>Funny. He seemed to be less "mystified" a month and a half ago when
>he wrote on 7/26:
>
>"You're just wrong to say there's no
>demographically significant middle class in the U.S. It's about a
>third of the working population and probably half the electorate."
>
>and then again on the same day:
>
>"The professional-managerial class is not small - a bit over a third
>of the workforce, and probably half the current electorate. Here's
>the breakdown from the June employment report, table A-7 (apologies
>for the graceless Excel-induced truncations). There are probably some
>"managers" who have fairly working-class jobs, but still, these
>numbers are not demographically insignificant."
>
>Hopefully this signifies a retreat from an adherence to the notion
>of a middle class altogether.
>
>And I will give him credit for at least standing firm on upholding
>income figures and job position as indicators of class. Now perhaps
>he can explain, outside of strictly bourgeois economic pretexts, how
>one could possibly do so?
I don't get the last point, but I will concede you've caught me in some terminological inexactitude. So here's what I really think, if you or anyone else cares. The phrase "middle class," obscures more than it reveals, "objectively" speaking. It's a comforting self-identification for working class people with aspirations, and its a democratizing idenficiation for richer people who want to be common folk. But those self-i.d.'s are real, and have political effects.
Also, the "professional-managerial class" in the US is not small. Their lives are quite different from more classically working-class people. They're a big part of the electorate, too.
Strictly in income terms, the US has a smallish middle class compared to other rich countries - we've got more rich and more poor. You'd never know that from our popular discourse, however. But you can tell people they're not middle class all you like and you're lucky not to get punched in the face.
Doug