The Riddle of the Middle

Almost everyone thinks they belong to it, but few can define what it is. Politicians claim to champion it, but it's increasingly difficult to determine what it actually wants. And, often, when we talk about it, we're really only referring to part of it -- the part that doesn't really belong to it at all, but likes to think it does.
What is it?
It's the "middle class"

The CCPA Growing Gap Project did extensive public opinion research to look at issues around income inequality and poverty-how it's experienced and how it's perceived. But something else was revealed: it doesn't matter if you make $25,000 or $150,000; everyone self-identifies as "middle class."

While disposable income is flatlining and decent jobs are vanishing, the "middle class" label isn't. On the contrary, it's being stretched like an elastic band to accommodate an enormous range of people with very different lives and financial realities. The distribution of wealth has shifted, but the self-identification as middle class has not; if anything, identification of and with the middle class has expanded to include more people than ever. And rather than political leaders addressing the vast disparities across the economic spectrum, we hear how their policies will benefit the "middle class" when even a cursory analysis reveals the real beneficiaries of many of these policies are those with much higher incomes. In spite of the "middle class" framing, tax policies are being used to help enrich the already most affluent. Meanwhile, everyone else labouring under the false impression that they are part of the "middle class" that politicians are talking about is left wondering why at the end of the day the so-called "middle class-friendly" numbers don't seem to add up for the people who need the most help.

Is "middle class" simply a label that speaks to how people want to think of themselves and be perceived? People who make less can aspire to the notional lifestyle middle class evokes, and people who make more can take comfort in a label that allows them to have more, yet still be considered ordinary, down-to-earth folks. Consumer culture has played an enormous role in servicing this disconnect. It guides how we define ourselves, how we judge others, and how we want to be judged. We are encouraged to perceive qualitative concepts that help constitute our quality of life as little more than consumer transactions. We are encouraged to think about acquiring a university or college education the same way we acquire iPods or flat screen TVs. Accumulation of these items is what ensures us our place in the "middle class" -- some of us just go more deeply into debt to acquire them for ourselves or for our children.

Erika Shaker, Director of the CCPA's Education Project here

SOYMB has come across many such articles as the above extract in the Canadian and American media. The recession has created a re-appraisal of how society is in reality. We can only recommend the World Socialist Movement's interpretation of the class division.

Under capitalism, the means for producing and distributing goods (the land, factories, technology, transport system etc) are owned by a small minority of people - the capitalist class. The rest of us, the majority of people, must sell their ability to work in return for a wage or salary - the working class. We say there are just two classes in society. It may be popular to talk (usually vaguely as the above article's author indicated) about the "middle class", but it is the two classes defined here that are the key to understanding capitalism.

It may not be exactly clear which class some relatively wealthy people are in. But there is no ambiguity about the status of the vast majority. Members of the capitalist class certainly know who they are. And most members of the working class know that they need to work for a wage or salary in order to earn a living. There is no “middle class” as the working class includes land workers, doctors, lawyers and teachers – anyone, indeed, who must sell their mental and physical energies to survive.

The fact that many people live in better houses, do different work or earn more money than some others does not elevate them out of the working class. They still have to work for a living, worry about making ends meet, face the indignity of the sack and in one degree or another, suffer the prob­lems created by capitalist society. This is what places them firmly in the ranks of the workers whether or not they like it. This recession makes it more and more evident.