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there is no american middle class
It’s always been a nonsense term, Parenti put it really well
Class gets its significance from the process of surplus extraction. The relationship between worker and owner is essentially an exploitative one, involving the constant transfer of wealth from those who labor (but do not own) to those who own (but do not labor). This is how some people get richer and richer without working, or with doing only a fraction of the work that enriches them, while others toil hard for an entire lifetime only to end up with little or nothing.
Those who occupy the higher circles of wealth and power are keenly aware of their own interests. While they sometimes seriously differ among themselves on specific issues, they exhibit an impressive cohesion when it comes to protecting the existing class system of corporate power, property, privilege, and profit. At the same time, they are careful to discourage public awareness of the class power they wield. They avoid the C-word, especially when used in reference to themselves as in "owning class;’ "upper class;’ or “moneyed class.” And they like it least when the politically active elements of the owning class are called the “ruling class.” The ruling class in this country has labored long to leave the impression that it does not exist, does not own the lion’s share of just about everything, and does not exercise a vastly disproportionate influence over the affairs of the nation. Such precautions are themselves symptomatic of an acute awareness of class interests.
Yet ruling class members are far from invisible. Their command positions in the corporate world, their control of international finance and industry, their ownership of the major media, and their influence over state power and the political process are all matters of public record- to some limited degree. While it would seem a simple matter to apply the C-word to those who occupy the highest reaches of the C-world, the dominant class ideology dismisses any such application as a lapse into “conspiracy theory.” The C-word is also taboo when applied to the millions who do the work of society for what are usually niggardly wages, the “working class,” a term that is dismissed as Marxist jargon. And it is verboten to refer to the "exploiting and exploited classes;’ for then one is talking about the very essence of the capitalist system, the accumulation of corporate wealth at the expense of labor.
The C-word is an acceptable term when prefaced with the soothing adjective “middle.” Every politician, publicist, and pundit will rhapsodize about the middle class, the object of their heartfelt concern. The much admired and much pitied middle class is supposedly inhabited by virtuously self-sufficient people, free from the presumed profligacy of those who inhabit the lower rungs of society. By including almost everyone, “middle class” serves as a conveniently amorphous concept that masks the exploitation and inequality of social relations. It is a class label that denies the actuality of class power.
The C-word is allowable when applied to one other group, the desperate lot who live on the lowest rung of society, who get the least of everything while being regularly blamed for their own victimization: the “underclass.” References to the presumed deficiencies of underclass people are acceptable because they reinforce the existing social hierarchy and justify the unjust treatment accorded society’s most vulnerable elements.
Seizing upon anything but class, leftists today have developed an array of identity groups centering around ethnic, gender, cultural, and life-style issues. These groups treat their respective grievances as something apart from class struggle, and have almost nothing to say about the increasingly harsh politico-economic class injustices perpetrated against us all. Identity groups tend to emphasize their distinctiveness and their separateness from each other, thus fractionalizing the protest movement. To be sure, they have important contributions to make around issues that are particularly salient to them, issues often overlooked by others. But they also should not downplay their common interests, nor overlook the common class enemy they face. The forces that impose class injustice and economic exploitation are the same ones that propagate racism, sexism, militarism, ecological devastation, homophobia, xenophobia, and the like.
Not to disagree with you or Parenti but there was a time when the illusion of a middle class seemed tangible because of the postwar economic boom, compounded by things like sexism and racism; the benefits of that boom largely floating beyond the grasp of those not white and male.
In any event that illusory evidence has evaporated, and the true analysis of the binary class structure reasserts itself.
Yes, I think if you watch American Graffiti or Happy Days you can see exactly what the mythical “American Middle Class” was supposed to mean. Every white dude can work 40 hours a week, and have a suburban house, a car, a wife, 2.5 children, money to spend on vacations, milk delivered to their front door, etc.
The Simpsons even made fun of this trope with their famous “Frank Grimes” episode. Grimes straight up tells Homer Simpson that he is a lucky dumbass and that “In any other country, you would be dead.”
If you read On the Road by Jack Kerouac, he uses his GI Bill money to get a degree and then spend months upon months hitchhiking around America without a job. The American Dream was definitely a real thing for a specific segment of the American population for a certain period of time, but now we see even boring white dudes being excluded from the shrinking middle class. Of course, this increases radicalization.
Sure, there was a period where there was a significant portion of the population who felt that their economic conditions were decent. I think the observation that Parenti makes is that the difference between workers who are relatively well off and those who are struggling is not itself significant. Ultimately, they share a common interest in improving working conditions and other aspects of labor. Thus, they have a shared class interest which is at odds with interests of the capital owning class.
I totally agree. I just wanted to point out that when the media talks about the “middle class” they are not only talking about something that isn’t real but also wildly out of touch with the actual phenomenon they are mistaking it for.
I think we’re in complete agreement here :)
I think so too
a middle class existed from 1945 to 1973
The dialectics are in motion