Middle class

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.

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.)

History and evolution of the term

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.
A net worth, what a person's total material assets are worth, minus their debt. Most economists define "middle-class" citizens as those with net worths of between $125,000 and $250,000. Those with net worths between $250,000 and $500,000 typically are categorized as upper middle class. Those with net worths below $125,000 can be further broken down into working class to lower class.Definition of middle class according to the US Federal Reserve

Sociological definition

Some modern theories of political economy consider a large middle class to be a beneficial, stabilizing influence on society, because it has neither the possibly explosive revolutionary tendencies of the lower class, nor the absolutist tendencies of an entrenched upper class. Most sociological definitions of middle class follow Max Weber. Here the middle class is defined by a similar income level as semi-professionals or business owners; by a shared culture of domesticity and sub-urbanity; and by a level of relative security against social crisis in the form of socially desired skill or wealth. While 95 percent of Americans identify themselves as middle class, using the measures of sociology the reality seems different, with only roughly 50% actually being middle class according to the Weberian system. Some of these individuals are clearly lower or upper class.

Threats to the U.S. middle class

In the 1990s and 2000s, many feared that the spreading wealth gap would lead to a "collapse of the middle" in American society. A modern threat to the middle class is downsizing in many sectors of the American economy, competition from lower-paid foreign workers and contractors, and the systematic elimination of unionized labor.

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.

The scenario most commonly recordered currently by the country's top news publications is that the middle class is splitting into two, a well-off, high-income middle class and a lower-income middle class. The high-income middle class are commonly defined as those outearning the center of the middle class, those with household incomes between 80% and 120%.

Marxism and the middle class

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).

Subdividing of the middle class

As the vast majority of persons in the industrialized world and especially in the United States are identifying themselves as middle class, sociologist have noticed there are many significant differences among persons in the middle class. According to economic surveys, such as the 2004 US Census Economic Survey in the United States, there are many significantly different degrees of wealth and educational attainment among the members of the middle class. At the bottom of the middle class, one may find persons who have some college education and no degree, or only have an AA and whose household income lies in the $30k-$40k/year range. At the upper end of the middle class one may find highly educated professionals such as physicians, lawyers, architects and engineers who hold graduate degrees, PhDs and professional degrees, and whose household income may very well exceed $100k/year.

Due to the great difference in wealth, occupational prestige, and educational attainment many sociologist have divided the middle class into three sub-classes. This subdividing of the middle class is especially common in the United States where the divisions are made as follows:

Upper-middle class; Persons with a graduate degree, PhD, or professional degree, a household income of over $65k and more than $250k in net worth. This group is also often divided into the professional class and managerial class, as most persons in this group tend to be either professionals such as economists, political scientists, engineers, and post-secondary educators, or hold managerial positions in the corporate world. The division is made since persons belonging to the professional upper-middle class tend to be more liberal in their political beliefs and have more chic-urban tastes. Persons belonging to the managerial upper-middle class, on the other hand, tend to be more conservative in their political beliefs as well as their taste preferences.
Middle-middle class or true middle class in the Weberian system; Persons with a bachelor's degree, AA or sometimes only some college with a household income in the forty and fifty thousand dollar a year range. Typical occupations in this class might include high-school teachers, mid-level police officers, nurses, accountants and small business owners.
Lower middle class; Persons with some college or even no college education at all. These persons usually occupy positions of low prestige and tend to be very susceptible to economic downturns. Examples of professions in this particular class include unionized blue collar workers, unionized custodians, entry-level retail managers, as well as some lesser-successful small business owners.

Of the three sub-divisions, the true middle class seems to be the largest, with the upper-middle class being the smallest. Persons who are upper-middle class are also most likely in the top income and wealth quintile of society.

References

Social groups | Social classes

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