Click here to access article by Jim O’Reilly from his blog Comments on Global Political Economy.
The author offers a biting parody of a recent visit Vice-President Biden made to Columbia and an article he wrote about his visit for the Wall Street Journal in which he extolled the virtues of what he saw as "middle class" society. What may come as a shock to you is that this piece wasn't written by some radical, window-breaking anarchist, but a retired banker!
The term "middle class" is a prominent theme in the rhetoric of capitalist propagandists. As I learned in my college sociology classes, the term essentially described those Americans who served in some sort of privileged occupation that was important to the functioning of the capitalist economy. Characteristics included advanced education, attributes of a professional occupation (salaried, many perks, pension, etc), home ownership (or potential for achieving this), and enjoying a comfortable income that permitted a lifestyle characterized by "conspicuous consumption". The middle class was aptly defined as a socio-economic status between the capitalist class who lived substantially off of income derived from the "ownership" of enterprises and the working class whose work was merely rented by capitalists.
The middle class really burst into view in the 30 years following WWII when the US assumed world domination and profited from it. This era of prosperity produced significant numbers of people who enjoyed middle class status, and was celebrated by Empire propagandists as a sign of success of the capitalist system. Since the advent of the neo-liberal stage of capitalism in the 1970s, the incomes enjoyed by this class stagnated until the recent economic collapse, following which we have seen a devastating impact on their numbers and future prospects. Nevertheless, prominent old capitalist ideologues like Biden keep trying to preserve the myths associated with this class.
