At 11:27 05/01/2011 -0500, Arthur wrote:
I was thinking more generally of the union worker in manufacturing, postal
worker, civil servant. Those who were working at middle income levels and
without having much if any post high school education. A good salary,
enough for buying a house or getting good rental accommodations, car and
enough extra for the odd holiday and to support children who want to go on
to university, etc.
This group is affected by globalization, the collapse of local
manufacturing, etc. This was a broad middle class of generations who went
to work in the auto plants, the steel mills, etc. Paid well and there
were jobs available for each generation. No longer is this the case.
Well, in this case, I agree with you. It's the (by now well known)
necking-in of the hourglass. ( I thought I'd invented this metaphor on FW
some years ago but it's so apt that many others I've read have been using
it -- and I'm sure they weren't reading my postings!)
I think what you describe is what I would call the upper middle class: A
professional class with advanced degrees, certificates of one sort or the
other, etc. This group is also affected but they are also more protected
for a variety of reasons, including inherited wealth.
Yes. And this is probably the most benefitted of all by modern (advanced
nation) governments, whether of the left or the right. Although they're
part of the elite, enough of them are, by the nature of their jobs in the
media, advertising, politics, entertainment (but obviously not super-rich
in the eyes of the public), are probably the main opinion moulders in
society at large.
Keith
From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2011 10:28 AM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'; Arthur Cordell
Subject: RE: [Futurework] The rise of miserity
Arthur,
Perhaps my condensation of misery and prosperity is premature. Perhaps
someone else will re-invent misterity when times are clearer!
Historians tend not to dwell on the condition of the masses when an empire
or a civilization is in decline (if that is what is happening now), but
only on the follies or mistakes of the elite. But I think there's always
been a middle-class. (It depends on what you in Canada call middle-class.
Is it the same as Americans? What Americans call middle-class is what we
in Europe call working-class -- or at least we did until recently. Anyhow,
what I call middle-class is what Americans would call the
professional-class or upper middle-class. So I'll call it U-class in what
follows.)
I think there's always been a U-class. In Medieval society the rich
landowners and royalty always needed a small select band of advisors to
oversee their serfs, to collect the rent, to control their soldier-guards
and personal servants, to look after money and treasures, personal doctors
and lawyers -- and, simply, but importantly (if a landowner was sensible),
public opinion feedback in case some sort of rebellion might be in the
offing. It was this U-class that grew enormously in the industrial
revolution as many new individuals burst through as the new super-rich
industrialists. I would say that in this country this was around 15% of
the population about a century ago. I would say that this U-class is about
25% of the population now in an advanced country. In one sense most of
this U-class are "merely" the highly-paid servants of the very rich, but
culturally they are much the same. They send their children to the same
highly select schools of the very rich and their young people go to the
same select universities. (This is very clear in Europe and I think it's
happening rapidly now in America, even if not in Canada yet.)
A good example is given by Crystia Freeland who wrote the long article I
posted earlier -- "The New Global elite". She herself is not rich but as a
top-flight (and well-paid) journalist, she's comfortable when socializing
with the very rich and can probably afford to send her children (if she
has any) to the same schools as the very rich. Her children would grow up
in the same milieu as the very rich and would possibly marry one of them.
While the very rich don't have the same number of personal servants as
they used to in pre-industrial days today's complexity means that they
need even more meritocratic advisors. I would lump all these (the rich
plus the U-class) together as one fairly homogenous elite class as against
the masses with a distinctively different culture. (Of course, there's
movement of individuals going on between them, and there are many
"inbetweeners" but this is a relatively small proportion of the whole.)
Keith
snip, snip
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
<http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2010/12/>http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/01<http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2010/12/>/
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