https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class
History and evolution of the term
The term "middle class" is first attested in James Bradshaw's 1745 pamphlet
Scheme to prevent running Irish Wools to France.[1][2] Another phrase used in
Early modern Europe was "the middling sort".
[3][4]
The term "middle class" has had several, sometimes contradictory, meanings. It was once defined by exception as an intermediate
social class between the
nobility and the
peasantry of
Europe.[
by whom?] While the nobility owned the countryside, and the peasantry worked the countryside, a new
bourgeoisie (literally "town-dwellers") arose around mercantile functions in the city. In France, the middle classes helped drive the
French Revolution.
[5] Another definition equated the middle class to the original meaning of
capitalist: someone with so much
capital that they could rival nobles. In fact, to be a capital-owning millionaire was the essential criterion of the middle class in the
industrial revolution.
The modern usage of the term "middle class", however, dates to the 1913 UK Registrar-General's report, in which the statistician
T.H.C. Stevenson identified the middle class as that falling between the upper class and the working class.[
citation needed] Included as belonging to the middle class are professionals, managers, and senior civil servants. The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle class is possession of significant
human capital.
Within capitalism, "middle class" initially referred to the
bourgeoisie and the
petite bourgeoisie. However, with the impoverisation and
proletarianisation of much of the
petit bourgeois world, and the growth of
finance capitalism, "middle class" came to refer to the combination of the
labour aristocracy, the
professionals, and the
white collar workers.
The size of the middle class depends on how it is defined, whether by education,
wealth, environment of upbringing,
social network, manners or values, etc. These are all related, but are far from deterministically dependent. The following factors are often ascribed in modern usage to a "middle class":[
by whom?]
- Achievement of tertiary education.
- Holding professional qualifications, including academics, lawyers, chartered engineers, politicians, and doctors, regardless of leisure or wealth.
- Belief in bourgeois values, such as high rates of house ownership, delayed gratification, and jobs which are perceived to be secure.
- Lifestyle. In the United Kingdom, social status has historically been linked less directly to wealth than in the United States,[6] and has also been judged by signifiers such as accent (Received Pronunciation and U and non-U English), manners, place of education (Public school (United Kingdom)), occupation, and the class of a person's family, circle of friends and acquaintances.[7][8]
- Cultural identification. Often in the United States, the middle class are the most eager participants in pop culture whereas the reverse is true in Britain.[9] The second generation of new immigrants will often enthusiastically forsake their traditional folk culture as a sign of having arrived in the middle class.[citation needed]
