The dominant middle-class narrative obscures the existence of a working class in industrial societies.
Evidence
“Class” is often used to describe differences in wealth, self-perception, and social status. This can be misleading. Income levels, education, lifestyles, and consumption patterns are parameters used to divide the population in a society where belonging to the so-called middle class is considered to be the healthy norm, with some excesses represented on one side by the small number of millionaires at the top of the social pyramid and on the other side by the group of poor people living at the bottom. According to the dominant narrative, the majority of us belong to the middle class, whose crisis is recounted with bitterness and disappointment, while the very idea of the existence of a working class is dismissed as a rusty, useless notion of a dead and buried ideology. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 84
Categorization
- DEFINE: Contrasts the popular income/status meaning of ‘class’ with the classical political-economy definition the book will use.
- XREF: connects to: Mainstream framing of class as income and status obscures the working class’s existence — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 84; The rising-middle-class narrative is unsupported by historical evidence; The rise-of-the-middle-class narrative is a fabricated historical impression, not fact (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Mainstream framing of class as income and status obscures the working class’s existence
#corroborates(0.92) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 84 - The rise-of-the-middle-class narrative is a fabricated historical impression, not fact
#corroborates(0.92) - Under monopoly capitalism classes persist objectively while becoming socially invisible.
#corroborates(0.88) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 680 - The rising-middle-class narrative is unsupported by historical evidence
#corroborates(0.85) - Postindustrial society narratives ideologically mask continuing class struggle.
#expands(0.78) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 39 - Narrative point of view is a historical symptom of middle-class social atomization
#exemplifies(0.72) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 702