The Incredible Shrinking Middle Class
I was a child of the seventies, and I sang along to Patti LuPone's line in Evita: "Screw the Middle Classes, I will never like them and they will never like me!" Now in my forties I worry about the apathy for the increased erosion of the middle class in our country.
I never thought when I went from my father's blue-collar, working class, union household, to my grandparents middle class home that either of these worlds would now be under attack. It is increasingly clear with the current adminstration's tactics of "out of sight-out of mind" that we are on the path to a totalitarian society ruled by an upper class--period!
Am I the only one awake enough to get this chess move?
The middle class is being erased. Patti Lupone and company would have rejoiced in song over this, and I would have joined in on the chorus, to bring it "home" as a kid in a working class household. My father hated the middle class, even though it included my clueless, hard-working, spend-thrifty grandparents, to my father-the middle class was the enemy, not something to aspire towards. Now,the generation of savers is falling by the wayside in the wake of high interest rates created by generations who followed them. It's not the golden calf, it's the plastic calf (CREDIT with hidden fees) plotting the course toward a "middle-classless" nation.
The only thing that is sad about the shrinking middle class, is the fact that they are terrible at organizing! Now that they do not have manufacturing plants close-by to meet and discuss what is happening to them, forget it! I mean who want's to fly to some country where manufacturing is now outsourced to even begin to retrace the steps that have led them towards dismantling their place is history.
Workers of the world will always unite, meet for coffee, discuss, form groups, and organize--workers have nothing to lose but their chains. Why the rift between working class and middle class, was it a management issue? Have we lost the mddle class now that manufacturing in this country is almost non-existent?
2 comments:
the middle class is usually not associated with the manufacturing industry. Manufacturing was considered 'working class'. So that paragraph doesn't make a lot of sense.
also, your grandparents' generation saved money even though they were subject to much higher interest rates than we've seen in the last 15 years. for most of their lives, rates were higher than they have been in our lives (except for the late 70s/early 80s when they were briefly higher). So that generation is not being driven out by high interest rates at all.
i didn't understand the golden calf / captain of the ship thing.
i'm feeling very bitchy today.
Wow, I hink we cleared this up on the bus, but just to state it here, I was using a very loose definition of the middle class- people who save money and own a home or property- no living on credit as many people do now-myself included.
With respect to the current administration and high interest rates, I could go into the who MBNA donation to the Bush Campaign in 2004- but do we really want to wake the dead?
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