The Middle Class: How We Got One and Why We Need to Keep it

[Bfgrn]

For Americans, being middle class is part of our national ethos. People who, based on income level are poor, rich or middle class view themselves, and are usually identified by others, as being middle class. The phrase can be modified by "upper" or "lower" to mean rich or poor, but for Americans a modified middle class status is more comfortable than being defined as rich or poor.

---

Because of the strong overlap between American values and middle class values, being middle class is often assumed to be the socio-economic state of nature by Americans as many people believe that absent government intervention or disruptive outside forces, a strong middle class will emerge. This is a narrative that fits very nicely with the anti-government rhetoric of the right wing and appeals to our own national confidence, suggesting that the best thing government can do for the American middle class is to get out of its way.

The history of the American middle class, however, is quite different. The middle class which arose out of post-war, and more significantly, post-depression, America was of great historical significance. It was the first mass middle class. While there were clearly Americans left out of this middle class, notably in the south where an apartheid system kept many African Americans in poverty, the post-war middle class was still larger and broader than any previous notions of middle class. Before that time, middle class status was reserved for small business owners and professionals, not for millions of blue, white and pink collar workers.

---

Thousands of graduates of public universities, which made higher education available to almost everybody who could succeed academically, formed the backbone of the post-war middle class. Employment and training programs made it possible for people to advance their careers. Social security meant that old people would no longer live in poverty as often and that younger workers would not have to spend as much taking care of their elderly parents. Through collective bargaining, insured by the Wagner Act of 1935, labor unions were able to negotiate wages and benefits so that their members were able to join the middle class as well. Primarily because of America's ugly racial history, some groups were left out of these programs and the middle class as well, but it is clear that without these, and numerous other government interventions, the middle class as we know it would not have existed.

The US government played an integral role in creating, and at times maintaining the American middle class. Today the middle class is threatened both because the values that once defined it are no longer broadly shared and because the federal government has essentially renounced its partnership with the middle class. Deregulation of the finance sector, cuts to social and physical infrastructure, regressive tax policies and irresponsible spending by both parties have put the middle class, and with it American society as we know it, at risk.

If the middle class in the US continues to whither away due to recession, constant unemployment, government policies that are not supportive of middle class Americans and that outsource jobs overseas, it will not just be formerly middle class Americans who will suffer, it will also be difficult for American society and democracy to hold together. A large and stable middle class has been central to America's wealth and stability for decades; without this middle class the country's future will be in great peril.

Whole article...

 

[Douger]

The people that own your ****ry have a better plan.
They can take their companies overseas and the profit's go up tenfold.
They also own your politicians so it's considered "all good".
Your ' leaders" own stocks in those companies.

 

[Douger]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN9xQTqMEUU]YouTube - Gerald Celente: Cover-Up, not recovery![/ame]

 

[Carol]

The GI Bill was very important, not only to developing our middlle class but also our technology. The GI bill got many GI's through college, and with college degrees they were able get in the ground floor for develop the technology that benefited us medically, and economically, and of course high tech military weapons. A college education almost gaurentteed upward economic mobility, but that easy upward economic mobility hasn't been true for many years.

The GI bill also got returning soldiers into housing with low interest loans.

I think of that WWII as kind of the gravy train generation. Sure the depression and war were very hard on this generation, but what followed, the GI Bill and developing technologies, was a gravy, that I don't think we can repeat.
There aren't that many new technologies opening with ground floor opportunites, and we don't have the open fields just waiting for suburban housing projects.

One more piece of bad news. When we were exporting oil, that oil money poured into our banks, making them flush with money to loan. Oil was a major export, greater all other exports combined, and that filled out gavoernment coffers with revenus and filled out banks with money to loan. When the mid east oil countries started developing their oil industry, they put their money in our banks, for safe keeping and reasonably good interest rates. That money is gone, and interest rates are s crashed it isn't coming back. I can not prove it, but I think the higher ups were trying to malnipulate a correction for the banking problem, by encouraging house loans. Those loans didn't put money in the bank like the oil money did, but on paper the banks could claim the loaned money as assets, right? It was false wealth, and the party is over. I am sure not the smartest person when it comes to these money games, but I do know our gross national product is tied to oil, and we are now importing it. That means money leaving our country instead of coming into it. It means less money in our banks, so our banks don't have the money to loan out, and it less revenue for our government.

 

[antagon]

i dont think the middle class as a concept is imperiled. it just wont be the same as it was in 1963. if the late forties was the birth of the middle class, then i'd say it is just entering gradeschool now and learning some lessons about fiscal discipline and the dangers of taking candy from strangers.

