What is middle class?
There's actually quite a bit of debate as to what middle class even means.
If we type 'middle class' into Google this is the first picture that comes up, and is linked from the Wikipedia page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class
The middle class is a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy. Its usage has often been vague whether defined in terms of occupation, income, education or social status. The definition by any author is often chosen for political connotations. