The Middle Class...

[anaxarchos]

The original American reference to a "middle class" probably comes from Britain. It referred, as on the continent, to the propertied but untitled yeomanry of the countryside, the rising burghers in the cities, and the mercantile classes as a whole. It was an accurate naming. What was to become the bourgeoisie really did originally stand between the aristocracy and the property-less classes.

The next stage in this evolution was the rise of the absolute monarchies with the former middle class becoming a major, and sometimes equal, pillar of the state, alongside the aristocracy (the "Third Estate" in France, as an example). In Britain, this evolution was stillborn in many ways because the British bourgeoisie came to power much earlier than in many other countries (in the Civil War of 1648). The English bourgeoisie followed regicide with a “restoration” of a slavish monarchy, and then merged the old aristocracy with itself. Large estates became alienable, titles could be bought and sold, and the monarchical institutions became largely ceremonial. In turn, the middle class "gentlemen" of the 18th century really were an income tier - possessing enough property to avoid the coarser trades but lacking the wherewithal to buy title and transcendence. The Americas were colonized by such... or at least the local power descended from such.

At this point, the meaning of middle-class diverges. On the Continent, the middle-class came to be a description of the mass of small property holders, owning their own means of production but typically employing only their own labor or perhaps a handful of others and even that, often seasonally. This is the infamous "petite-bourgeoisie" and it owed its infamy to its instability. Aspiring to raise itself within the ranks of the property owners on the one hand, it was continuously expropriated and diminished in numbers on the other. The story of the next 100 years of European history is precisely that story.

In Britain, a similar process transpired, but with two counteracting influences. Just as in Europe, the lands were "cleared" and the small holders were expropriated, but at the same time the British mercantile monopolies bore fruit. A worldwide colonial empire was transformed into the engine of capital accumulation and its essential product was the industrial revolution. In both cases, it was not just a vast army of proletarians who were created but also a sea of unusually skilled “labor aristocrats”, specialists, managers, colonial officials, minor civil servants, and professionals of every type and description. This was more a new social stratum than a class, but it echoed some of the perspectives of that which came before it, and it was dependent on and wedded to the social system of Empire. It was not so much that the proceeds of Indian labor went to London bank clerks, as it was that Indian banks were located in London… certainly their management and their hierarchy of favored positions was located in London. This is the genesis of the transformation of the British middle-class, from a continental to an Imperial definition.

That British middle-class, the source of endless political stability and social philistinism, lasted as long as the Empire and industrial ascendancy did. The bankruptcy of that Empire after WW2 and its rapid dismantling also ended the rein of middle-class politics. Politics, in turn, was just a reflection of the decomposition of the “class”, itself. While middle-class nostalgia was producing Thatcher Tories, the British standard of living was falling to the same level as that of Italy or Portugal. Today, few such illusions remain, although a “New” Britain has risen in the nexus of EU and American economics.

With this allegory in mind, it is possible to look at America. While, the origin of the term may be British, for most of its history, the American middle-class went by a Continental definition. America was a “middle-class” country from its inception… built on “free” land (in the dual sense… i.e. also “freed” from its former inhabitants). As late as the decades after the Civil War, 70% of the population owned their own means of production, even if it was modest in most cases. The subsequent transformation of that status was partly the operation of the very same forces as we have already described and partly the result of the flood of European immigrants, recently freed from their property. Daveparts has referred to the backwardness of rural America in the 1930s. On this, he is quite right. In approximately 60 years, the population of freeholders fell from 70% to less than 10%. It is less than 5% today, once the various tax schemes and contractor rackets are abstracted away. The story of America before the War is the story of The Grapes of Wrath and in no way could the U.S. be accurately described as a “middle-class country”.

So what has changed, since? Was it FDR, the New Deal, Democrats… a new “Enlightenment” perhaps? In fact, it was a positive outcome to the Second World War. What Britain lost, the U.S. inherited. And among that inheritance was a new definition for “middle-class”, adopted from the English. Social mobility, the movement up the division of labor, a certain level of prosperity, advancement through education… and all of it made possible from industrial ascendancy and the fact that Indian banks were now located in New York. The end of that era comes with globalization. It makes little difference whether the new era produces a new capitalist competition or whether the very success of American Empire relocates Indian banks to India. The inevitable result will be the decomposition of the American middle-class and there is not a single political perspective which promises otherwise. It is the division of misery in the decline that is in question.

I don’t agree with Chlamor that there is a physical shortage of physical material which prevents a generalization of middle-class prosperity worldwide. But, once past that disagreement, the argument is moot because he might as well be right. Capitalism does not elevate… it expropriates and impoverishes. Its urban slums and shanty towns are a step down from the rural, quasi-capitalist material it begins with. Worldwide, it expropriates wealth from the many instead of creating “prosperity”. It is only in microcosm that it appears otherwise.

On PopI, there are some charts on postwar income in the U.S. which I can’t currently find but which I will look for again. They divide U.S. income into a hierarchy of 10 tiers, each representing 10% of the population, and then project that income forward from WW2. For something like 20 years, the top seven or eight of the ten reach upwards… until they stall in the 1960s and 70s. After that, one after another, the next highest tier stagnates… sometimes even falls… until only a couple of tiers continue to advance. Meanwhile, the “lifestyle” is temporarily maintained through two incomes, and then through huge debt and home equity loans, followed by the first general drop in home ownership and the first general reversal of “liquidity” in a generation. The story is straightforward.

All attempts to paint the existence of the middle-class as an aspect of “politics” or policy, positively or negatively, are simply wrong. The "middle-class" is a historically created, changing, and ultimately decomposing social structure which is no more a permanent part of America than Conestoga Wagons or the railroads.

[Dhalgren]

only in some kind of technical, hierarchical sense? The Brit Mid Class really took over the functional position of the "Upper Class", right? And the American upper classes, for political reasons, called themselves "Middle Class", when in actuality they were Upper class. The romance of the American middle class was what Adams and Washington and Hamilton and the like were all about. Jefferson even feigned a middle class sensibility at times (although that sensibility had to eventually be beaten into the Southern aristocracy). I understand your historical breakdown and agree with it, completely, but at least in the USA, there is a real sense of unreality to it all; a "play-acting", both upwards and downwards, that causes a great deal of skepticism from a lot of persons.

This also, in part, holds true for the Brit Mid Class - in that they became the ruling class - which makes their "middle" status at least suspect in a certain light.

On edit: "The "middle-class" is a historically created, changing, and ultimately decomposing social structure which is no more a permanent part of America than Conestoga Wagons or the railroads."

I guess this is what I was getting at. The idea of a "Middle Class" seems so "trumped-up" and utilitarian as a concept that it makes for skepticism.

[anaxarchos]

The technical middle class is an artifact of the Victorian Age.

At first, the British bourgeoisie were a despised and oppressed class-let under feudalism. Then they became the source of cash for the monarchy, separate from the proceeds of royal lands (the King had originally been just another Lord). When Britain went to sea, the English bourgeoisie largely displaced the gentry as the military class. Eventually, they took power. The largest of the British capitalists merged with the defeated aristocracy... in many cases, quite literally. One of the first profitable businesses after the Civil War for the unemployed aristocracy was the production of offspring for marriage and the transfer of hereditary title. The smaller bourgeois became the new "middle-class", now supplemented by paid employees (if privileged ones) of the larger capitalists, and these were supplemented in turn by a rising number of specialists. Eventually, after the Industrial Revolution, the term described highly paid employees almost exclusively through the elimination of most independent proprietors, though technical progressions provided some opportunities for moving up the class ladder. The original class had been revolutionary and in competition with their "betters". The reconstructed one, which was mostly not a class at all, was absolutely slavish in its loyalty and was the mainspring of Empire.

The American Brits were "middle-class" in the original sense: landed, propertied, but untitled. So too were the bulk, perhaps even a majority, of the original population, although they held much lesser property. But in America, there was no landed gentry... the term was a nonsensical import, more significant for what you mention than as for anything else.

The unreality of it all is inevitable. A new, faux middle-class is declared just as the old, real one is destroyed.

But the real innovation was the scale of it all... in Britain and America. Such a middle-class exists in every capitalist country. The difference with these two was that it was declared to exist as even a majority of the population. It takes a lot of bodies to administer an Empire, it seems.

