[KurtFF8]

By KurtFF8

During the 2008 election (and all elections and political discourse in the United States), the "middle class" is always what the parties and political leaders are trying to appease. The middle class is something that is often talked about in American media, but usually without ever really answering "what is the middle class?"

There is a common conception that 90 some percent of Americans place themselves in the middle class, which most also acknowledge cannot be the case. Even some leftist political parties like New York City's Working Families Party argue they are fighting for "good middle class jobs" and striving to help their members achieve the famous "American Dream."

This leaves us to ask the obvious question of: what exactly is the American Middle Class?

A quick Google search lead me to an article on MSNBC that tried to answer this very question. It turns out that they don't actually attempt to answer the question they set out to answer, they instead give an anecdote of a family that live a "typical American lifestyle" (which of course often implies a white suburban lifestyle). This demonstrates the inability for the dominant discourse to really even begin to approach this question, as some sort of lifestyle is always appealed to instead of trying to look at people's actual positions in society, especially at the work place. This can lead them to some disturbing conclusions, take this article for example that asks Can middle class families make urban schools better? It should be obvious what the problems with this question are. The idea that the "middle class" is there because of some lifestyle they chose, and the effort they've put forward can lead to some nasty misconceptions about America's poor for example, but that's a different topic altogether.

The left views the middle class in terms of their relations in the economy, or their specific power relations within society. While there are a few who simply deny the existence of the middle class, that analysis leaves out small business owners and others who don't seem to fit in nicely into the capitalist/worker dichotomy.

There's a good book that tries to address this question that came out in 2000 called The Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret by Michael Zweig. Zweig goes through and demonstrates the actual power relations that those who work in America really have, and makes the argument (quite well in my opinion) that the majority are actually in the working class when you examine the actual power they wield within society and how they act in the economy. He tries to move away from this idea that class is defined just by one's life style or whether one owns a car or not, because this would lead us to conclusions that offer little value. He shows that people actually will identify themselves as part of the "working class" if asked in certain contexts and I believe he brings the conception of middle class in America to be based highly on myth and misconception. (The Wikipedia article on the American Middle Class offers a section with this type of analysis).

Zweig does however fall short in his analysis by offering a solution of a stronger social democratic workers party that ought to be independent of the two party system to help strengthen the position of the working class within the capitalist system, but that's also an argument for a different post. His contribution is not only that he challenges the dominant discourse about class in America but shows through statistics, examples, and theory exactly why the dominant notion of "Middle Class" is significantly flawed.

This does not mean that a "middle class" does not exist, however. He, as well as others on the left, argue that there is a middle class. Even Marx talked about the middle class as ultimately having their interests aligned with the working class at the end of the day, as the capitalist class opposes both. However, workers can often find themselves in opposition to the middle class as well, as the middle class business owners, for example, also have an interest in suppressing wages and increasing exploitation.

This is another important contribution of Zweig's book: he recognizes the awkward position of the actual middle class as in opposition to both the capitalist and working classes. While he argues that the middle class can easier relate to the working class in their mutual opposition to the capitalist class: the middle class can also unite against the working class on issues like union legislation for example. This is why the middle class is not necessarily an ally nor an enemy of the working class, and it can depend on the historical development within a specific society whether it will side with one or another. (For example, fascists tend to draw a lot of support from the middle class, while allying themselves with the capitalist class).

[Eauz]

He tries to move away from this idea that class is defined just by one's life style or whether one owns a car or not, because this would lead us to conclusions that offer little value. He shows that people actually will identify themselves as part of the "working class" if asked in certain contexts and I believe he brings the conception of middle class in America to be based highly on myth and misconception.

Unless I've missed something (not having read the book), this is a major reason that we hear about the middle-class in politics and general day to day life. The idea of labelling yourself middle-class gives you that mythical idea that your life is much better than it is. We could even link it to the American Dream. The whole concept of working-class actually sounds horrible, because of what it means and how society has produced socially the meaning of the word. Despite the fact that you do end up having to work for the majority of your life just to afford those material objects, it is the status of knowing that Person B is of lower class than you, because you're driving the car, while he's waiting for that public bus that is always late.

Obviously, the middle-class does exist, but they are a minority group within society, they are the ones quite capable of taking winter vacations every year and also capable of paying that mortgage, car and enough left over for their retirement but have to work for part of their life. In the end though, it's almost a sign of insanity within the population, who scramble to identify themselves in anyway with the middle-class, when they end up being the ones who no longer have a house, car or job in this economy.

[Adrien]

I apologize in advance for my trivial comparison, but it'll be for pedagogical purposes. Middle classes are basically to our society what Mercuries are to the Ford line-up: a bourgeois form of Fords, but sold alongside Lincoln, and that shows that you made an extra step and are shopping with the rich, but can never hide that you only went for the tarted-up Ford car and not a full fledged Lincoln. I won't make the extra step likening the crisis of Mercury with the crisis of Middle classes, but still I'd say that it's a pretty pinpoint materialisation of the phenomenon as I believe cars are a reflection of our mentalities (but that's another subject).

