E.R. Campbell said:
I'm not sure history agrees in either count:
Plenty of countries have had high growth without ever developing a secure, stable middle class. In fact, from, say, 1500 to 2000, aside from Northern Europe,* I'm hard pressed to think of any. Russia and Spain, for example, were quite rich - high growth - in the 16th and 17th centuries but a middle class never developed. Consider, even more, China about 1000 years ago - it accounted for about half of the world's GDP but never developed a middle class.
Despite the decline in growth of e.g. the Britain and the Netherlands the middle class in each remained stable and secure.
My :2c:
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* In which I include the USA, Canada, Australia, etc - all of which are culturally Northern European
I had an interesting conversation with my son the other night where he was parroting the same line about the Middle Class shrinking.
It must be someplace out there in the ether.
In our case it came up as we discussed his job prospects and my daughter's part time employment in the service industry making ice-cream for a store-front operation.
From there to Supermarkets
From there to daughter's shop recreating The Butcher, The Baker, The Greengrocer, The Fishmonger, The Ironmonger....
From there to the Milkman.
The Supermarket required everyone to go to the Warehouse and help themselves.
The Butcher et al required everyone to go to the High Street and be advised as to what was available in their price range.
The Milkman came to your door.
You put the empties out on the doorstep every night, along with your order and the money.
In the morning, before you were up, the milkman came around with his horsedrawn wagon, scooped the empties, poured the coins out of the bottles, read the order, delivered the goods to the doorstep.
When you got up your three pints of milk, half pint of cream, dozen eggs and loaf of bread were waiting for you.
Fast forward to 2012 - anybody believe that either the money or the food or both would survive the night?
My son put it down to a more level, middle class society with food for all and no thuggery. Of course things were good when we were young. We have messed it all up and destroyed society and the middle class along with it.
In the horse drawn society of my youth - Britain in the late 50s - my grandfather's relations still worked down the mines and my grandfather offered the first of his catch of fish to the Laird's Ghillie before taking any home for himself. Outdoor privies were a common sight. Baths were once a week. Hot water, gas and electricity were bought in your living room by plugging the meter with shillings. Borstals managed young thugs up to the age of 16 with a 1 inch thick birch rod. Schools managed the rest of us with canes, slippers and the particularly Scottish instrument of correction - the Taws - a foot of leather split in two for the first 6 inches - the introductory version of the cat of nine tails. Hanging was still the solution for those that wouldn't learn.
We knew those that had and those that had not. And the divide between them was great.
We divided the world into Upper Class, Upper Middle, Lower Middle, Lower and Working ... as well as the Royalty and Wogs (Wogs were anybody not from Britain and included the French, Spanish, Italians and Germans when we were being charitable to them). We were taught to speak "proper English" at school, punished for speaking like our parents in the playgrounds and charitable teachers encouraged us to give up the colloquialisms that identified us and our regions.
And in that slough of despond of non-progressive ideals, of class warfare and labour strife, of upper and lower class divide.... in the middle of that mess we were still able to put a couple of hours of wages on the door step, on every door step, every night, and receive on the same door step enough food to feed a family for a day.
I'm sure that somebody, somewhere, occasionally, stole the milk money.......but in 10 years in Britain, in slums and "middle class estates" that milk was always there for my breakfast cereal.
In our current predicament (what predicament is that exactly?) when all of the above iniquities have disappeared - you can't get a milkman to countenance delivering the service under the old rules of engagement in a society where progress is so evident.
The middle class hasn't dropped. Everybody has become middle class. What has changed is that in my youth the working class aspired to be middle class and the middle class aspired to be upper class. Everybody acted the part regardless of their backgrounds.
These days everybody, including the upper classes, acts the part of a working class yob who would have been at home in a borstal - and revels in it.
It ain't the economy stupid.
