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Originally Posted by rickholio
There have been 'middle classes' going back thousands of years, although not quite the same as we know it today... the middle classes then were the merchants, landowners, retired public servants and so forth that were living comfortably without being either royalty or peasantry.
By definition, middle-class means:
So yes, the middle class will always exist to some extent unless you have a 'perfect'(ly dreadful) society of utterly rich and utterly poor with no mobility between the two, and probably has always existed since the conception of commerce itself.
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Sure but a "middle class family" in America, pre-FDR's new deal lived in tenement housing, a family of 6-8 people living in two rooms and sharing a community bathroom with 10 other families.
ALL of the males in the family would work at a factory, 80 hours per week, just so they could put food on the table (food being a family's biggest expense in those days)
It was a far far cry from what we consider "middle class" today.
So when I say there was no middle class back then, by today's standards, that's an accurate assesment.
Today's lower class (welfare) has a higher standard of living than the "middle" class did in those days.
