Since the end of world War 2 the industrial engine of the US has been on the backs of the middle class…..everyone. politicians that is, wants to embrace the middle class and speaks to them at every outing……but in the last couple of decades this system has been slowly strangling the middle class out of existence……
I am concerned that once the middle class is eliminated then the political elites will take complete control and we know where that will lead…..we are already flirting with a very ugly political ideology……and the path we are on today will lead to the extinction of the middle class once and for all…..
I read this article in the American Conservative and found it an interesting piece with some excellent insights…..check it out and then tell me what you think….
Everyone loves the middle class. Everyone claims to be middle-class—some to put a gloss on their sketchy escutcheons, others to dodge chastisement for their awkward riches.
Source: What Middle Class? | The American Conservative
Is the Middle Class doomed? Is there hope it can be saved? If so, then who will save it?
A very long, but interesting and well-documented essay. After reading it, one cannot say he/she doesn’t understand the middle class through the ages.
I am pleased that you enjoyed it and found it informative….chuq
Yes, it’s both an enlightening article and a juicy conservative rant. But does it embrace the ideas of equality of opportunity and of mobility, except to say, “What has vanished from all these leftist analyses are the key middle-class elements of independence, self-sufficiency, ownership, entrepreneurship, and real social power.”
I missed what the conservative counterpoint might be to that. But FDR’s New Deal (hated by the wealthy of his day) once solved the problem – opening the way for hard-working people to achieve a higher social/economic station, which included ownership, etc.
What happens is that equality of opportunity enables people to acquire wealth as a result of their mental and physical labors. But even as more and more people rise up, that very equality of opportunity diminishes. Chris Hayes’ book ‘The Twilight of the Elites’ explains it. With even a small financial edge, people can take advantage of resources that others can’t afford and thereby get ahead more easily than them. And so it goes, until a problematic level of inequality results.
Every so often, you need to reset the balance. We are at that stage. What are the elites, supposedly worried about the disappearing middle class, waiting for? They need to give a little bit up – or else the whole system will topple, with them in it. Balance is everything. I say, let the pendulum swing back to focus on workers for awhile.
Workers are no longer a priority….neither party has any idea how to reset the thing…..maybe one will come to them in the shower….
The middle class are like veterans. Every political douche-bag loves to hug them in front of the cameras and cheering audiences. But when the cameras & audiences leave, that’s when the real squeezing starts. They’re squeezed hard, right until they pop. The reality is that both groups are of equal value to dogshit to the system.
In America, “middle class” is quickly becoming a myth, if it isn’t already. But there is so much denial & slight of hand going on, most people don’t realize they aren’t middle class anymore. Between mountainous personal debt and bullshit like “The Sharing Economy”, it’s never been easier for people can pretend they’re something they aren’t.
We Americans have turned “pretending” into an art form…..most of us spend a lot of time with our heads in the sand…or up some politician’s butt….