Middle class
The term middle class is a degree or level of social class stratification that is applied to people with an average socioeconomic level that falls between the lower class and the upper class.
History
The existence of the middle class, although it can be traced back to the emergence of the bourgeoisie as a separate entity from the nobility and the common people at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Era, goes back as its own concept to the 18th century[citation required]. This class becomes more evident when the social separation is more noticeable due to factors such as authority, wealth, money and work, which gave a different sense of life, religion, education and culture for each part of society. Originally, the members of this class were the old landed bourgeoisie (the gentry, made up of wealthy commoners and the lower nobility), which was beginning to stand out for its success in industry, the liberal professions and commerce..
The rise of the gentry was made possible by the liberal revolutions that occurred in England in the 17th century . As a consequence of them, the English monarchy was weakened, and the aristocratic class lost power in favor of the bourgeoisie, who managed to enter Parliament and, progressively, seize an important parcel of power. From the Parliament they would promote a series of economic and social reforms that would favor the access of the bourgeoisie to the lands (Enclosures,...); The scarce application of the mayorazgos by the aristocracy, always willing to sell land, and the absence of "dead hands" due to the expulsion of the Catholic religious orders, favored the process of access to land by the bourgeoisie. At the same time, a relatively long period of peace allowed for a remarkable commercial development in England, all of which resulted in the appearance of an increasingly numerous social group made up of people engaged in trade, small landowners, clergymen, liberal professionals such as lawyers, architects, writers,..., who, without being rich, had a certain purchasing power that enabled them, among other things, to be able to vote in Parliament. Authentic magnates would soon emerge from among the bourgeoisie who very commonly managed to gain access to the nobility, without thereby abandoning their activities; This characteristic was typical of England, since in other European countries such as France or Spain, accessing the nobility used to mean that the bourgeois abandoned their previous activities.
The new social stratum developed throughout the XVIII century, and expanded as the country's incipient industrialization began, a process in turn closely interrelated with the emergence of the middle class. Indeed, the same socioeconomic changes that allowed its emergence favored the Industrial Revolution: the new bourgeois landowner would have acquired his lands to obtain a return from them, so he would try to improve it by applying new agricultural techniques (Norfolk System,...); the owner of a workshop would try to increase his benefits by producing more, better and cheaper, for which he would resort to inventions such as the steam engine,... The new English middle class quickly created a collective culture that praised personal effort, work and sobriety; the puritanical and conservative spirit of this class sometimes clashed with that of the old aristocracy, with more relaxed customs. Both classes did not mix socially except on rare occasions.
In the rest of Europe, the middle class would begin its development at the hands of the Industrial Revolution, at the beginning of the XIX century. Although reduced at the beginning, the progressive improvements and the economic progress were expanding it; however, it was still made up of people with a certain educational level (doctors, engineers, lawyers,...), and who carried out non-manual trades. Around 1850, when Karl Marx was writing Capital, it was a small group of not much importance, the possible relevance of which Marx explores very little, focusing more on the antagonism between workers and capitalists; by the time, at the end of the XIX century, Max Weber writes his work, it is the main economic group of developed Europe, and Weber devotes great attention to it.
The modern middle class emerged in the 20th century, initially in the United States. The new industries such as Ford's automobile began to apply novel production techniques (Taylorism, line production, product standardization, automation,...) that made it possible to greatly reduce the costs of automobiles while making it possible to pay wages older than factory workers. These, by increasing their purchasing power, were able to access new products (including the automobiles they manufactured), expanding the potential market for industrial products. A new economic dynamic was generated that resulted in an enrichment of the population and an improvement in their living conditions. The middle class would come to integrate these new members, together with the professionals that already comprised it. The application of Keynesian economic theories after World War II created the concept of the welfare state, oriented towards the middle class, which would go on to dominate the landscape of the capitalist world until the beginning of the century XXI.
Scientific definitions of the middle class depend on the theory of social structuring employed by the author Most definitions now rely on Max Weber's theoretical framework, centered on the interaction of wealth variables , power and prestige, another in that of Karl Marx, which integrates the three in a functional model of the social structure as the group made up of class people media that proposed ending the 10 privileges of the army and the clergy.
