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The Two Middle Classes

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Re: The Two Middle Classes

#71

Post by scarmig »

n4r9 wrote: post #24
spamizbad wrote: post #10

I think the modern term for the clerisy is the Professional Managerial Class or “PMC” — and the definition of the working class has been expanded to include “service industry” workers.

Not sure that's accurate. The article suggests the "clerisy" operates largely outside the market system, e.g. doctors, lawyers, with the exception possibly being consultants. The PMC is very much a class in the market system.

Not at all. The large majority of the PMC works in the context of large corporations. Although the corporations themselves might be subject to market forces, individuals within them navigate bureaucracies and politics just as much as a random government employee. Moreover, all of these large corporations closely cooperate with government.

The fact that a corporation has an exterior interface with the market doesn't change that most people in it don't deal with the market day-to-day. Even those who do form that interface are relatively insulated from it: a market analyst working to set prices still is evaluated by an internal bureaucracy, not the market itself. Only people in sales really end up exposed to the market because it's so easy to come up with a metric of their performance that's legible to the interior bureaucracy.

Re: The Two Middle Classes

#72

Post by Apocryphon »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #60
mLuby wrote: post #58

So does Michael O Chruch's "3-ladder system of social class in the U.S." need revising? https://web.archive.org/web/20151006183427/https://michaeloc...

He's just an opinionated software engineer, not a forefront of sociological and economic thought.

Venkatesh Rao is widely posted on HN, though.

Re: The Two Middle Classes

#73

Post by neilparikh »

The article focuses a little bit on homeownership, and its supposed relationship to opposing feudalism, but fails to realise that the current system of land ownership is what has caused this concentration of land, as well as creating a new feudal system. See Georgism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism) for an explanation of this idea, something thinkers as early as Adam Smith contemplated (in a less developed form).

Re: The Two Middle Classes

#74

Post by mtts »

walshemj wrote: post #25
tic_tac wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming the "yeomanry" mainly consists of the old, but I think that's an overly narrow and basically false assumption. The participants in the yellow vest protests in France - largely members of "yeomanry" I would think - are as much Gen X and Millenial as they are Baby Boomers. As for the oligarchs, there are certainly wealthy individuals entrenched in the traditional fossil fuel industries, but the number…

But the yellow vests are overwhelmingly lower class - and in France you might even say peasantry. Weather or not some rich people are using these people by manipulating them is another question

This is certainly true for the Netherlands (alluded to in the article): the yellow vests (and the supporters of right wing populists in general) are overwhelmingly poor, both in terms of education and in terms of wealth.

Re: The Two Middle Classes

#75

Post by tonyedgecombe »

sremani wrote: post #43

Think of two middle-classes like Industrial vs Tech. The atoms world of America is a world of decline and tech for now is on ascendance. That will not continue perpetually, sooner or later the tech boom will end and re-industrialization of US will begin. But that will need us going through lot of pain, suffering and healing.

You can see the same problems even within technology, look how dominant companies like Apple or Google have become whilst the rest of us are gleaning for leftovers.

Re: The Two Middle Classes

#76

Post by mtts »

n4r9 wrote: post #24
spamizbad wrote: post #10

I think the modern term for the clerisy is the Professional Managerial Class or “PMC” — and the definition of the working class has been expanded to include “service industry” workers.

Not sure that's accurate. The article suggests the "clerisy" operates largely outside the market system, e.g. doctors, lawyers, with the exception possibly being consultants. The PMC is very much a class in the market system.

Indeed. School teachers (not particularly well paid or managerial) are definitely part of the clerisy, supporting things like an [edit: added missing word "energy"] transition and, no surprises there, a greater role for education. Managers in companies that operate in the market: not so much.

The term “clerisy” to me rings clearer than “professional middle class” as he latter ignores [edit: removed autocorrect nonsense word] very real distinctions between corporate lawyers and directors of NGOs.

Re: The Two Middle Classes

#77

Post by danieltillett »

thisrod wrote: post #45

The article claims the surprise result of the last Australian election as a rejection of action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The consensus in Australia is that people simply didn't like the leader of the opposition as a TV personality. Also, Australian attitudes to climate change have been rather dramatically modified by events since that election.

As an Australian I would say this is correct. The last election was not a choice between two leaders with charisma, but a case of choosing the least worse of a bad lot.

Re: The Two Middle Classes

#78

Post by n4r9 »

thisrod wrote: post #45

The article claims the surprise result of the last Australian election as a rejection of action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The consensus in Australia is that people simply didn't like the leader of the opposition as a TV personality. Also, Australian attitudes to climate change have been rather dramatically modified by events since that election.

Whilst I don't doubt the truth of this, I find there's often a deeper reason why people "just don't like" someone. Sometimes it's because that someone has ideals which challenge the assumptions of too many people. Other times it's because the media has an agenda which is at odds with that person's principles, and therefore choose to portray that person in a particularly negative light.

Re: The Two Middle Classes

#79

Post by n4r9 »

scarmig wrote: post #71
n4r9 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure that's accurate. The article suggests the "clerisy" operates largely outside the market system, e.g. doctors, lawyers, with the exception possibly being consultants. The PMC is very much a class in the market system.

Not at all. The large majority of the PMC works in the context of large corporations. Although the corporations themselves might be subject to market forces, individuals within them navigate bureaucracies and politics just as much as a random government employee. Moreover, all of these large corporations closely cooperate with government. The fact that a corporation has an exterior interface with the market doesn't c…

Honestly, working in a large corporation is very different to working in a public institution. For example, in my experience, your salary is much more of a negotiation between yourself and your direct superiors. You can highlight the value/profit your bring to the company, and if they underestimate you the you can change to a higher paying job somewhere else. That opportunity just doesn't exist in public industries where pay scales are rigidly set to the number of years of experience you have, or the specific job title. You can argue all you want but unless you're absolutely exceptional (undergrad paper in Nature level exceptional) you'll get nowhere.

One of the reasons that teachers and doctors have such absurdly poor working conditions and pay (in the UK at least) relative to the value they bring to society, is that they're mostly paid via the state so the only way they can demonstrate their value is through striking. If the government takes a hard line of strikes and public spending then those industries suffer.

Re: The Two Middle Classes

#80

Post by xenihn »

walshemj wrote: post #27
foundart wrote: post #4

It describes a part of the middle class that gets its income from the market and another part that gets its income from non-market sources such as universities and the government and I found it a useful lens through which to view current events.

Um middle class university jobs are badly paid compared to professionals working at say a FANG

They're secure though.
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