Naive statement. In an economicly viable country, a middle class is the backbone of society. Third-world countries that have no middle class make the point. The US will always have a middle class. Hopefully, the intellection elites and liberal socialists do not get enough power to destroy it.

@ gplm2000,

This might be one of least informed posts in the history of CHE!

There are so many places to start with you... First, economies with growing middle classes are performing the best in the world markets currently (Vietnam, China, India and Brazil).... This should clue you in to its importance. Also, there is a correlation between our economic performance in the 80's and 90's in the US and the connection to a growing/aging middle class who once were flush with money to spend/borrow on big ticket items (driving up prices, stocks and other asset bubbles)....

Further, it readily apparent that we stopped making any real product of relevance; instead, we became the financial center of the globe during the backend of 20th century lending out capital at cheap interest rates... Once this bubble got big enough, debt levels soared and our financially mature marketplace looked corrupted and aging with many expecting to retire who now cannot.... The overall point here is that our middle class has been decimated in this country and I have 150 different charts to prove it and about 50 different books by experts in personal finance, macroeconomics and industry.... There was a recent study put out PEW Institute that 20million Americans rely on their social security only to remain above the poverty level (for aging individual seniors this number is approx $22K)...

Gplm2000, unless you have some facts or evidence you would like share, your opinion is so far off from reality that it makes all of less informed just by reading it (opportunity cost)... Its like listening to Glenn Beck's pseudo teacher bullshit...

I will repeat myself with your final comment; there are no socialists here! We like capitalism, but only when there is a balance between collective interests and individual liberties (not when a few benefit and collective interests always seem to get muffled). I can see why you would think its socialist since any movement to center brings out the inculcated fear of communism, but mnay of us here have no problem with people making money. The problem is when it becomes so unregulated, corrupt and predatory that profits require a business model than is less than honest.

The only intellectual elitism that I witness is when our corporations ask for public monies as a elite welfare scam to invade the last pools of money left that are not under their control. Comments like yours using "always & never" are cheap and easy. Also, you would be nowhere to be seen when your attributions are proved false. Instead you are buzzing around pollinatng the next manure heap.

Try reading anything by Elizabeth Warren, you know the one person who is for consumers.

I remember that the first time I visited Central America, 20 years ago, I came back and told friends I had seen the future of America in Guatemala: an inverted champagne coupe, with a wide, shallow bowl at the bottom (most of the people), a very narrow stem (the middle class), and a thin disk at the top (the rich).
Most scoffed, but those who had also traveled, nodded. I have lived to see it happening.

The "Financial Times" has had several articles in the last two weeks about how there is, today, greater upward mobility in Western Europe than in the US. The FT is reliable, and constitutes a source with sufficient cache' that it moves this discussion out of the anecdotal and into the realm of serious possibility.

Our new faculty are paid about 25% less (in today's dollars) than I was when I was a newbie. Our students are projected by the same serious sources to face a future of greater relative debt and narrower prospects. Union membership is in steep decline. China is the second-largest economy on earth. Perhaps people like Chalmers Johnson are on to something.