Everyone knows what I'm talking about, even the few decent politicians we have are constantly bemoaning the "disappearance of the middle class," and we here in lefty land usually have the same response, which goes something like "So your saying the solution to the disparity of rich and poor is to invent a conceptual middle ground and focus all your attention on that, instead of the divide itself. Smells like liberalism to me."
I still agree with this, but I got to thinking the other day, and I think the instinct to talk about the "middle class" may actually be a latent anti-capitalist instinct coming out. This is pretty rough around the edges, it was just a stray train of thought, but the way I see it, Capitalism wants to mediate all human experience through the market, through transaction, through money. People, I think instinctively, feel this tendency to basically flatten all of life, and naturally revolt. Problem is, of course, that to most people, capitalism is unambiguously good, or at the very least, necessary in the same way air is necessary to breathe, and it's difficult to square that contradiction.
This, I think, is where the "middle class" comes in, it is essentially a category of people who live under capitalism, with all that entails, but who instinctively revolt against defining their existence in capitalist terms (i.e. wealth, money, possessions, etc). Rich and poor are both categories defined by their relation to capitalism, whereas the "middle class" is completely nebulous vis-a-vis relations of production, so defining yourself as such opens, or perhaps leaves open, the possibility of identifying your existence in some other fashion. Essentially calling yourself middle class means that you'd prefer not to (:zizek:) think of yourself predominantly in market terms, which is a privilege the truly destitute don't have, hence the connotation of comfortableness associated with it, but I do think it's indicative of an instinct that runs counter to the totalizing nature of capitalism.
Thoughts?
EDIT: Based on many responses, I think I was unclear about something crucial, which is that I’m am referring to the mindset of an average American who isn’t particularly political who passively identifies with the term middle class when invoked by politicians or others.
Thats super fair, i meant to just bring up that first bit then sorta kept typing.
I guess if I was to reframe it for what the average person would think about the middle class, I'd say the fabrication of the middle class goes hand in hand with the feeling everyone has to want to belong in the middle class. Like so many people were suddenly dropped into it that it feels like a place where everyone should be.
It very much is the "norm" for a large chunk of Americans in the last century that so few who were considered middle class had to think about what it meant.
I have to disagree that the members of the middle class think of their position as outside of capitalism though. I'd say they're extremely cognizant of Capitalism. The middle class is basically defined on emulating upper class life and living defined by debt to be able to emulate that lush life. "Not enough" is constantly on their mind. Where people in poverty are concerned with feeding and housing themselves and not dying with the occasional flashy purchase to make them feel better, the middle class has relative security and looks past security to luxury.
I do think there are some people who are more concerned with comfortable modesty rather than ever increasing wealth. I like to think I'm in that circle. But the area I grew up in was old school suburbs with high property tax, a decent sized group of working class that got a house at the right time and barely got by, and plenty of professionals/tradesmen who flew too close to the sun and got foreclosed on.
I'm sorry for the extensive rant, every sentence I write makes me think of 5 more examples and I gotta cut it off.
They’re cognizant in so much as they take capitalism as a given, a natural and immutable state of affairs, but I am suggesting that a part of identifying oneself in the middle is to distance oneself from the conflict of rich and poor , by mentally placing yourself in a third, morally neutral, and thus uninterested, position. Of course the middle often emulates the rich. But I think we’re off and running on a different topic there. I’m postulating a small mental influence in the chaotic mess of an average Americans psyche when he passively identifies with the term “middle class”so, it’s not gonna cover everything.