Weberian definition
According to Weber, society is stratified as a continuum along three parallel dimensions: economic, political, and social. To some extent, his model is akin to the vulgar image of stratification, although he rigorously defines the variables he employs. According to Weber's concept, objective classes do not necessarily correspond to the subjective identifications made by individuals, but are defined by the opportunities offered to them in the markets by their endowment of capital. The dimensions are:
- the “economic status”, which is equivalent to wealth, that is to the income and the capital available to it; the greatest difference between classes is concentrated not on the level of income — although the disparities in this may be up to 1000 % between the upper and lower quintile in modern industrial societies — but above all in the volume and structure of the available capital. The middle class usually does not have enough capital to simply dedicate itself to receiving the interest it produces, but must actively engage itself as a businessman in managing it, as a small-scale trader or industrialist for example. Weber also distinguishes the holders of economic capital from the holders of special skills by which they can obtain a relatively high price and a certain degree of control over the market in which they exercise;
- the “political status”, which is equivalent to power; although it is more difficult to define power in formal or quantifiable terms than wealth, generally equals the ability to determine, directly or indirectly, the action of others. In the Weber model, power is concentrated mainly in the field of politics, through the law and the legitimate monopoly of the violence that the State concentrates. By the control of the State in the hands of an elite, the unequal distribution of power is concentrated in these;
- the "prestige", the ability to influence the action of others through the charismatic impression that one produces. Reputation can be codified in institutional means, such as the terms or titles that are legally granted, or simply exercised in social interaction.
The Weberian concept of class is based above all on the first of these dimensions, the economic one. The class situation is a certain position in a market, which objectively defines the possibilities of accessing certain goods and opportunities that circulate in it; The most characteristic aspect of a class position, in Weber's terms, is precisely the kind of vital opportunities that open up to its members from the possession or not of certain types of goods, and the way in which they exploit They are in a market. The objective similarity between individuals tends to define similar trajectories and sets of experiences between them, even though the values that individuals subjectively ascribe to them are different. At the same time, the possession of certain types of goods defines the possibility of acting in certain markets, and receiving certain benefits in them, which in turn constrain future sets of vital possibilities.
By distinguishing between the different capital markets —industrial, commercial, educational, etc.— and the different investments to which this capital can be applied, Weber postulates the existence of great distinctions within the middle class. In fact, Weber's studies never identify a "middle class" as such; What other analysts subsume under that term is divided, in the Weberian analysis, between technical intelligence —professionals and white-collar technicians, who do not have their own capital but do have skills from which to they can obtain appreciable rents—and the petty bourgeoisie, the class made up of the owners of capital who nevertheless cannot avoid working on their farm themselves.
One of the crucial points of Weberian class analysis is that class is not necessarily a subjectively recognized reality; individuals possess a certain set of possibilities, but are not necessarily aware of it and that others share the same objective destiny. The conversion of objective conditions into subjective identifications —communities— is not invariable.
Marxist definition
In Marxist theory, classes are not defined by their position on linear scales of power, prestige, or wealth, but by their structural function in relations of production (ie, exploitation). The social relations of production, which constitute the basic structure of society, are defined by the use and possession of the means of production, that is, those goods that are not intended for direct consumption, but are used to produce other goods. estate. Control over them, which is relatively independent of the volume of consumption, determines the future evolution of production.
Although Marx never presents a formal theory of social classes—he was working on it at the time of his death—the idea of class is central to all of his work. The Communist Manifesto asserts that "the history of the whole society to date is the history of the class struggle." In many places in his work, the notion of class is elaborated from the notion that it is the relationship between the productive classes that defines the course of history, the theory called historical materialism.
In capitalism, unlike previous forms of production, the economic relations of production completely and absolutely define the social structure; While in feudalism, for example, apparently extra-economic factors, such as the estate (legal inequality), influenced social position, in capitalism this is entirely determined by the possession of means of production and the way of working (economic inequality). The statutory situation is completely transformed into a class situation, and all social advantages depend exclusively on the possession of the means of production. That is, what defines the class is not simply what is possessed, but what is done, the activity in which the person engages.
In the Marxist scheme, the capitalist structure is divided simply between proletarians or workers —that is, those people whose only possession is their own labor power— and capitalists or bourgeois —that is, those people whose ownership of the means of Production defines their position in economic exchange by allowing them to use their wealth to increase its wealth through the exploitation of the workers' labor power.
