Middle class
The middle class (or middle classes) comprises a social group once defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry. In early industrial capitalism the middle class was defined by exclusion of all remaining semi-feudal nobles, all remaining semi-feudal peasants, and the emerging working class. Since the working classes constituted the vast majority of the population, the middle classes actually lay near the top of the social pyramid.
Modern theories of political economy consider a large middle class to be a beneficial, stabilizing influence on society, because it has neither the explosive revolutionary tendencies of the lower class, nor the stultifying greedy tendencies of the upper class.
Sociological debates concerning definition
The middle class is colloquially used in English to refer highly paid white collar workers. These workers are usually tertiary educated with University or other qualifications. They possess jobs which are perceived to be both "high status" and "secure". This colloquial middle class has historically low rates of union membership and socialist voting, high rates of house or long term lease ownership, and is perceived to believe in bourgeois values.
Sociologically this colloquial impression of the middle class holds little weight. Before the Second World War, the United Kingdom had a highly visible and stratified class system including finely distinguished differentiations between different statuses of middle class. (See Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying, first published in England in 1936, and in America in 1956).
Most sociological definitions of middle class follow Max Weber. Here the middle class is defined by a similar income level as semi-professionals, or buisiness 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.
The size of the middle class depends on how it is defined. By education, money or wealth, environment of upbringing, birth (genetic relationships), social network, etc. These are all related, though far from deterministically dependent.
The middle class of the First World
As the swollen middle class in the first world lost its distinctive usefulness as a label, observers invented sub-labels: we often detect in contemporary societies an "upper middle class" and a "lower middle class". However, some have argued that the "lower-middle" class merely represents a materially privileged (by global standards) but positionally disadvantaged working class. Sociologists have argued that such people are not a part of the middle class at all. On the other hand, one could regard the western countries as having outsourced the labour requirements previously fulfilled by the working classes to, for example, sweatshops in India. Clearly industrialisation has reduced those requirements in some ways, but given that the richest countries buy goods from the poorest in quantities they could not produce themselves, it does not seem to have removed them.
The middle class of the United States
While 95 percent of Americans identify themselves as middle-class, using the measures of sociology the reality seems different: Some of these individuals are (in those terms) lower or upper class. The expansion of the phrase in the United States appears to have been predicated in the 1970s by the decline of labor unions, the entrance of formerly domestic women into the public adult work force, and the naming and blaming of the underclass in the slums.
Around 1980, when asked what level of personal income would qualify as middle-class, George H. W. Bush replied: $50,000. In fact, only 5 percent of the U.S. population was making that level of income at the time.
Threats to the US 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. Political theory predicts that such a happening would be disastrous. A modern threat to the middle class is downsizing in many sectors of the American economy, and the systematic elimination of unionized labor.
Politics of the US middle class
In the United States, politicans typically target the votes of the middle classes. The middle class is perceived to includes many swing voters. This is attempted (and apparently achieved) by pandering to their tastes, as party researchers and ad men see them.
Marxism and the middle class
Marxism does not necessarily see the groups described above as the middle class.
Marxism postulates that social classes have a specific relationship with means of production. A noble owns land. A capitalist owns capital. A worker owns their ability to work. However, between the rulers and the ruled there is most often a group of people, often called a middle class which lacks a specific relationship. Historically, during feudalism, the bourgeoisie were that middle class. People often describe the contemporary bourgeoisie, incorrectly, as a middle class.
The exact composition of the middle class under capitalism is vigourously debated by Marxists. Some describe a "coordinating class" which implements capitalism, comprised of the petit bourgeoisie, professionals and managers. Others dispute this, freely using the term middle class to refer to affluent white collar workers as described above. Still others, (Council communists) allege that there is a class comprised of 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 the Soviet-style societies.
The middle class is not a fixed catagory within Marxism, and debate continues as to the content of this social group.
For Marxist views on this class, compare bourgeoisie. Note that this is not the same thing as middle class; see also bohemian.