
In the United States, by the end of the twentieth century, more people identified themselves as middle class than as lower or "working" class, with statistically insignificant numbers identifying themselves as upper class. In contrast, in the United Kingdom, many who traditionally would be considered middle class today identify themselves as working class. In recent surveys up to two-thirds of Britons tend to identify themselves as working class. This has been described as a form of "inverse snobbery." Nonetheless the British
Labour Party, which grew out of the organized labor movement and originally drew almost all of its support from the working class, reinvented itself under
Tony Blair in the 1990s as "
New Labour," a party competing with the
Conservative Party for the votes of the middle class as well as the working class. The size of the middle class depends on how it is defined, whether by education,
wealth, environment of upbringing,
genetic relationships,
social network, manners or values, etc. These are all related, though far from deterministically dependent. The following factors are often ascribed in modern usage to a "middle class":
* Achievement of
tertiary education, including all financiers,
lawyers,
doctors and
clergymen regardless of their leisure or wealth.
* Belief in
bourgeois values, such as high rates of
house or long-term
lease ownership and jobs which are perceived to be "
secure." In the United States and in the United Kingdom,
politicians typically target the votes of the middle classes.
* Lifestyle. In the United Kingdom, social status has been less directly linked to wealth than in the United States, and has also been judged by pointers such as
accent, manners, place of education and the class of a person's circle of friends and acquaintances. Often in the United States, the middle class are the most eager participants in
pop culture. The second generation of new
immigrants will often enthusiastically forsake their traditional
folk culture as a sign of having arrived in the middle class.
In contrast, the British author Alexander Deane thinks that the middle class is not under threat, but rather is the cause of problems itself. In his approach, economic considerations are secondary to moral ones, and the UK middle class is not carrying out its responsibilities as it should.
It is also believed that the labour party has it in for the middle-class, when interviewed a labour correspondent said "It's no different from the 90% of people who can't afford or could do without a pension" in response to a question about middle-class people losing their pensions.
Marxism does not necessarily see the groups described above as the middle class. The middle class is not a fixed category within Marxism, and debate continues as to the content of this social group.
Marxism defines social classes not according to the wealth or prestige of their members, but according to their relationship with the
means of production: a noble owns land; a capitalist owns capital; a worker has the ability to work and must seek employment in order to make a living. However, between the rulers and the ruled there is most often a group of people, often called a middle class, which lacks a specific relationship. Historically, during
feudalism, the
bourgeoisie were that middle class. People often describe the contemporary bourgeoisie as the "middle class from a Marxist point of view", but this is incorrect. Marxism states that the bourgeoisie are the
ruling class (or
upper class) in a capitalist society.
Marxists vigorously debate the exact composition of the middle class under capitalism. Some describe a "co-ordinating class" which implements capitalism on behalf of the capitalists, composed of the
petit bourgeoisie,
professionals and
managers. Others dispute this, freely using the term "middle class" to refer to affluent white-collar workers as described above (even though, in Marxist terms, they are part of the
proletariat—the working class). Still others (for example,
Council communists) allege that there is a class comprising intellectuals, technocrats and managers which seeks power in its own right. This last group of communists allege that such technocratic middle classes seized power and government for themselves in
Soviet-style societies (see
co-ordinatorism).
See American middle class for a complete overview of the middle class in the United States.In the United States the definition of the term middle class is very vague as neither
economists nor any other
sociologists have ever set down to accurately develop guidelines to precisely define the
American middle class and its
sub-divisions.
There seem to be several approaches as to what is
middle class. As recent economic trends have shown that the
statistical middle of
American society cannot actually afford the
lifestyle indicative of the middle class,
which is lived by roughly 20% of the population,
the term middle class can also correctly be applied to a
reltive elite of
professionals and
managers. This group which is sometimes referred to as the
upper middle class,
true middle class or
professional middle class is highly-educated,
well-paid minority, largely immune to economic downturns which can have severe effects on those in the
actual middle of society.
Yet other defenitions use merely income and state the
middle class to be all those who have either income ranging from 80% to 120% of the
national median or those making $25,000 to $100,000 annuallly.
The problem with these two theories is that the former cannot actually afford the
middle class lifestyle and latter is too economically fragmented, including janitors and professionals in the same class. Over the middle three
income quintiles earned between annual household income ranging from $18,500 to $88,030,
while the lifestyle indicative of the
middle class was lived by a
privileged minority, belonging mostly to the top third of American society.
*
American middle class*
Lower class*
Lower middle class*
Upper middle class*
Upper class*
Bourgeoisie*
Underclass*
Classlessness *
Political Donor Class*
Nouveau riche (New Money)
*
Old Money*
Producerism*
Social structure of the United States*
Household income in the United States