Like other classes—landlords, for example—the middle class in the Marxist sense is a remnant of earlier times, temporarily subsisting in the capitalist system. Marx considers it to be made up of those who own some property, but not enough to be able to dedicate themselves entirely to the exploitation of the working class (note the difference with Weber, who considered that the owners who had to dedicate their time to business activity were also somehow part of the middle class). The relationship of the petty bourgeois —synonymous, in Marx, with the middle class— with work is therefore ambivalent: it defends private ownership of the means of production, but opposes the political principles of the big bourgeoisie, in favor of the unrestricted liberalization, being aware that it is incapable of competing with it. This ambiguity, which is reflected in internal conflicts, reduces the role of this class as a political actor; to the extent that it has its own character, the petty bourgeoisie is reactionary, advocating the return of the old means of social control that limited the development of capitalism. According to Marx's forecasts, the petty bourgeoisie would tend to disappear, the most successful of its members being absorbed into the upper bourgeoisie —according to the law of concentration of capital—, while the majority of them would become proletarian.
Later Marxist theory would often be concerned with the surprising persistence of the middle class; many analyzes tried to show that, according to Marx's forecasts, it was indeed disappearing. The radical increase in the difference between the upper and lower extremes of income seemed to confirm this hypothesis. Other theoretical options attempted to describe the rise of the "new middle class," made up of white-collar professionals, the growing ranks of bureaucrats and white-collar employees, and the "labor aristocracy," giving rise to post-Fordist theories. Others, finally, affirmed that the opposition within advanced societies was seen transferred to global relations, with the polarization between the central countries and the periphery of the world temporarily fulfilling the role of radicalizing the contradiction between proletarians and capitalists within the same society.
In conclusion we could define the middle class, according to Marxist theory, as that social sector of workers who own their own means of production, or vice versa: that social sector of the owners of the means of production, whose Fortune is not enough to hire workers, so it is he himself who works the means and dedicates himself to the production of merchandise. The important thing about this sector is that the production of their work is not alienated, that is, they enjoy the product of their work.
They were the merchants who had good economic stability, and could pay their taxes without difficulties.
Analysis
The group can be analyzed by individuals with a sociological perspective of symbolic or functionalist interactionism. There is no conflict between classes approach, since the opposition between two unique classes has been resolved by dividing the middle class into two groups: petite bourgeoisie and managers, based on the principle that there is a contradictory location of individuals who are in two classes at the same time. time and in a permeable vertical ascent for equal opportunities. It is a hinge class between those who come from the working class, who manufacture what society needs and aspire to migration to the middle class, and the upper class, which is the elite in power, who dictates the rules, who in a certain way form applies or manages the middle class.
It is a large group, the largest, that supports the concept of capitalist economy and with a high degree of professionalism or social prestige and constituting a new influential proletariat or social power (Mallet), incorporating itself as the new and numerous working class (of Marx) who would own the means of production, which are now part of modernity.
The most interesting properties to analyze are about their behavior and values, manifested in their social action and in relation to their significance and contribution to the social system, related to prestige and power. It is also established that it is a group formed by the technocratic labor market, which is evident in the new definitions of highly qualified jobs. Unequivocally, their contribution is essential as architects of the operational functioning of the social system and its survival. The perception of the middle class by the other two classes is recognition of its role in society. The social stratification is diluted when the middle class increases (Fraga) and (Robles Piquer). The stratification places the classes in the social structure and they develop in the social system in a multidisciplinary way, because it is economic and cultural more prestige and power. Social class refers to individuals and stratification refers to groups. Therefore in the social class the social status is fixed, which corresponds to the distribution of wealth, power and mobility of individuals.
The masterful description of the classes is first in the picaresque novel and then in the realistic novel in the literary realism and naturalism of the European nineteenth-century period and also in current Spanish-American literature (Vargas Llosa) for the old and new class. Also in Mexican Latino cinema. A philosophical essay on social classes in José Vericat, Critical Dictionary of Social Sciences. A definition that reflects a time (1947) in Carlos Robles Piquer. The position of the middle classes is in the range of Gilbert and Kahl classes: Underclass, Underwork, Manual workers, Lower middle, Upper middle, Capitalist upper class or power elite.
A detailed analysis, which for example is prior to a survey by scales or field work, as a participative observer, should include these concepts that fix the perception to avoid digressions: identity, work, professionalism, mobility, wealth, sports, description, partisanship, unionism, ethics, morality, education, immigration, subclasses and accessibility.
| Predecessor: Lower Middle Class | Middle class | Successor: High Middle Class |
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