Democrats and capital (was: Re: BdL on BE)

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Fri Jun 8 08:37:54 PDT 2001


At 08:28 AM 6/8/01 -0400, todd a. wrote:
>No, no Wojtek. My question was an "honest" one, not rhetorical. You seemed
>to have some idea about the Middle-Class; I tend to agree with your
>description from what I know about middle-class tendencies (although the
>anti-labour, low-taxes stuff could easily be generated by capitalists of all
>sizes). I wanted your thoughts on my question.
>

Sorry that I missed that. Here is the question:


>>Are the suburbs being followed by the ghettoes, thanks to gentrification in
the urban cores? That might mean the middle-class is shrinking as more of them stay where they are socio-economically and the upper parts of the economy rocket off, leaving them behind, thanks to the shedding of "high-status" workers. <<

To be honest, I don't know how. The shrinking-middle-class has been around for a while. When I worked as a "consultant" for Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors (aka Silicon Valley) I recall receiving a memo from some state tax number crunchers lamenting that phenomenon. But I do not think that middle class is defined by income or at least not alone. Class identity plays a big role, and that identity tends to persist regardless of income. Ditto for the ghettoes - it's the mentality not just the money. Middle class would have to take a gigantic dip to shatter middle class identity.

As far as urban gentrification is concerned, I thing it is a good thing because it tends to keep high income people in the cities, thus increasing tax base and revitalizing cities. Methinks a great deal of US social ills is related to land use, esp. suburban sprawl.

wojtek



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list