[Dhalgren]

So the current designation, "Middle Class", in this country means what, at this point in social development? Can we talk about the "real" "middle" group of our current society? Is there an actual, coherent grouping that could be called "the middle"? It seems to my "worm's perspective" that there are only two classes of any real substance. I know people who insist that they are "Middle Class" without being able to define what that means. When I point out to them that even though they live in a "MacMansion", in a stylish subdivision, they are paying a mortgage or if they have managed to pay off their mortgage, their property only has value as a sales item or as collateral for further loans - the payment of which cannot come from any proceeds or profits of said property. This hardly seems "Middle Class" to me. When I point out to them that they, too, are living paycheck to paycheck (even if the paycheck is large and their lifestyle elevated, they do not appreciate my insight. They act as though I had insulted them.

When we talk about "the middle" in this society, at this time, who are we speaking of?

[Dhalgren]

OK, so the middle class, historically, first arose, growing in the unoccupied spaces between the titled aristocracy and the bound serfs in late medieval Europe. They found a niche where they could serve the Lords and accrue wealth. But their coherence as a "class" was never of the same kind as either of the other major classes - especially across international boundaries. Correct? Is the middle classes more likely to be "nationalistic" than either of the others? Is that why they "fit" so neatly into imperial service? The "Lower" classes had a certain solidarity of condition and position; the titled classes were connected by marriage and blood, education and position. But the "middle" was less connected to foreign members of the middle - even to middles in their own country because of the competition? Is this even remotely on point? Or have I "wondered off" again?

[anaxarchos]

The original was quite the opposite of how you describe them. The atomic unit of feudalism was the feudal estate. Within it, there was a largely self-sufficient order based on a perfect hierarchy of Lords, sub-Lords, armed men, squires and overseers - all living by the labor of the largest class in feudal society, the serfs. The serfs owned the land or were owned by it... take your pick. Land was not alienable. It mostly could not be bought and sold. In truth, few things could be bought and sold.

The serfs were obliged to work the land and they owed some part of either their labor or the product of their labor to the Lord. This surplus labor or surplus product was "surplus" in the same way as surplus value... i.e. it was the amount over and above that which it took to reproduce the serfs themselves. As with modern day wages, in part this was set by a physical minimum and in part by historical circumstances. In any case, the whole was largely a closed system. Very little of the product of the feudal estate was bought and sold, and little interaction existed between the estates. Wealth was in land and serfs; not in money. Add continuous warfare and raiding, totally arbitrary rules within each estate, a very complex set of "rights and obligations" negotiated and renegotiated over centuries, a second equivalent hierarchy (the Church) checker-boarded with the first, the complete absence of national "feeling" or loyalty or culture of any type, and we have the rosy dawn of chivalry.

What changed to move this mess was that eventually the feudal wars died down and large scale trade, which had been dormant since the end of Rome, began to reemerge. This trade was the province of "private individuals", merchants and small producers, who were outside of the feudal system, both figuratively and physically. They lived in towns which were not part of any estate and they were allowed to exist because it suited the landed aristocracy. In general, they traded or produced what the estates could not produce for themselves. Trade begat profits, profits begat capital, capital extended both trade and production, a part of the feudal surplus started to be converted into money (sold) so that their Lordships could buy the finer things, which soon became necessary aspects of feudal life. At this point, the towns began to grow, to extend the "rights" that they negotiated for themselves, to govern themselves and to use the money which remained their monopoly to buy armed men of their own.

The people of the towns were self-conscious of their class interests from the beginning... they were "townsmen": "burghers" in German, "bourgeoisie" in French. The rise of the towns and later the cities of Europe IS the rise of the bourgeoisie. At first, they threw their weight behind, not their own right to rule, but behind the monarchy. Prior to this point, the strength of the monarchs had been little greater than any other Lord. It had been confined to the wealth of Crown lands and the power of the King's own armed men ("guards", "gens d'armes", "household troops"). What the relationship with the towns gave to the Monarchy was money. Money, in turn, paid for soldiers (the genesis of national armies) which replaced the feudal levy, a national infrastructure, the breaking of the power of the anarchic landed aristocracy and palaces on a scale never imagined. For the bourgeoisie, the relationship bought national tariffs, national tolls, national commerce and an ever greater portion of the national output which was transformed into money... i.e. which was transformed into commodities and bought and sold.

