As demonstrated by opinion poll after opinion poll, Americans believe that economic mobility – presumably upward – is not simply possible for themselves and their children but also probable. I believe that this firmly held belief is one of the key cultural cords that gives most Americans ‘buy in’ into the system and thus a strong tool for holding a very diverse population together.

In years past, and now, the Democrat Party has attempted to use class warfare as a wedge against the GOP. This strategy ignores one of the basic truths in this nation: if you walk down the street of most places and ask people what class they are, they will invariably say ‘middle class". These are the folks for whom the American Dream is alive and well. These are the folks with a positive outlook on life – who believe with hard work and luck they can get ahead. These are generally not folks who are going to be susceptible to economic or class demagoguery – they want to get rich themselves. And as for the much smaller percentages who identify themselves as upper class or lower class, they already tend to loath the middle class and are fairly reliable Democrat votes.

The astute reader will note that the word ‘class’ has been used a few times already. That’s because I find ‘class’ and interesting concept in America. Another one of our social or cultural deals with one another is that we allow or encourage the broadest possible definition of middle class. But generally I think that Americans are uncomfortable with the concept of ‘class’, and as part of our general belief that we are all socially mobile (upwards) we simultaneously recognize the basic behavioral characteristics of the various classes – and in our lizard brains note who is where – and refuse to acknowledge that there is in fact a class system in American.

What are the defining characteristics that put an individual in a particular class in America? Speech patterns, wealth, education, and religion come to mind off the cuff, in some combination of intangibles. Thinking about this yesterday evening after work, I thought that perhaps defining what was ‘middle class’ would be a good start to answering my own questions. And I thought income might be a good place to start. So I walked around the hotel bar and asked a few people what income range for a family of four would qualify that family as ‘middle class". My answers: 40k to 150k, 50k to 100k, 60k to 150k, 75k to 150k, 150k to 200k, and 150k to 250k. Obviously the first few answers would make the bulk of the American public middle class (as they consider themselves) and the last couple of answers would restrict the middle class to single digits. Or maybe the American Dream, or the 1950’s version of the American Dream, has gotten more expensive. In the end, I prefer to define our people as they see themselves… a striving, dreaming, strong middle class.

But ‘class’ in my mind isn’t simply something that could be drawn straight from an income. So I asked the group what other defining characteristics made a person middle class. The generally agreed upon characteristics were: home ownership – usually in suburbs, ownership of multiple cars, being able to afford to eat outside the home for dinner a couple times a week, children that have chores and an allowance, and children who attend public school. More vague were ideas that middle class folks were more likely to take risks in business, have investments of one form or another, and were optimistic. Some folks brought up at least nominal connection to a church as another possible trait.

There was some talk of the impact of the decay of the upper classes on the middle class which I found interesting. If one goes back to the early days of talking movies one can see the leveling, I’m first over the top qualities that made our old upper classes really a sort of super middle class. Maybe the stiff-upper-lip behavior of our upper classes of that was sort of a self-invented myth, but it was a useful myth. Look to the self improvement books of the era, and you’ll see a middle class looking at the upper class through a window and trying to mirror their largely positive traits of self denial, self improvement, and manners. It’s a sad commentary on our nation that the upper classes today are more like the upper classes of Imperial Rome in decay than than like the Romans farmers and merchants who built the empire.

Actually, if one takes some time one can read over and over in everything from the Bible to the Rise and Fall of Great Powers about the impact of a nation having a self absorbed, decadent, pleasure seeking, self-loathing elite at the wheel. It’s one of those repeating conditions my professors in college would call a theme. Usually the nation in question rots from the inside and goes down in a sea of blood and flame, or the corrupt and weak folks at the helm are replaced by natural attrition or less pleasant means. Although many of my more intellectual conservative sparring partners are always predicting the doom of our civilization, I for one think that our nation not only has the regenerative power to replace our upper classes with firmer stuff, but that the process of infusing a healthy dose of fresh blood is already occurring.

America is a middle class nation… a new nation of shop-keepers that rose when the old nation of shop-keepers decided they all wanted a government job. Or maybe our friends across the Atlantic lost their optimism one shuddering corpse at a time in the fields of the Somme, or the mud of Flanders. Whatever the reason, our middle class nation picked up the burden of securing the free world if necesary, and expanding the free world where possible, when the British grew weary. And I would argue that it is the mere fact that our nation is largely middle class that allowed us to shoulder this burden. Middle class values, as repugnant as they are to our new Paris Hiltonesqe upper classes, serve us well. It is the spirit of the American middle class that is backbone of our economy, and the sword and the shield of our freedom. We know right from wrong, and good from evil, and we still have the spirit and will to fight for what is right and good.

That’s why I believe that the war we are fighting against Islamic extremists will not be settled in the mountains of Afghanistan or the deserts of Iraq. Instead this war, and quite possibly the future of western civilization, will be determined at kitchen tables across America as middle class families and individuals determine one by one whether we should continue to shoulder the burden, or whether we should set the burden down and hope that it is a people that shares our values picking it up again.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 15th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.