 

[antagon]

One more piece of bad news. When we were exporting oil, that oil money poured into our banks, making them flush with money to loan. Oil was a major export, greater all other exports combined, and that filled out gavoernment coffers with revenus and filled out banks with money to loan. When the mid east oil countries started developing their oil industry, they put their money in our banks, for safe keeping and reasonably good interest rates. That money is gone, and interest rates are s crashed it isn't coming back. I can not prove it, but I think the higher ups were trying to malnipulate a correction for the banking problem, by encouraging house loans. Those loans didn't put money in the bank like the oil money did, but on paper the banks could claim the loaned money as assets, right? It was false wealth, and the party is over. I am sure not the smartest person when it comes to these money games, but I do know our gross national product is tied to oil, and we are now importing it. That means money leaving our country instead of coming into it. It means less money in our banks, so our banks don't have the money to loan out, and it less revenue for our government.

hence GNP -> GDP as the metric of choice. i think that analysis is right on, but i still see GDP as a more effective tool for trapping our economic activity.

many things have changed in our system to recapitalize banks and otherwise keep money flowing in our economy. but you're right again pointing out that the gambit over home-lending has all but killed one paradigm and initiated a scramble for the next.

 

[Douger]

http://www.cjournal.info/?cat=7

 

[editec]

For Americans, being middle class is part of our national ethos. People who, based on income level are poor, rich or middle class view themselves, and are usually identified by others, as being middle class. The phrase can be modified by "upper" or "lower" to mean rich or poor, but for Americans a modified middle class status is more comfortable than being defined as rich or poor.

---

Because of the strong overlap between American values and middle class values, being middle class is often assumed to be the socio-economic state of nature by Americans as many people believe that absent government intervention or disruptive outside forces, a strong middle class will emerge. This is a narrative that fits very nicely with the anti-government rhetoric of the right wing and appeals to our own national confidence, suggesting that the best thing government can do for the American middle class is to get out of its way.

The history of the American middle class, however, is quite different. The middle class which arose out of post-war, and more significantly, post-depression, America was of great historical significance. It was the first mass middle class. While there were clearly Americans left out of this middle class, notably in the south where an apartheid system kept many African Americans in poverty, the post-war middle class was still larger and broader than any previous notions of middle class. Before that time, middle class status was reserved for small business owners and professionals, not for millions of blue, white and pink collar workers.

What created the middle class?

First America became extraordinarily wealthy because it had the resources and manpower to become so. This period was highlight6ed during the GILDED AGE.

Then the working classes started demanding their share of the American pie, and thanks to (reluctantly at first, but eventually) government giving unions the right to organize, that pie was shared.

And that wealth going to so many workers kicked off the middle class,

Follow closely the credit industry (it started in the 1920s) and the middle class created the consumer driven economy we have (or at least until recently) today.

---

Thousands of graduates of public universities, which made higher education available to almost everybody who could succeed academically, formed the backbone of the post-war middle class. Employment and training programs made it possible for people to advance their careers.

Yes. The GI bill might have been one of the most brilliant investments this nation EVER MADE. It rivals the Lousiana puchase in my opinion.

Social security meant that old people would no longer live in poverty as often and that younger workers would not have to spend as much taking care of their elderly parents.

Yup.

Through collective bargaining, insured by the Wagner Act of 1935, labor unions were able to negotiate wages and benefits so that their members were able to join the middle class as well.

And because of their power to demand reasonable wages, non unions shops ALSO had to start paying a living wge, too

Primarily because of America's ugly racial history, some groups were left out of these programs and the middle class as well, but it is clear that without these, and numerous other government interventions, the middle class as we know it would not have existed.

Agreed.


And please note how ever since the PATCO strike, workers have had less and less power, too.

The US government played an integral role in creating, and at times maintaining the American middle class. Today the middle class is threatened both because the values that once defined it are no longer broadly shared and because the federal government has essentially renounced its partnership with the middle class.

Yup!

Deregulation of the finance sector, cuts to social and physical infrastructure, regressive tax policies and irresponsible spending by both parties have put the middle class, and with it American society as we know it, at risk.

At risk?! Hell, it's killing the middle class

If the middle class in the US continues to whither away due to recession, constant unemployment, government policies that are not supportive of middle class Americans and that outsource jobs overseas, it will not just be formerly middle class Americans who will suffer, it will also be difficult for American society and democracy to hold together. A large and stable middle class has been central to America's wealth and stability for decades; without this middle class the country's future will be in great peril.

Whole article...

A strong American middle class was the hope of mankind.

It was proof that a society can be something other than an elites with too much sitting on top of the masses who are treated like cattle.

That's exactly why the authoritarian mind so hates humanism, democracy and the US middle class.

And about half the people on this board?

They hate the whole concept of a strong middle class, and they despise democratic thinking generally.

Closet monarchists, most of them, althought I doubt they understand that about themseves.

Few of them seems to understand that the end game of unbridled capitalism is monarchy like government.

Or, I don't know, given that so many of them are also religious freaks, perhaps they're comfortable with a strong man government generally.

 

[antagon]

i dig it, editec, but i think union labor rights evolved independently from the rest of america's and that a legislative history supported it more than unionized labor's market influence.

 

[Douger]

Jobs picture dims as unemployment claims rise - Yahoo! Finance

 

[Carol]

One more piece of bad news. When we were exporting oil, that oil money poured into our banks, making them flush with money to loan. Oil was a major export, greater all other exports combined, and that filled out gavoernment coffers with revenus and filled out banks with money to loan. When the mid east oil countries started developing their oil industry, they put their money in our banks, for safe keeping and reasonably good interest rates. That money is gone, and interest rates are s crashed it isn't coming back. I can not prove it, but I think the higher ups were trying to malnipulate a correction for the banking problem, by encouraging house loans. Those loans didn't put money in the bank like the oil money did, but on paper the banks could claim the loaned money as assets, right? It was false wealth, and the party is over. I am sure not the smartest person when it comes to these money games, but I do know our gross national product is tied to oil, and we are now importing it. That means money leaving our country instead of coming into it. It means less money in our banks, so our banks don't have the money to loan out, and it less revenue for our government.

hence GNP -> GDP as the metric of choice. i think that analysis is right on, but i still see GDP as a more effective tool for trapping our economic activity.

many things have changed in our system to recapitalize banks and otherwise keep money flowing in our economy. but you're right again pointing out that the gambit over home-lending has all but killed one paradigm and initiated a scramble for the next.

Okay, you understanding banking? I don't and perhaps that is why, I think all the gambits are like balloons that can be popped. When oil was our number export, that was a real product, and exporting it filled our banks with money. Before the Savings a Loan crash, banks were making high interest loans to third world countries and this money wasn't always paid back. I think that left us short on money, but with deregulation we just pretended to have money in new ways. I think student loans is one of those new ways that is going to be as desastrous as the housing loans. Young people who do not yet have a firm grasp on reality, living off of student loans, especially during a recession that threatens to get worse, is just insane. Note before we entered this insanity, we made almost impossible for people to declare bank ruptacy and we approved of greatly increase interest on loans when payments are late. The people have been so screwed. I think this made possible by public education preparing our young to be products for industry, and leaving them incapable defending themselves. Everyone has been "specialized" and taught to leave these things up to the "experts".

I think it is wrong to call all sources of imaking a buck "products". There is no such thing as a financial product, except in the minds of those who believe. It is like believing in supernature beings of good and evil, rather than in our own ability to reason, and the relationship of cause and effect. I think if we made a separate catagory for selling ideas, such as financial products, we would have increased sanity.

 

[Truthmatters]

The right fights the middle class with every policy they trumpet.

I just dont understand why so many Americans buy into their own distruction.

 

[Carol]

i dig it, editec, but i think union labor rights evolved independently from the rest of america's and that a legislative history supported it more than unionized labor's market influence.

At the 1917 National Education Association conference, at least one teacher credited public education with unions of people. These unions would include labor unions, granges that united and organized farmers, and fraternity groups like the Masons, Elks, Loins, and self help groups like Toastmasters and Toastmistresses. This education was for a different culture than the one we have now.

It is hard to discuss somethings, because we just are not prepared for the discussions, but cultural change does have an economic impact. Heck, I remember when working fathers could support their wives who stayed home to be homemakers, caring free of charge for the sick, young and elderly, and doing community service work, and in rural areas, feeding the family by gardening and canning, and clothing the family by sewing and knitting. At one time the wife was most the industry the family needed for a good life, and the husband made it possible for her do all this, and the county fair was the most fun when women competed for blue ribbons by displaying their domestic arts. I remember when people strongly opposed women's liberation for economic reasons. When we doubled the work force, we became much more materialistic, and doubled the cost of living, while also lowering industrial wages. Banks and industry made out like bandits!

Double the work force also means increased revenue which was immediately poured into military spending. This fact of life was first realized by the communist who we immediated when we implemented income taxing, just before the first world war, but our military spending greatly increased following the second world war, and the liberation of our women.

