Lawrence:
> Using this line of reasoning, couldn't one argue that no one who lives in a
> monetary economy is independent? During recessions the rich also get less
> money out of the poor, in the same way you here ascribe to the middle class.
Yes, of course -- although the rich can weather the recessions, depression and wars they create much better than those with less and fewer resources. Also, depressions and wars offer considerable opportunities for the more aggressive, who can use the occasions to prey on their weaker competitors. Many a fortune has been founded on the debris of some catastrophe.
> > ... [ the hardness of middle-class life ] ...
>
> That's an interesting take for a leftist to put forward. Isn't it an old
> fantasy of the left that someday everyone can belong to the middle class?
> That the rich will be brought down and the poor lifted up? Equality,
> fraternity, and solidarity for all?
>
> Aren't the constraints you describe merely the contraints of living in a
> human society? Can you imagine a society in which there are no constraints
> on any of us? Your argument seems like a good one for libertarianism.
I can imagine a society in which there are far fewer constraints on us than there are now -- otherwise, I wouldn't be reading this mailing list or otherwise bothering with leftist politics.
As far as my vision of the ideal or better life goes, I'm an anarchist and a communist. Libertarians, in the right-wing sense, are hung up on property and capitalism, so they can never get rid of the State, which is necessary to defend the inequalities necessary to capitalism. In a sense, they're the fundamentalists of liberalism and share in its faults. However, they may be useful allies in the struggles against imperialism, the Drug War, and other crimes against humanity now being perpetrated by the established order, so I try not to regard them as tribal enemies.
> > Everyone can't be middle class, but
> > class can be abolished.
> Why can't everyone be middle class? My parents and grandparents all fought
> for an America where everyone was middle class. My grandparents on my
> mother's side were both member of the American Socialist Party back in the
> 20s, then they joined up with the Democrats when Eugene Debbs joined up with
> the Democrats. I imagine in their youths they might have fought for
> something more radical than everyone joining the middle class, but of what I
> knew of them, and of what my folks fought for too, was the ideal of everyone
> belonging to the middle class. It certainly seemed possible for awhile, back
> in the 50s and 60s and 70s, when strong unions made working class jobs pay
> just as much as middle class jobs.
Well, to start with, by definition everyone can't be middle or any other class, because then one doesn't have classes in a meaningful sense. Classes are distinctions between non- empty sets of people.
However, let's say you're talking about the improved condition of working-class people which began to resemble that of the middle class in the period you mention. I think this depended very much on the difficulties of the ruling classes of the period, whose misadministration of the world had led to one major catastrophe after another beginning in 1914 (or earlier than that, if you count the genocide in the Congo). After screwing up mightily, liberalism / capitalism had to fight for its life against both external (Communist) and internal (fascist) enemies. Hence, it had to keep the workers as happy as possible at home. This meant not only high wages but the construction of Welfare systems and some tolerance of unions as long as the unions didn't question the leadership of capitalists. But once the threats began to recede, the "gains" made by the lower orders began to be rescinded, often, because of clever divide-and-rule strategies, with their enthusiastic support.
This sequence of events shows why Welfare-Statism is a blind alley. As long as there are significant inequalities between people -- which the Welfare State certainly preserves -- the more powerful will be constantly manipulating the social machinery which maintains those inequalities in order to secure and improve their advantages; that's what being more powerful is all about. Getting more social-democratic crumbs to drop from the masters' tables on one occasion or another doesn't guarantee a steady supply of crumbs for the future. Moreover, it doesn't do anything much to mitigate the self-amplifying aggression and accumulativeness of capitalism which pretty much guarantee further and worse catastrophes in the future.
Assuming one is interested in freedom and equality (and in the human race staying around for awhile to enjoy these things) which is what I believe the Left is about, the only way forward is to work for the complete abolition of class, that is, towards anarchy and communism, by the route of your choice. The Welfare State (or State socialism) may lead there, but that's not what happened last time around with either of these political formations.