Middle classes are what could have been but never was. The idea was I think that within the working class (as opposed to those living off dividends or managerial positions and thus not selling their workforce - the "rentiers" in French) there could be a progression and betterment of the quality of life through advancement in one's career, as in that middle classes wouldn't be a class of itself but the better half of the working class. It could have been a matter of recognition of your seniority, of your dedication, etc. The ideal would have been that everybody would start low, but also had a vocation to be middle class eventually and live what is a good life, the reasonnable middle ground between the destitution of working class people and the excesses of the rentiers. It would be a matter of achievement, accomplishment.

Of course it didn't make much sense in agriculture where the real differenciation is between those who lend or work on the land, and those who own the land, no matter at which scale. And even in industry it probably didn't start appearing until Taylorism and Fordism and the appearance of the key function of "contremaître" (Foreman, I believe in English?), and that's probably where it ended up being doomed, that is right from the start. Right away, the ruling class and the management teams (which were back then literally one and the same it's safe to say) preempted the burgeonning middle class as being not the achievement of the working class, but the protégé of the ruling class. And foremen started being tools for the ruling class to hold the working class quiet from "within", without direct confrontation and using foremen as fuses.

Since then well things haven't changed. Foremen are no more, but the *clear* and undeniable divide is around what we call "cadres" in French, literally "those who frame the work", organise it and start being coordinators instead of direct workers, in industry as much as in services and administrations actually. Now, while foremen were undoubtely "middle" class given their intermediate level in terms of standards of living, "cadres" (Junior and Middle Executives, the dictionary tells me) are usually already rather high that is true, and that's probably why middle classes are difficult to grasp today, their sociological anchor is disconnected from their traditionnal level of standards of living. That being said, pauperization catches up even with execs and I believe that their are reintegrating the roles of the foremen of yore that I evoked above.

Today, it's probably just a buzz word, given the tremendous and increasing gap between the poor (who happen to be the coherent mass of the workers) and the rich (who happen to be the coherent mass of owners and high end executives). It is a social construct solely based on a perception of having a good life, that means different things in different places and to different people, from literally the number of bathrooms and cars to the number of days off and other privileges at work. When Lou Dobbs hails things as being "anti middle class" I'd be hard pressed to find a common denominator from one day to the other among those concerned by this or that segment to be honest. And from experience, my own family as well as my in-laws see themselves as middle class, but not at all in the same terms.

So well if anything I'd see it as some sort of buffer zone, working in today's form at the advantage of the ruling powers most of the time.

[Potemkin]

Adrien, so you're saying that the "middle class" were essentially the "labour aristocracy" that Marx referred to? This would aso imply that the current dissolution of the middle class is a consequence of the ruling class' belief that since a revolution is now vanishingly unlikely, they no longer require a 'buffer class' between themselves and the working class.

[Adrien]

Adrien, so you're saying that the "middle class" were essentially the "labour aristocracy" that Marx referred to?

If it implies some sort of inherent and unavoiddable class treason I am not saying that. It's probably because the Leftist movements ostracised or failed to embrace them that the emerging middle-classes of the Taylorist era were an easy prey for the ruling class, not because they were inherently compromised.

Also, its improved living standards in the case of the emergence of that ideal middle class that never was and that I evoked earlier would have been signs of a victory of the working class and its empowerment. It wouldn't have been class treason, I would say.

Now, even today I'd say they're not a labour aristocracy. Like I said today it's merely a social construct pointing out a certain lifestyle, with a very unclear social role. If I may continue with the pedagocially nerdy car analogy, in the first case you have the emergence in the 60s of a performance option which is then coined through its relevance as a specialty model in its own right - say the Cobra or the Trans-Am trims. But in the second case you just are looking in the line-up for that gone specialty model and end up being tempted to just look at the least unpowerful and slap the Cobra or Trans-Am name on it to reconstruct something a posteriori.

This would aso imply that the current dissolution of the middle class is a consequence of the ruling class' belief that since a revolution is now vanishingly unlikely, they no longer require a 'buffer class' between themselves and the working class.

They surely don't fear the revolution, but they still fear social unrest, scandals, violent action. Not because it threatens them in the long run actually, but because it is their one weakness in the short term, the one door still open (as of today) for workers to snatch a share of the wealth that, as tiny as it is, they do not want to give up. See the sequestration of executives in France that led to workers snatching last minute deals about their massive lay-off and the scandals that throughout the Western world have 'forced' big shots to give up millions of dollars. They do resent that. So they still need a buffer. They are pushing the system so far they can't live without one anymore, like in the days of intense capitalism in the second half of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th.

Which is why I was mentionning the return of low-level executives to a role of foremen. A fuse, physical, there in person, between boards of directors high up in their ivory towers, and the workers. The guys held against their will in the Continental plant earn surely a lot more than the workers, but they have no decisionnal power of great importance. They can not threaten the board's decisions really.

We see that in society at large, the gap between the very rich and the ultimately poor is increasing, and in that I think it's in the end not being done in advantage of the middle class. Like I said earlier the execs of today may be playing in the corridors of 'power' with the big shots, but they have to go back home to standards of living in the low average.

Anyway, I also wanted to say that I didn't mention the dissolution of the middle class but it's dillution, the fundamental change in meaning and social implication.