We all hear about the demise of the middle class. Everyone wants to be middle class. From someone who is poor to a billionaire. They all like to describe themselves as middle class. But was there really a middle class? Is there a middle class or is it just or just an upper lower class?
In the middle ages there were the church, royalty, nobles, knights, merchant, craftsman, farmers and serfs. Even with all these divisions in society there was an upper and lower class. the church was kind of separate with its own hierarchy. Royalty, nobles and knights were the upper class in society. Merchants and craftsman were in the middle but still not an upper class. Farmers and serfs on the bottom.
So where did this ideal of a middle class come from? I think that the idea of middle class comes from media. TV and movies. Kind of a make you feel good idea. If I am middle class I am not poor. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution the workers were in the lower class. Miners, factory workers, tradesman, merchants, doctors, nurses, farmers, field workers, construction workers were all lower class. The poor are included in the lower class.
After World War 2 a lot of folks got jobs in factories, mills, mines and as clerks in offices in large corporations. As they did before the War. A lot of people lived in houses before the war. Whether they owned them or rented. There were also a whole lot more family farms. They owned the land and made their living off that. People worked wage jobs. But if you wanted something you had to have the money to buy it.
With the widespread or at least greatly expanded availability of consumer credit lower class people could buy things. Most lower class credit dating back for a thousand years were through pawn shops. You could get cash by putting up something of value (collateral) with which the pawn broker could recoup his loss and make a profit from if you did not pay back the loan. That is how the lower class borrowed money.
During the early stages of the Industrial Revolution the products were directed to high end customers and governments. Workers (lower class) were paid by the hour or by how much they produced to make things for a grander scale then individuals. Steel for making buildings, railroads, bridges. People had jobs making steel for buildings, railroads and bridges. Later they started making products that the masses could use on the home front. Mainly food, household, clothing and other consumable products. The working men lived to between forty and fifty years old as a rule. The next generation carried on as the worker base. Gee. Just like the middle ages. As a lot of people moved off the family farm to the cities for work they needed to eat. They needed to buy and prepare food with the wages they received from the hourly wage. They needed a way to prepare the food they ate. The cities needed to come up with an efficient way to deal with waste (sewage and garbage) and provide safe drinking water. During the 1880s there was a great problem with providing safe water, sewage and garbage disposal. So the great cities developed systems that are mostly in place today. Most after almost one hundred and fifty years are in need of repair. A great job idea.
I heard something on NPR that the manufacturing sector is still a good place to go. No need to worry that all the everyday things you pick up are made elsewhere. Only the high end and government stuff is made here. We are not sweating the small stuff. So that is good, right? Why can't we just make a lot a things here? Well for one thing no one wants to work at a low paying job where you now make under $50,000 a year. Which is the new threshold of the division of lower and middle class. The new middle class income extends to $600.000 a year. I would think that is rich. Actually someone that makes $50,000 seems well off to me. But what do I know as I am lower class. Lower class all this time I was thinking I was middle class. Where in fact most of the middle class is really lower class and the upper middle class is really lower class in the eyes of the rich. So in the eyes of the rich someone that makes $600,000 is only a sharper lower class person, that soundly puts me into a class of bottom feeder.
Going to the 1920s the rich got the lower class involved in buying things. Through media and social contacts you just had to have a certain amount of things. As the factories were over running the amount of possible sales they needed to come up with a solution. Consumer credit. Every rich person in the world has a stove and refrigerator. So now lets make them available to the public by selling it to them on credit. If they qualify of course. After this the economy boomed. Now lets let them thinking they are buying into the company. Sell them stock. It will go up as the majority of people will get into the foray. Just like the good economy vs bad economy. The ability for the lower class to buy things makes the good economy. When the access to credit stops the economy gets bad for the lower class. Neither state of the economy has much impact on the upper class. As they never really change.
The Great Depression of the 1930s is proof that the lower class needs the upper class more than the upper class needs the lower class, at least a majority of the lower class. As there are way many more lower class people than are needed to keep up the upper class. During the 1930s there were a great deal of public works that provided work for the lower class. While making a tidy profit for themselves. That is just the way it works.
Then comes the outbreak of World War 2. Everybody got a job, whether they wanted it or not. We had to defend our way of life. Help our allies. Get rid of the enemy. This really brought the US out of the Depression. As bad as it was the US did not get hit too much at home. Just about every one else did. When the major fighting part of the War ended all these troops and sailors came home. Mostly to not have a job. One of the finest movies about this is The Best Years Of Our Life. Check it out any time you can. It shows the realities of men coming home after WW2. For example a lead man in a bombing squadron and a hero comes home only to be able to work as a person at a soda fountain. A high school quarterback star comes home with both his arms burned off in the Navy. A former infantry Sargent and a family man comes home. Able to get his old job back at a bank but haunted from the war time activities. The US won the war by being able to produce more then their enemies. Often with better equipment. When the war ended there were all these factories churning out all this war material. When it ended there was no longer a need for it.