The USSR liberated its women from the beginning, and at first this doubling of the force lead to economic boom, and then increasing divorce and abortion rates, and increaingly women and children fell below the poverty level. We made fun of their women working like men, and many people sharing apartments. Now look at us. We can add to this, increasingly women and children being involved in crime and violence, both as purpetrators and victims.

 

[psikeyhackr]

hence GNP -> GDP as the metric of choice. i think that analysis is right on, but i still see GDP as a more effective tool for trapping our economic activity.

many things have changed in our system to recapitalize banks and otherwise keep money flowing in our economy. but you're right again pointing out that the gambit over home-lending has all but killed one paradigm and initiated a scramble for the next.

Economic Activity and WEALTH are two different things.

Planned Obsolescence creates Economic Activity by keeping people running on a treadmill but it also keeps them from accumulating wealth. Why aren't economists and educators suggesting mandatory accounting courses? Some people want other people running on the treadmill.

The schools are designed produce workers not people that can use knowledge to empower themselves. That is what is good for investors.

PBS Discussions :: View topic - The Algebra of Economics

psik

 

[antagon]

hence GNP -> GDP as the metric of choice. i think that analysis is right on, but i still see GDP as a more effective tool for trapping our economic activity.

many things have changed in our system to recapitalize banks and otherwise keep money flowing in our economy. but you're right again pointing out that the gambit over home-lending has all but killed one paradigm and initiated a scramble for the next.

Economic Activity and WEALTH are two different things.

Planned Obsolescence creates Economic Activity by keeping people running on a treadmill but it also keeps them from accumulating wealth. Why aren't economists and educators suggesting mandatory accounting courses? Some people want other people running on the treadmill.

The schools are designed produce workers not people that can use knowledge to empower themselves. That is what is good for investors.

PBS Discussions :: View topic - The Algebra of Economics

psik

economic activity does amount to wealth for some. it's possible to see this as wrong and all, but i contend that we have a society which affords anyone access above this imaginary line which avails one to wealth in exchange for some time on the treadmill.

this isnt for everyone, and neither is there a pretense in the US that it is. most people don't embrace the hard work and risk entailed in this pursuit, others cant endure the persistence required.

for those who aren't down or who've failed in the high-stakes, there's a pretty decent lifestyle available, despite the impaired access to wealth.

 

[psikeyhackr]

economic activity does amount to wealth for some. it's possible to see this as wrong and all, but i contend that we have a society which affords anyone access above this imaginary line which avails one to wealth in exchange for some time on the treadmill.

this isnt for everyone, and neither is there a pretense in the US that it is. most people don't embrace the hard work and risk entailed in this pursuit, others cant endure the persistence required.

for those who aren't down or who've failed in the high-stakes, there's a pretty decent lifestyle available, despite the impaired access to wealth.

Economic activity provides INCOME not WEALTH. But it is curious that this so called capitalist society can't make accounting mandatory for everyone but most people get 4 years of English literature in high school. Now why shouldn't 700 years old double entry accounting be taught one year instead? Then many people might turn that income into wealth and not buy lots of consumer junk designed to depreciate.

Then our brilliant economist have ignored all of that demand side depreciation for the last 60 years.

If millions of people had not been going into debt for crappy cars for the last 50 years and paying off mortgages at an accelerated rate the what would the state of the middle class be today?

Economic Wargames

psik

 

[antagon]

learning to double-entry-account for 20-some grand a year won't make you wealthy, either. the bottom line is that you have to make more money to make yourself wealthy. it is simplistic; it is international.

otherwise, i think credit and consumption does contribute to the income and wealth of americans. in their absence, the extent of their value to the economy is clear as day: less jobs, less income.

 

[psikeyhackr]

learning to double-entry-account for 20-some grand a year won't make you wealthy, either. the bottom line is that you have to make more money to make yourself wealthy. it is simplistic; it is international.

otherwise, i think credit and consumption does contribute to the income and wealth of americans. in their absence, the extent of their value to the economy is clear as day: less jobs, less income.

Knowing what not to spend that $20,000 on is a factor also.

Demand Side Depreciation is something our economists have managed to not discuss for the last 50 years.

How much do Americans lose on the depreciation of automobiles every year? Everyone knowing accounting would make them more aware of what is missing from the Big Picture. EVERYBODY knowing something could affect how much bullsh!t some EXPERTS could spew out.

