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.
I thought it's the opposite. Everyone wants to be middle class. Not too rich or poor to be bad, cuz in America being rich and poor is about how good of a "value set" you have. Calling yourself middle class is a way to embrace the class hegemony and pretend that your not a prole. Middle class in America usually means "my family does well", it doesnt have to mean you have to own property.
The liberal understanding of class, as we know, is "income level". Liberals will use the terms income and class interchangeably. When liberals say "middle class", they would mean somebody who has around the median income. Liberals are often ignorant to ways of receiving income other than a wage, sometimes even thinking that billionaires earned their wealth by being payed a very high wage.
As leftists, we know that class is not how much income you receive but instead how you receive income. Class is your role in the labor process. Marx described 2 characteristics of a persons role in the labor process: relation to labor and relation to means of production. The proletariat is forced to sell labor for a wage because they don't own means of production. The bourgeoisie purchases labor and owns the means of production. So we must ask ourselves, "How can there be a middle of those 2 things?" The leftist understanding of "middle class" is that there are people that do not fit perfectly into either class but have some of the characteristics of each class, some examples below.
- Small Business Owner: Small business owners may own means of production or purchase labor but often do not extract enough surplus value to survive without also selling their own labor, sometimes purchasing their own labor.
- Small Merchant: Small merchants do not own means of production or sell their labor but instead buy commodities and resell at a higher price.
- Artisans: Artisans don't sell their labor or purchase labor. They own means of production and use their labor to create commodities that they sell.
- Professional Managerial Class (PMC): PMC work for a wage but it is their job to control the proletariat.
When people talk about the disappearance or shrinking of the middle class, it is unclear whether they are speaking of an increased cost of living for median income workers or the lack of class mobility, the ability to ascend economic class. These 2 possibilities are perhaps intertwined. Liberals believe that capitalism has an inherit meritocracy where any person could be a janitor at a factory and steadily get promoted to be the factory owner. There is also a fetishization of the small business as the mechanism for class mobility. Liberals have this fantasy that you start with nothing but a dream and then through the powers of hard work and determination you can become a wealthy business owner, rags to riches. Small business are often paired with some sappy origin story for the Liberal to live vicariously and then the Liberal can feel good about themself for enabling class ascension to occur.
A prerequisite of leftism is having class consciousness, knowing that capitalism is a class based economic system and knowing your own class in the system. To be against capitalism, you have to know that the capitalist class exploits the working class. You describe the label as instinctive, or I would say involuntary. Rejection of capitalism is something that I would describe as a voluntary response.
With your proposal that people label themselves as middle class because they reject capitalism, I believe that you have created a sort of "enlightened centrism" of class awareness. The working class person does not have class consciousness because of alienation, so they apply the golden means fallacy to their class position. Similar to "enlighten centrists" of economic theory, this is an involuntary response from ignorance and insecurity. As you observed yourself, this allows the person to position themselves in a way that is harder to criticize.
This being said, I do not think that calling oneself "middle class" is anti capitalism, but instead a defense mechanism for ignorance and/or insecurity, alienation from labor.
edit/ adding a thought
If we consider that in the Liberal fantasy of meritocracy, that people are not only able to ascend class but expected to ascend class. That one should start from nothing and one day retire owning a business or rental properties. That the middle class is a necessary transitional state between being a wage worker and being a business owner. Then if you are not "middle class", you are falling short of the Liberal expectation of class ascension. This could be another reason that people label themselves middle class.
I believe that you have created a sort of “enlightened centrism” of class awareness.
This describes pretty well what I’m talking about, but to be more exact, I haven’t so much created it as hypothesized it in the minds of un-class conscious Americans.
This being said, I do not think that calling oneself “middle class” is anti capitalism
No, definitely not, but if there’s anything to my shower thought at all, it may be indicative of a sort of instinctive protest at the existence of class or the need to define oneself in terms of class by mentally positioning yourself on safe ground separate from the two obvious class antagonists, rich and poor. This also allows them to see themselves as not political, because the most obvious political conflict involves the other classes, not the middle directly (in their minds, at least). It’s a psychological phenomenon I think I’m describing.
