Prototypical defining middle class

From: Eugene Matusov (ematusov@udel.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 23 2000 - 11:12:01 PST


Hello everybody--

Here is my 2 cents for ongoing discussion of what is middle class. I'm
really thankful Leigh for her wonderfully informative little essay on two
main classifications that our culture is familiar with. I found it very
useful for our discussion of the definition of middle class. I think that
part of my previous frustration with how to approach to the definition was
that I tried to Aristotelian classification -- it there was something in a
concrete case (e.g., the fact that like working class people, the majority
middle class people work and live on their salaries) that does not fit to my
definition, it bothered me. Now, after thinking about prototypical
classification (that I did not before) I feel much better.

To define my prototypical definition of "middle class" I decided to
interview myself to reveal my use of this term and see what prototype would
develop out of this. Here is an abbreviated result of my "self-interview":

1. The famous Russian writer of the 19th century Dostoevsky coined a new
term "intelligencia" to describe a new emerging social group. That group was
close to two familiar existing and well-known social groups in then Russia,
"raznochintsy" (a low level Tsarist bureaucrats) and "mestsane" (petite
bourgeois in cities). Unlike all other groups, intelleginecia had to serve
and live on wages but was preoccupied with their struggle to understand the
"eternal problems" of live that have spiritual, philosophical, religious,
morals, and ethical nature. Despite obvious belonging to this group,
Dostoevsky was not fully positive about this group (read "Crime and
Punishment") but he had high hopes for it as leading force for reform in the
society.

2. Lenin also noticed this group but redefined it in economic terms. He
called it "prosloika" (literally, an in-between layer) between the working
class and the class of capitalists. He included in this group managers,
engineers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, clergy, state bureaucrats, and...
professional revolutionaries like himself. He did not call it "class"
because, according to Marx's definition of class, this group did not have
its specific role in its relationship to means of production and
distribution. Lenin emphasized that this "prosloika" is very instable with
regard to its own economical and political interests. On the one hand,
because of being salaried and waged, it has similar interests as working
class. On the other hand, because of its serving to the class of capitalists
it involves in production of dominant capitalist ideologies. Lenin urged
never to fully trust intelligencia. Stalin used this warning for his
sweeping murders of the elite of the Communist party in specific and Soviet
intelligencia in general.

3. Some Western economists and sociologists criticize Marx and Marxism for
overlooking the phenomenon of "middle class" as the dominant social group in
developed postindustrial societies. They often emphasize the notion of
"People Capitalism." I guess this term was developed in 20s in US just
before the Stock Crush of 1929. According to this model, all people in
future will have stocks and will work and thus all people will be both
working-class and capitalists at the same time. According to these
theoreticians, people capitalism with middle class as its basis is the
future and an alternative to communism depicted by Marx.

4. Western economists often define "middle class" as people whose basic
needs (cf. Masloy) are covered -- they do not need to struggle for
survival -- and who have choices of consumption and lifestyles (cf.
Masloy's term of "self-actualization").

5. If I'm not mistaken, Jay Lemke wrote some time ago on XMCA about the
relationship between middle class and production of sings. I'd like with Jay
join our discussion because I think that this relationship is important and
overstated.

6. Western social scientists, like Heath, Rogoff, Gee, Cole, Scribner and
others documented at middle class has its own culture of communication,
parenting, guidance, literacy, and so based on a distinct clusters of value
systems (I want use polarity). This culture dominates in the design of
majority (if not all) Western institutions including publicly sponsored
ones (e.g., schools, hospitals, state workplaces).

The pattern that emerges from this prototypical defining middle class is
that it is multifaceted: a person can belong to middle class in one
sense/sphere/context/time-moment and not in another.

I hope I missed something in my prototypical definition of middle class and
people will come to add and change items on my list.

What do you think?

Eugene



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