In this way, national monarchy immensely strengthened the bourgeoisie. Commerce begat mercantile empire, imperial proceeds drove the town shops, then the workshops, then the manufactories and eventually, even industry a century before the first steam engines went into use. As the power of the bourgeoisie increased, the newly invented Monarchies became ever more reactionary, falling back on the now decadent and parasitic nobility, the feudal constitution and whatever remnants of feudalism remained. It is in this context that the bourgeoisie was the "middle class", that class which was the paymaster of every monarchy and the actual power in each country but still lacked the political rights of the aristocracy just as the "people" did. The slogans that were raised by the bourgeoisie are exactly the same ones that they raise today, but their modern incarnations lack the very specific demands against the monarchy from which they were born.

Far from being incoherent, their coherence, as a class, was unique and revolutionary. They invented "nations". No such thing existed before their time. They also invented "education" and the rest. But their greatest invention was their need to "free" the populace in order to free themselves. The snaky Brits were the exception, trying to make their revolution on the sly. On the continent, the only way to get rid of the decayed fungus weighing down society was "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity". Of course, the newly freed citoyens could now also go to work for their new moneyed equals, producing everything in the form of commodities, to be bought and sold on a free market.

That which I describe above was the "real" class, which clearly and openly becomes the ruling class. And the rule of that class is simultaneously the genesis of the modern "free laborer", the proletarian who is free from property (other than personal property) and is immediately subject to conditions (unhealthier, far longer working day, etc.) which are noticeably worse than the bondsmen which precede them. It is only after that transformation that a new "class" rises to occupy the new "middle". In truth, it is not class but a polyglot. It consists of small proprietors who are constantly diminished in number, new "entrepreneurs" propelled by revolutionary changes in industry, highly paid employees of large enterprises, educated professionals and specialists, and even an "aristocracy of labor". This exists in every country. What makes it quite often reactionary is its total dependence on the ruling class.

The point I was making about the new "class" was not that it "fits" into Empire. It doesn't fit any better than Swiss and Scots fit into being mercenaries, yet these two nationalities supplied soldiers-for-hire to nearly every monarchy in Europe. It is merely a historical accident. My point was not that they "fit" but that they exist on such a grand scale, precisely because of Empire. In the 1950s and 1960s, the political population of the U.S. included not only the small businessmen, engineers, and advertising executives of the U.S. but also those of India, and Argentina, and Belgium, and Tunisia... all of whom happened to be American... for the moment.

It is Empire on a grand scale which produces this polyglot on such a grand scale, so as to dominate the political life of a country and drown even proletarian thought in ordinary philistinism. And it is the death of Empire, or its stagnation, which will weaken and ultimately displace that monopoly. How do we know this to be true? The same way as everything else we know... it wasn't always like this.

[curt_b]

Here's how I see it (and I'm talking about the US experience). You've taken a term, "middle class", that some people, including me, have thought to designate only a relative standard of living, or is used as a leveling mechanism to describe fictional popular support for status quo policies (i.e. middle class values). My previous understanding makes the term too imprecise to be useful to analyses of political economy.

So, you it take from a national context, where it obscures the identity of the working class in the US, and examine it as a consequence of a successful imperialist project. Now, the middle class becomes those in the US (apart from large owners of capital) that receive significant material benefits from the administration and sustenance of the American Empire. The term has economic meaning and a relationship to power. As the American Empire fades into one marked by the increasing globalization of capital, the US middle class shrinks due to the loss the country's control to the "new global empire".

This allows talk about the good old days of the middle class as having been dependent on the US as the center of Imperialism, instead of expressions of greed, consumerism, etc. It also locates discussions of the relative wealth of the international working class in materialism, apart from fairness.

[anaxarchos]

n/t

[anaxarchos]

Is OK, if you are...

[curt_b]

If, what I wrote is unclear, I apologize. I really thought the way you made sense out of something very abstract to me was impressive.

