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The middle class in this article refers to people neither at the top nor at the bottom of a Social Hierarchy . In today's common uneducated usage, the term is often incorrectly applied to people who have a degree of economic independence, but not a great deal of social Influence or Power in their society. While in actual correct usage, "middle class" is defined as representing principally business and professional people, bureaucrats, and some farmers and skilled workers sharing common social characteristics and values. Simplistically for example, in the United States , a small-business owner who owns his or her own home and cleans it herself would generally be described as "middle class". This would be in contrast to a Lower-class person who relies upon the good graces of an employer and landlord, as well as to an Upper-class person who can live from Investments . There are many factors that define a middle class, such as financial, behavioral and historic grounds. In the US it is predominantly finance that determines the social hierarchy. In other countries it can be social factors such as education, employment and profession ( White Collar rather than Blue Collar , home ownership (vs. Renting) or culture. Do note that low end White Collar jobs do not equate with being Middle Class , as the example of a store clerk who will be Lower-class , and top end blue collar professionals will be middle class, as in the example of master carpenters and builders. HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF THE TERM Not everyone will accept the introductory example given above, for the term "middle class" has a long history and has had many, sometimes contradictory, meanings. It was once defined by exception as an intermediate Social Class between the Nobility and the Peasantry of Europe . While the nobility owned the countryside, and the peasantry worked the countryside, a new Bourgeoisie (literally "town-dwellers") arose around mercantile functions in the city. This had the result that the middle class were often the wealthiest stratum of society (whereas today many take the term to refer by definition to the only-moderately wealthy.) Descending from this distinction, the phrase "middle class" came to be used in the United Kingdom during the 18th century to describe the professional and business class, as distinct from both the Titled Nobility and the landed Gentry on the one hand and the agricultural and (increasingly) industrial laborers on the other. Throughout the twentieth century, the titled nobility of the United Kingdom became less homogeneous. This was because of the increasingly eclectic background of new creations, most of which were politically driven by the so-called middle class, and the declining power of the House Of Lords relative to the House Of Commons after the Parliament Act 1911 . So far as the hereditary element of class was concerned, the titled upper class became less numerous because of the near cessation of new hereditary creations after the Life Peerages Act 1958 . This was coupled with the natural rate of extinction of existing hereditary titles and the near abolition of the hereditary element of the House of Lords at the end of the twentieth century. At this point, hereditary titles are in no way the key to being "upper class," although they do lend a distinctive panache within the upper class. In early industrial Capitalism , the middle class was defined primarily as White-collar workers—those who worked for wages (like all workers), but did so in conditions that were comfortable and safe compared to the conditions for Blue-collar workers of the " Working Class ." The expansion of the phrase "middle class" in the United States appears to have been predicated in the 1970s by the decline of Labor Union s and the entrance of formerly domestic women into the public workforce. A great number of Pink-collar jobs arose, where people could avoid the dangerous conditions of blue-collar work and therefore claim to be "middle class" even if they were making far less money than a unionized blue-collar worker. In the United States, by the end of the twentieth century, more people identified themselves as middle class than as lower or "working" class, with statistically insignificant numbers identifying themselves as upper class. In contrast, in the United Kingdom, many who traditionally would be considered middle class today identify themselves as working class. In recent surveys up to two-thirds of Britons tend to identify themselves as working class. This has been described as a form of "inverse snobbery." Nonetheless the British Labour Party , which grew out of the organized labor movement and originally drew almost all of its support from the working class, reinvented itself under Tony Blair in the 1990s as " New Labour ," a party competing with the Conservative Party for the votes of the middle class as well as the working class. The size of the middle class depends on how it is defined, whether by education, Wealth , environment of upbringing, Genetic relationships, Social Network , manners or values, etc. These are all related, though far from deterministically dependent. The following factors are often ascribed in modern usage to a "middle class":
(See the following article for basis of $125,000 being minimum net worth for middle class. http://federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2006/financesurvey.pdf ) SOCIOLOGICAL DEFINITION Some modern theories of Political Economy consider a large middle class to be a beneficial, stabilizing influence on Society , because it has neither the possibly explosive Revolution ary tendencies of the Lower Class , nor the Absolutist tendencies of an entrenched Upper Class . Most Sociological definitions of middle class follow Max Weber . Here the middle class is defined by a similar Income level as Semi-professional s or Business owners; by a shared Culture of domesticity and sub-urbanity; and by a level of relative security against social crisis in the form of socially desired skill or wealth. While 95 percent of American s identify themselves as middle class, using the measures of sociology the reality seems different. Some of these individuals are clearly lower or upper class. Threats to the U.S. middle class In the 1990s and 2000s , many feared that the spreading wealth gap would lead to a "collapse of the middle" in American society. A modern threat to the middle class is Downsizing in many sectors of the American economy, competition from lower-paid foreign workers and contractors, and the systematic elimination of unionized labor. In contrast, the British author Alexander Deane thinks that the middle class is not under threat, but rather is the cause of problems itself. In his approach, economic considerations are secondary to moral ones, and the UK middle class is not carrying out its responsibilities as it should. MARXISM AND THE MIDDLE CLASS Marxism does not necessarily see the groups described above as the middle class. The middle class is not a fixed category within Marxism, and debate continues as to the content of this social group. Marxism defines social classes not according to the wealth or prestige of their members, but according to their relationship with the , the Bourgeoisie were that middle class. People often describe the contemporary bourgeoisie as the "middle class from a Marxist point of view", but this is incorrect. Marxism states that the bourgeoisie are the ''ruling class'' (or ''upper class'') in a capitalist society. Marxists vigorously debate the exact composition of the middle class under capitalism. Some describe a "co-ordinating class" which implements capitalism on behalf of the capitalists, composed of the Petit Bourgeoisie , Professional s and Managers . Others dispute this, freely using the term "middle class" to refer to affluent white-collar workers as described above (even though, in Marxist terms, they are part of the Proletariat —the working class). Still others (for example, Council Communists ) allege that there is a class comprising intellectuals, technocrats and managers which seeks power in its own right. This last group of communists allege that such technocratic middle classes seized power and government for themselves in Soviet-style Societies (see Co-ordinatorism ). SEE ALSO
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