[lbo-talk] Middle Class (was Harriet Miers)

[Mark S]

Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>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.
>
Someone was writing about the 1930s and opined that the tendency of people 
to self-define as middle class was a good thing because it revealed a desire 
to live in a more egalitarian society.  He was struck by the fact that 
working class - often unemployed - men dressed themselves in jacket, tie and 
hat like solidly middle class men did.  But I suppose the desire for an 
egalitarian society doesn't necessarily imply action toward one...

M.

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