Today, the President and Vice President launched a task force on “the middle class.”
Here is what EMR said last month in a draft of Chapter 26:
A 2009 PERSPECTIVE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF VOCABULARY
There is a larger context for understanding the importance of Vocabulary. The Shape of the Future, Chapter 1. employs statements made during the decade of the 1990s by senior elected leaders to illustrate the importance of an understanding of human settlement patterns and need for a robust Vocabulary to discuss the topic. When the book was completed in 2000, 20-20 hindsight provided a crystal clear way to compare statements of the intent of the Clinton / Gore Administration with the results over the following 8 years. Chapter 1. provides the perspectives and goals of President Clinton and Vice President Gore in their own words and then evaluates progress on those goals.
Now the US of A stands on the cusp of a new Administration. With no hindsight upon which to rely, a robust Vocabulary – a prerequisite of getting the issues “right” – becomes even more important due to the diminished resource reserves that remain after 35 years of intentional Mass OverConsumption to fuel “growth” and prosperity for a few at the top of the Ziggurat.
There is a broad range of specific problems that citizens who voted for ‘change’ hope the new administration will address. The broad topic which the obligatory Vice Presidential Task Force will address is: “Strengthen the Middle Class.”
At first blush, strengthening the Middle Class would appear to address a number of hot button issues:
1. The economy
2. Job creation
3. Energy independence
4. Affordable health care
5. among others
It might be obvious that “strengthening the Middle Class” must address the Mobility and Access Crisis, the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis and the Helter Skelter Crisis. However, without a functional Vocabulary that reality will be missed by even those with the best of intentions.
The meaning and intent of “strengthening” should be clear to all: Improving the economic, social and physical well being of…
… of the “Middle Class,” of course. But there is the rub.
What is the Middle Class?
The Wikipedia discussion of “middle class” opens with this statement: “The term “middle Class” has a long history and has had many, sometimes contradictory, meanings.” Well put!
The bottom line is that almost no one believes that the classic Middle Class still exists. That Middle Class existed after the dust settled following World War II. It was articulated and confirmed by C Wright Mills, David Riesman, Robert and Helen Lynd and others. While Middletown’s Middle Class has changed and some say it does not exist, the term “Middle Class” is still used even though it has morphed to become a prime candidate for listing as a Core Confusing Word.
The Wikipedia discussion of “American Middle Class” focuses on three academic “class models” to summarize current scholarly classification of social class. Although there are three separate models, they divide the post 2000 social structure into four broad groupings that are remarkably similar. The four classes (with three sets of titles and percentages of the population) break down this way:
Class 1. Capitalist Class (1%) // Upper Class (1%) // The Super Rich (0.5%) and The Rich (0.5%) – percent total of the class is 1 percent in all three models.
Class 2. Upper Middle Class and Lower Middle Class (45%) // Upper Middle Class and Lower Middle Class (46%) // Middle Class (46%) – percent total varies from 45 to 46 percent in the three models.
Class 3. Working Class (30%) and Working Poor (13%) // Working Class (32%) // Working Class (40-45%) – percent total ranges from 32 to 45 percent in the three models.
Class 4. Underclass (12 %) // Lower Class (14-20%) // The Poor (12%) – percent total ranges from 12 to 20 percent in the three models.
The totals for those below “Middle Class” range from 42 to 65 percent. Note: The totals do not equal 100 percent within any single model.
In the three models selected by the Wikipedia authors the academics have remarkably similar categories and percentage distribution. The biggest variation are in the names and allocation of population of the lowest two classes.
In this ‘composite’ view of the Ziggurat, it seems there is not much room at the top. However, one percent of the population is about 3,060,000 citizens or something over 1,000,000 Households. These fortunate few would fill the largest NFL stadium about 37 times. While they compose a minuscule percentage of the population, this class provides – directly and indirectly – the majority of the funding for ideologically oriented Institutions (aka, think tanks or ‘Belief Tanks’) and support for the two major political parties. See THE ESTATES MATRIX for discussion of the impact of Institutions (especially Belief Tanks) in the New Third Estate. Also see Supercapitalism noted in Chapter 36. – Fireside Reading
It is significant that Class 1. (Upper) plus Class 2. (Middle) no longer make up a majority of the citizens of the US of A as they did in 1960 and in 1973. This raises the first question about the Vice Presidents Task Force:
Who needs “strengthening” most?
Vocabulary becomes even more important when one digs a little deeper. The core concern according to Vice President-Elect Biden’s own statement is “Working Families.”
Here is a ‘two-fer’ with respect to Vocabulary:
First, “family:” For reasons spelled out in GLOSSARY, the term “family” itself has become a candidate for Core Confusing Word status. This is due to disaggregation of the settlement pattern and to the constant changes now experienced within almost all Households / Dwelling Units.
Second, and even more important, if it is “working” citizens that are of concern from a social structure perspective, those are folks is a different place in the Ziggurat (and in a different class) than “the Middle Class.”
There is no question those individuals and Households who are productive members of society (aka, working) and who have been slipping further and further behind since the mid-70s NEED to be the focus of attention if democracy is to be preserved.
As emphasized in Chapter after Chapter of TRILO-G the widening Wealth Gap is anathema to, and incompatible with long term stability of democratic processes and to market economies.
So if Vice President-Elect Biden is to “strengthen the Middle Class,” the first thing to do is to define what it is he and the task force are talking about. There is no way to “strengthen the Middle Class” unless the Task Force understands reality and embraces a realistic Vocabulary.
There is a second point in this context with respect to “The American Dream” of working citizens and expanding home ownership. A fair allocation of location variable costs will make it very clear that from 60 to 70 percent of the population can never afford Single Household Detached Dwellings. That does not rule out “home ownership” but it does impact the settlement pattern. Further, most of the urban citizens who can not afford Single Household Detached Dwellings also cannot afford Large, Private Vehicles to secure Mobility and Access in dispersed settlement patterns.
This is not a matter of policy or preference, it is a matter of physics and economics and also requires an understanding of human settlement patterns. See THE PROBLEM WITH CARS.
EMR
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