[Dhalgren]

You know, I really like reading you stuff. It makes a lot of sense (even if I do screw the translation).

OK. One more little set of questions and we will let you go back to your cell.

The "classic" Middle Class arose because of needs within the existing society. Then, largely through the existence of this new "class", society was changed, altered in a dialectic(?) that ushered in an essentially new social structure. Right?

Now that the current manifestation of the Middle Class in this country (and maybe within the Empire) is deteriorating and rotting into nothingness, does that herald a new social structure's arrival? What will replace the vanishing Middle Class or has it simply ceased being needed and no "replacement" will be necessary?

[anaxarchos]

...the seat of Empire, and abstract away the obvious. What do you see? I see economic stagnation and an erosion of the middle-class base, with the whole process largely accelerated by this recession. In truth, capitalism happily proceeding towards peace and prosperity with only a handful of social issues to contend with... that is a very new idea.

From the time of the French Revolution through Bonaparte to the complete political rule of the bourgeoisie in Europe is less than 50 years. In the intervening period comes the Industrial Revolution. Within twenty years after that, the whole scheme is in constant crisis with undreamed of political consequences due to competition. Old Empires - the Russian, the Austrian, the Ottomans, the Spanish - struggle to adapt quickly enough. A new Empire, Japan, passes from early Feudalism to modern capitalism in but 30 years, while another, the U.S. is created from whole cloth. Meanwhile, from an odd mixture of cities and small provinces, Hess-Darmstadt, Saxony, Piedmont, etc., two entirely new, modern nations, Germany and Italy, are "unified". Old mercantile empires are transformed into new Colonial ones and as economic crisis deepens, so does political, and eventually military competition. A worldwide naval race and perpetual wars of rivalry deepen into the first World war.

At Agincourt, where the "flower" of the French nobility was cut down, less than 20,000 took the field of battle - such were the capabilities of feudalism. At Leipzig, in the "Battle of the Nations" against Bonaparte, the number had swelled to 600,000. By the battle of Verdun in WWI, that was merely the casualty count in a battle that involved millions.

Ten million died in the First World War, perhaps as many as had died in all of the previous wars in human history... and the result was so inadequate that the world was in the deepest economic crisis yet, 10 years later. Twenty years later, round two - the Second World War began... and did not end until 50 million more had died, one third of the world (eventually) opted out (for socialism), and every participant - "winners" and losers - was demolished or bankrupted.... all save one.

It is not surprising that a "middle-class" and some illusions came out of that for a time. Yet, Capitalism doesn't stop. The whole thing was stagnating again by the seventies and the "collapse of socialism" only bought another two decades.

And, here we are, again... Capitalism is stuck and anyone can say anything they like and it is still pissing in the wind. Everything will be overturned again ("win" or lose) because the fucking thing is a machine - it cannot be stopped... the destroyer of Worlds.

And that puts a slightly different spin on all of this.

[anaxarchos]

Not used to friendly comments...

Half of it is a paraphrase of Marx, though.

[Kid of the Black Hole]

I was thinking maybe he was kidding about the linguistic finesse of "Middle" Class (ie the class that is literally in the middle..as in between the Junkers and workers for example). Gotta admit, that IS a little different than our modern defintion of middle class..

[anaxarchos]

I had been wanting to write a little more extended version of that for you since you had been asking about the progression of crisis (and using the "destroyer of worlds" imagery). Believe it or not, it is also related to your Hegel question.

This crisis has changed my thinking as well. For the first time in a while, I see the abyss staring back.

[Dhalgren]

avarice and the desire for power that would provide comforts. The peasant and the proletariat were motivated by the needs of an entire people, by the urge to have a worthwhile life for everyone. He was a poet. The destroyer can be stopped. "How" is what we must find...

[Dhalgren]

Now you're just being scary!

[Kid of the Black Hole]

determination est negation an' all..

[Kid of the Black Hole]

but without the sentiment and much more emphasis on "condition" as opposed to "privilege"

Mao is like the ultimate mixed bag

[Dhalgren]

I actually enjoy a little Nietzsche, but in a discussion of Kali, it can get a bit jittery...