Now we have the creation of the middle class. People got jobs making all sorts of consumer goods. All these people needed a place to live. So there was a lot of construction. Although television had been out since the 1930s the lower class now had access to it. All these great shows just to gain access to your living room and influence you to buy products. You were shown how to have all these nice things and were conditioned to the thought that you were not poor but middle class. Look at all the old TV shows you loved from the 1950s. The Leave It To Beaver mentality. Ward had this obscure job at the office wearing a suit and tie. A hot wife and the idealistic two healthy children. Living in the suburbs in a nice house. Hey, I am not poor, I am middle class. Although this lifestyle was not completely widespread, it was a good model or goal to aim for. Now Beaver's old house in the LA suburbs does not cost $20,000. It is more like $600,000. A pound of bacon isn't fifty nine cents, it is $7. We as a society are trying to cling on to the idea of some great middle class. When in reality the things that we felt were automatic are not.
When I look at the graph it says middle class is up to $600,000 a year. Lower class ends at $50,000. But as a whole we are still doing pretty good compared to a hundred years ago. At this juncture we have still not completely had things settle. But things never do settle do they?
What the country needs to do is start making products here. Maybe the $15 minimum wage is a little high or is it? The problem is that the people pushing it are targeting fast food workers. These workers are putting in about twenty hours a week. But many are also receiving Section 8 housing, food stamps, Medicade, free cell phones and other benefits. So if they get $15 an hour will they exceed the the money level to get the benefits. I am afraid that for the most part they will only cut down the hours they work as to not lose the benefits. So now you are just paying them twice as much to work half as much.
In an ideal situation the $15 minimum wage would put you at about $30,000 a year. Still in the lower class. But with an ability to if carefully to make a decent living. Not even tarnishing the upper class's wealth. The problem here is with the cheaters. Ultimately they ruin it for everyone. Because they do not want to give up what they are getting for free, but want more.
One thing is that the ones pushing the $15 minimum wage are forming a union to only milk those individuals included in the union. Not full time workers. Only fast food workers. Again the only way to make $15 an hour work is if it is across the board. And if you exceed the government benefits you must relinquish them. Then there is more tax revenue coming in to support the Federal budget. You would have to add about 15% to Social Security benefit recipients.That should make up the difference for them. Congress can come up with billions for other projects, why not this? Start making tools, clothes and shoes in the USA again. And train people how to do so. People can get a loan for a college degree in Butterfly Intimidation. Graduate with a degree and not get a job. Go figure. With a huge college loan debt. Teach them a trade in something the citizens want and need. Not some stupid stuff that you can ever use. College is overused and overrated. Unless you are going to be a doctor or some other specialist, a general degree will probably get you by just fine. As every job has it's idiosyncrasies.
Most of these general skills used to be taught in high school. In my opinion high schools, middle schools and elementary schools are nearly worthless due to their inability to create discipline. Discipline is part of learning. You did not get a trophy if you lost
The middle class was just a goal. A goal you set for yourself. I am going to bring myself up out of this lower class and become middle class. The bar is set so high now it is mostly unattainable. What we need now is to train people to have a work mentality. Not just I'll give up and stay at home plan. Why bother to try to be middle class when you can have a home, TV, A/C, food, phone, computer, clothes and most every other thing that a lower class person didn't have thirty years ago. You have arrived to as good as it gets. Good enough. Things are just things. So you do not have the best. But you have something.
In reality I have always been in the lower class. Thinking for a long time I was in the middle class. But was always in the lower class. Only thinking I was middle class. Middle class can buy things at the mall. Have a car. Live in a nicer house. By things that lower class do not have.
So why do we fight in this point in time? They have food and shelter. At one point in time like into the 1930s people were actually hungry.The fact is that the lower class has it better now than ever before. We have just about everything we need. Or want.
The fact that the lower class extends to $50,000 a year means the majority of people are in the lower class. It has always been that way. When we think about people having a "good job" at a factory, the railroad, retail management, machinist, engineer, banking, accounting and a number of other higher paying jobs. We still think middle class. But in reality lower class. Then the lower class goes down from there. To a point where the lowest earning class is on par with the people living on welfare, disability, social security and other entitlements. Laws and biases that mean people are treated differently.
This takes the wind out of your sail. But on the flip side you have more things then any other lower class ever did.
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