Adonis Diaries

Middle Class mystery uncovered

The term Middle Class is not new. Aristotle stated in “Politics”: “The Middle Class in the City-States is the surest foundation for a stable and good social organization of the city.  The governance of the city will invariably be good if the middle class enjoys preponderance over the two other extreme classes of the lower and higher classes. It is best that the middle class dominates both of the other classes, at least totally one of them.

A city governed by the lower class (the poor and uneducated) will quickly verges on demagoguery. A city governed by the higher class is tantamount to establishing a despotic  oligarchy. The Middle Class tends not to be exposed to extreme radical policies for change, and seeks stability and continuity in the existing institutions…”

Even then, 400 years BC, the middle class political concept and perception was to supporting existing Law and Order category of citizens, who prefers to reform institutions gradually through fair representation of the majority of citizens (meaning the middle class hegemony in political transition of power,,,)

History accounts for periods of change reveals that when middle class allies to either the lower or the higher class reforms ensue. When the MC sides with the lower class, the revolution is short-lived, and the “hot-headed radicals” are countered, but important reforms follow to satisfy the virulent downtrodden.

When the MC rallies behind the higher class, the newer political order last much longer since the economy and the officers of the army were in the hands of the more educated and wealthier sections in society, and also serious reforms follow. Examples will be forthcoming in Part 2.

Even the “economical” subdivision among classes is political in nature. Economists select the two extreme tails of the Bell-Shaped graph of the earning of the citizens.  The economists select 20% of the population on the left tail and consider the range of their earning: These people are classified as lower classes citizens. The 20% on the right tail are labelled the higher class category. The in-between or 60% are named Middle Class.

Every social/political system, regardless of ideology, want 20% of the citizens to be of the “maintenance” type, those in charge of cleaning after the “working” people, the “hygiene engineers” and daily workers in the infrastructure and in factories…

Societies also want to reserve at most 20% of the citizens to be in control and command of the society: They are the politicians, the highest ranked n the public service, the high-ranked officers of the army and internal security, the corporate leaders, the financiers…all of them switching chairs and positions and responsibilities…and the more restrictive this class of elite the bigger the share of the pie in the country wealth.

The middle class is almost always divided into the lower Middle Class LMC and the upper Middle Class UMC. The LMC earn less than the median income, but higher than the lower class, and they are constituted of employees, low ranked public servants, technicians (with technical skills for maintaining the infrastructure), foremen, small family businesses… The UMC earn more than the median income, but lower than the Higher Class citizens, and they are constituted of high ranked public servants, professors of universities, private intelligentsia (lawyer, physicians, engineers…), supervisors in large corporations, managers, owners of medium enterprises.

In stable social-democratic societies with States strongly engaged in responding to the citizens needs and welfare, the Bell-Shaped curve is pretty flatter and the left tails a tad fatter, and the right tail pretty thinner: Citizens pay higher taxes on income so that the State may distribute the wealth to the remaining of the less privileged citizens.  The Middle class citizens are not that clustered within a tight range of income.

Do you know that 13% in the  US evaluate their wealth as belonging to the highest 1% richest? There is no contradiction in this feeling and it is pretty objective. People in rural regions for example who are wealthy enough to be considered the leaders of the community may feel pretty comfortable and comparable in local life-style to the wealthy urban rich people who are living in very inflated and expensive environment…How much money do you need to be recognized as a wealthy person? It is the community who decides and recognizes you as such…

In preemptive wars, wars not engaged to defend the borders against an invader, most of the soldiers and lower rank officers are from the lower middle class citizens. Actually, in serious economical downturns, imperial powers fabricate a reason for a preemptive war in order to reduce drastically the actual unemployment rate that might disturb peace, order and stability in the society…

Note: The US claims that no foreign individual was hoarded in the army in Iraq. They confirm that only those who had a Green Card (enjoying all civil rights except the voting right) were promised a passport after the engagement term, sort of advancing the period for eligibility to “earning an US passport”. In most cases, the terms of the contracts were extended several times, until death prevailed over the luxury of obtaining this cherished passport, which turns out to be a liability if you are visiting many foreign States. In any case, this claim can be easily investigated.