Sometimes I see a post on twitter/reddit where they try to make a progressive point about inequality or social security etc. they list several reasonable points interjected with "STRONG MIDDLE CLASS" and I don't get it.
Is the underlying assumption that the middle class is the moral centre protecting people not just from the rich but from the 'unwashed masses' on the other side? Or is (what I hope) some latent propaganda that hasn't been updated with the changing discourse?
For liberals, class is defined by consumption. A "strong middle class" is when more people are able to live somewhat comfortably.
Yes, this is correct . But the wording is careful to include the moral implication of the immoral poor are not part of it
Ah so I just remembered that then. Here I was thinking I had discovered a trope myself.
No, you independently made a scientific observation that matches that of other scientists
Anybody who believes there is such a thing as a middle class is either an idiot or a charlatan and can safely be ignored
There is a middle class, it's just not what 99% of people think it is. The middle class consists of:
- Class traitors who are paid well enough that they will side with capital despite not being members of the capitalist class (many tech workers, middle management)
- Small business owners who are striving to become members of the capitalist class but don't yet have (and likely never will) enough capital to stop working
🎯🎯🎯, "middle class" is a sociological category that has almost always meant "above average to well above average". At one time, it even included the bourgeoisie themselves who were below the landed, titled nobility. There was a brief period when enough of the working class in the US was prosperous enough to have a feasible "middle class" majority, but it was fleeting for a variety of reasons, most importantly that "middle class" is an inherently unstable position. You either work hard and rise into the elite, or you slip and fall back in with the plebs. Lots of psychosocial analysis can be, and has been done, about how this striver mentality effects what it means to have "middle class" values.
In the US, the purest Capitalist nation on the planet, it's used as a psyop to encourage people to side with Capital as a way of "advancement" (i.e. chucking solidaroty and selling out your friends and family to S T R I V E), and to make small business owners seem like "ordinary people". It also tends to make people docile and atomized because of its fragile nature. The attitude towards job loss illustrates this imo. On a trades job site, you have older guys who teach you "the boss ain't shit" and "don't ever be afraid of losing your job, they need you more than you need them". For the middle class, it's the exact opposite - losing your job is scarier than death, and the boss is to be respected and revered, and you always jump to whatever bullshit they make you do (even if that means moving 1000 miles away as a "company man"), less you lose your spot on the ladder
"Middle class" is a great piece of rhetoric. Whoever hears it assumes they're a part of the middle class, but not everyone is. So you can promise to help the middle class (that's me!) but not everyone (I'll get ahead of whoever these non-middle class people are!). When you get in power and don't want to actually do anything, you can say you're not doing it because of those lazy freeloading poors, which is acceptable, because you built that into your original promise, and the listener definitely doesn't think they're one of the poors.
Socrates thought the middle class were the moral centre protecting from both the rich and poor
If a politician mentions "middle class" you can mentally replace it with "white people" and understand their intended message.
"wealth should be like bell curve, same as intelligence or skull ridge"
