Middle Class? So What

Class is a concept that can be defined as anyone likes, however, the Asian Development Bank defines India’s middle class as those who spend anywhere between $2 and $20 (Rs 93 to Rs 930) a day on purchasing power. Broken down, the lower-middle class falls between US$2 and US$4 per day, the middle-middle class spends between US$4 and US$10 per day and is able to save and consume non-essential goods, and the upper-middle class consumes between US$10 and US$20 per day.
Yet, more than three-fourths of India’s 274 million-strong middle class face the risk of slipping back into poverty in the event of a major economic shock as they are in the lowest spending bracket of $2-4 (Rs 93-186) a day. Another financial crisis, wars or large natural disasters can reverse people’s move into higher income categories."Asia's rapidly-growing middle class remains vulnerable ... A major shock can easily send them back into poverty," said Jong-Wha Lee, chief economist at the ADB.

The African Development Bank also defines those who spend between $2 and $20 a day as members of the middle class . Mthuli Ncube, the bank's chief economist said Africa's middle class had risen to about 34% (313 million) of the continent's population. But once again an estimated 21% earn only enough to spend $2 to $4 a day so about 180 million people are vulnerable to economic shocks that could knock them out of the new middle class.

The Asian Development Bank also defined the middle class in China as individuals earning between $2 per day (the low end of lower middle class) and $19 per day (the high end of upper middle class) in income. in 2005, 35% of the Chinese work force earned just $2-4 dollars per day, another 30% earned $4-10 per day, and less than 5% earned more than $10 per day. In 2005, 35% of the Chinese work force earned just $2-4 dollars per day, another 30% earned $4-10 per day, and less than 5% earned more than $10 per day.

The China National Research Association defined six criteria for what constitutes middle class status in China, based on education, salary, profession, societal influence, savings and holidays. Ncube uses a consumption pattern to define class, claiming record numbers of people in Africa own houses and cars, use mobile phones and the internet and send their children to private schools and foreign universities. Sales of fridges, TVs and mobile phones have surged in virtually every African country in recent years, the report said. Possession of cars and motorcycles in Ghana, for example, has gone up by 81% in the past five years. The add lifestyle to the definition. The Africa middle classes are more likely to have salaried jobs or own small businesses. They tend not to rely entirely on public health services, seeking more expensive medical care. The middle classes tend to have fewer children and spend more on their nutrition and schooling. Those who proclaim that "we're all becoming middle class now" are not stating a fact. They are putting forward a political message. They want us to think that we are all just isolated classless individuals who can only improve our lot by our own individual efforts. It is an attempt to disarm the working class ideologically, to get us to give up the idea of collective struggle. Sociological definitions based upon cultural preferences, job types (professional, salaried or blue collar, waged), or number of TVs or cars owned in more likely to reflect a false consciousness of one's actual class position. It hides a great deal. By emphasising divisions among employees it suggests that they have different interests and statuses, rather than stressing what they all have in common. It suggests that removing inequality is about people climbing upwards within this scale and so doing better than their parents, rather than overturning the whole system. The traditional division between ‘working class’ and ‘middle class’ also implies that there is a conflict between these two groups, with the middle class being better paid, educated and housed, often at the expense of the working class. The real world is not merely made up of a population stratified into different income groups. It is true that the working class can be divided into different income groups. But between these groups there is no direct opposition, tension and conflict – they are just groups of people having different characteristics in terms of income, education and status. The real world is a world in which the population is divided into two main groups obtaining their incomes in distinct and completely different ways. One group obtains its income from the ownership of the productive wealth of the world and the other group obtains its income from the sale of its labour power to the owners of productive wealth.
In Africa there exists an elite of about 100,000 Africans who possess a collective net worth of 60% of the continent's gross domestic product in 2008. In China the richest 10 per cent of Chinese controlled some 45 per cent of the country’s wealth, the poorest, just 1.4 per cent. In India the wealthiest 100 Indians are collectively worth $276 billion.

The World Socialist Movement asserts that we’re all working class in the economic sense that we have to sell our labour in order to live. The exception being the small number of capitalists who can live entirely on the labour of others. The rest of us are all, economically speaking, working class by virtue of the fact that we have to let ourselves be used, to sell our labour power, to live. In capitalist society there are two basic classes: those who own and control the means of production and those who own no productive resources apart from their ability to work. The working class in capitalist society is made up of all those who are obliged through economic necessity to sell their mental and physical energies for a wage or salary. In other words, on exploitation. If you don’t own any means of production yourself you are working class because you are dependent for a living on going out onto the labour market and trying to find an employer to buy your working skills. If this is your position then you are a member of the working class. The job you do and the status it might have, the pay you receive and how you chose to spent it, are irrelevant as long as you are dependent on working for a wage or salary in order to live.

"Middle class" is not an appropriate term for people who are only one or two pay-cheques from financial disaster or people who have jobs but with debts wildly disproportionate to their income and no assets to speak of. It should be admitted that they really are working class.