Rick Edwards, in his book CONTESTED TERRAIN, has a useful way of
defining "middle class" that gets away from fuzzy income-related
definitions ("not rich, not poor"). He defines the middle class as
consisting of the old middle class (the petty bourgeoisie) and the
new middle class or the "middle layers" (a term also used by Harry
Braverman). This consists of the "workers who stand between all lower-
level administrative and production workers, on the one side,
and the echelons of high management, on the other." To Edwards,
"the middle-layer workers today find employment within large
institutions, experiencing risk-taking as a corporate (not individual
phenomenon." Crucial is the fact that "[w]here the old middle
class had command over its immediate conditions of work . . .
today's [middle layers are] organized and governed by the highly
structured apparatus of bureaucratic control." (pp. 191-3)
Crucial is that the new middle class does not own the means of
production but often orders others around, being in the line of
command or part of the staff of the corporate bureaucracies
(and the government and the not-for-profit sector).
Edwards unfortunately throws craft workers (plumbers, etc.) in
the same bunch. E.O. Wright, back when he was an Althusserian,
was much clearer: the new middle class sits in a "contra-
dictory class position," sharing characteristics of being
proletarians *and* characteristics of being capitalists
(ordering people around, etc.) Craft workers (construction
subcontractors, etc.) are semi-proletarian and semi-petty
bourgeois, being in a "contradictory class position"
between those two classes.
Class positions do not always correspond to income, as the
example of Shaquille O'Neill illustrates. He's got a working-
class position but could easily join the petty bourgeoisie or
(if he's lucky) the big bourgeoisie. This is balanced by
the large number of people from those classes who are moving
down these days.
The theory of class positions is exactly that, a theory, i.e.,
abstract and doesn't always correspond exactly to real-world
experience and data. There are all sorts of mixed cases in the
real world. Marx predicted that the development of capitalism
would lead to a greater correspondence of people's actual
experiences with their theoretical class positions, a greater
homogeneity within classes (and a greater heteogeneity between
classes, with the middle classes mostly becoming working
class). This prediction worked very well for a long time
and seems to be working again. Part of all of this brouhaha
about the "middle class" is that a lot of that class is
being dragged down into the working class.
in middle-layer* solidarity,
Jim Devine
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA
310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950
* sounds like I'm a hen, no?