This also allows them to see themselves as not political, because the most obvious political conflict involves the other classes, not the middle directly (in their minds, at least).
This just sounds like you are describing Marx's Theory of Alienation.
If you're US American... a lot of the times (but certainly not all) the phrase "middle class" is just white peoples' way of referring to white folks without explicitly saying it, because that's no longer socially acceptable. But next time you hear a politician or a white person talk about the "middle class", try substituting "white people" instead and see what the sentence is saying if you make that change. It's a way to demand policies that disproportionately help white folks without explicitly saying so.
Racism is baked into the concept for sure, but I dont think your average “apolitical” American who thinks of himself as middle class is consciously aware of that. That being said, There’s a lot of other responses here that show how correct I was to say the idea is rough around the edges.
Oh sure, I don't want to imply it's always used that way, and certainly when people think of themselves as middle class, it's something different than what I'm talking about.
Marx used the term 'middle class/classes' a lot. He considered them to be the groups that has escaped or avoided proletarianization for the time that aren't the industrial capitalist bourgeoisie.
Artisans, shop owners, etc. Anyone that didn't seem their labor for a wage (which was the majority of people before capitalism)
I think the main reason people don't object to capitalism is that they see it as this big unchanging FACT of how the world is. It's just not seen as something that can be changed and so is something that must be endured and adapted to
This is a big reason they invented a Nobel prize in economics, unaffiliated with the other Nobel prizes, to make it seem like a hard, immutable science. That shits actually been going on since at least the 1890s, when they removed the word “political” from “political economy.”
Yeah, or if you like, trying to make it seem as if we arrived at this system through rigorous scientific work that proves it’s the only way.
trust us you guys we looked into it and me being in charge pretty much works out best
I'm not super well read on it, but a thought I just had was that middle class classification was created as the neoliberal way to continue the mercantile class of old times. For example, there were groups of white, fairly well off mercantile class in the north east leading up to the civil war that supported abolition mostly because they had the free time to care about things outside their immediate vicinity. Basically the brunch libs of today. Most didn't know any black people, slaves or not but felt it was important for them to speak out but not do much more.
The suburban middle class really grew out of the north east as well, things were rocky during the early 20th century, WWII happened, then basically more working class were invited to live like the mercantile class of yesteryear, single family homes, gardens, etc. Of course, it was almost entirely white folks due to redlining and legal segregation of neighborhoods.
Middle class is almost meaningless outside of the post war US context. Middle of what? the Mercantile class became the petite bourgeois, the capitalists stayed winning and got richer, and the working class missed their boat and were damned to be trapped below the newly minted middle class. What we know as the middle class is only 80 or so years old.
I’m referring to the idea normal people, not politicians or extremely online types, have in mind when they hear the term, or when they identify with it. People who have know idea what “petite bourgeoisie” or “mercantilist” mean would probably claim to know what “middle class” means. I’m entertaining the possibility that a part of their idea is that you’re middle class in so much as your comfortable enough to not be preoccupied with wealth, and can be preoccupied with other things. It’s a way of distancing yourself from the marketization of everything while not challenging the concept of marketization of capitalism in general....perhaps.
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.
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.
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.
Middle class is a myth. It’s just petty-bourgeoisie and semi-proletarians that have more capital than those in the working class that survive by being forced into wage labor.
I have to disagree. Middle Class is the wholesale adoption of Economic terms to social strata. This shit started as bourgeoisie who had the wealth to rise above peasants & such but not the right breeding for Nobility. You have to fear being poor to be Middle Class. The point of the identity is "look at me, i am not a poor"
The middle class is defined in subjective terms for whatever policy is being talked about. For example for college education the middle class is the group that have the ability to pay for college, through family support or otherwise, but instead take subsidized loans. Politicians talk about this so much because the programs that exist to benefit the lower class are being used by the middle class. Politicians like this because the middle class is the largest voting base so they want to enact programs that help them.