The system depends on most people being dumb and in competition and sabotaging each other with their ignorance.

psik

 

[antagon]

maybe it's poverty that feeds off of the ignorance. there isn't an exclusive connection between education and earnings, but there is a very strong link. somehow you've associated some systemic benefit from ignorance, low earnings and an inability to handle what limited finances people can earn.

i think that the exact opposite will be the case if there was more effective education or if people took full advantage of even the education currently made available to them. under these conditions, there will be more wealth, both among those who currently obtain wealth and those who you'd call disenfranchised from accumulating wealth at present.

is it fair to characterize people's consumer activity as negatively as you do? i think these are people's choices.

 

[Tech_Esq]

For Americans, being middle class is part of our national ethos. People who, based on income level are poor, rich or middle class view themselves, and are usually identified by others, as being middle class. The phrase can be modified by "upper" or "lower" to mean rich or poor, but for Americans a modified middle class status is more comfortable than being defined as rich or poor.

---

Because of the strong overlap between American values and middle class values, being middle class is often assumed to be the socio-economic state of nature by Americans as many people believe that absent government intervention or disruptive outside forces, a strong middle class will emerge. This is a narrative that fits very nicely with the anti-government rhetoric of the right wing and appeals to our own national confidence, suggesting that the best thing government can do for the American middle class is to get out of its way.

The history of the American middle class, however, is quite different. The middle class which arose out of post-war, and more significantly, post-depression, America was of great historical significance. It was the first mass middle class. While there were clearly Americans left out of this middle class, notably in the south where an apartheid system kept many African Americans in poverty, the post-war middle class was still larger and broader than any previous notions of middle class. Before that time, middle class status was reserved for small business owners and professionals, not for millions of blue, white and pink collar workers.

What created the middle class?

First America became extraordinarily wealthy because it had the resources and manpower to become so. This period was highlight6ed during the GILDED AGE.

Then the working classes started demanding their share of the American pie, and thanks to (reluctantly at first, but eventually) government giving unions the right to organize, that pie was shared.

And that wealth going to so many workers kicked off the middle class,

Follow closely the credit industry (it started in the 1920s) and the middle class created the consumer driven economy we have (or at least until recently) today.

---

Thousands of graduates of public universities, which made higher education available to almost everybody who could succeed academically, formed the backbone of the post-war middle class. Employment and training programs made it possible for people to advance their careers.

Yes. The GI bill might have been one of the most brilliant investments this nation EVER MADE. It rivals the Lousiana puchase in my opinion.




Yup.




And because of their power to demand reasonable wages, non unions shops ALSO had to start paying a living wge, too




Agreed.


And please note how ever since the PATCO strike, workers have had less and less power, too.





Yup!

Deregulation of the finance sector, cuts to social and physical infrastructure, regressive tax policies and irresponsible spending by both parties have put the middle class, and with it American society as we know it, at risk.

At risk?! Hell, it's killing the middle class

If the middle class in the US continues to whither away due to recession, constant unemployment, government policies that are not supportive of middle class Americans and that outsource jobs overseas, it will not just be formerly middle class Americans who will suffer, it will also be difficult for American society and democracy to hold together. A large and stable middle class has been central to America's wealth and stability for decades; without this middle class the country's future will be in great peril.

Whole article...

A strong American middle class was the hope of mankind.

It was proof that a society can be something other than an elites with too much sitting on top of the masses who are treated like cattle.

That's exactly why the authoritarian mind so hates humanism, democracy and the US middle class.

And about half the people on this board?

They hate the whole concept of a strong middle class, and they despise democratic thinking generally.

Closet monarchists, most of them, althought I doubt they understand that about themseves.

Few of them seems to understand that the end game of unbridled capitalism is monarchy like government.

Or, I don't know, given that so many of them are also religious freaks, perhaps they're comfortable with a strong man government generally.

I think that your tea might be a bit strong today Edi. I think most of people here get branded with something they don't want and opinions they don't hold by the other side who either are lazy and find it easier to stick them in a convenient box or with a convenient label. Once that's done, they can safely dowse them with cold water or poke them with ridicule regardless of its appropriateness.

For my part, I think that very few here seek absolutely unbridled capitalism. There are a few corporatists here, but not many. Most of the them, like me, recognize that it is appropriate for the government to "set the table" that is create the rules and regulations for the game. Most of us agree that this is a fair and useful role for the government of a nation-state. But, after doing this, the government needs to step back and allow business to make the most of the table that government has set. Government needs to ensure the stability of the table and resist the temptation to rock the table while people are trying to eat and serve the dinner. If they don't, business gets nervous about serving and people get scared to eat. (That's where we are now folks).

What the real argument is is how much regulation is appropriate and about what topics. I don't think there is a sincere argument about whether or not to regulate at all.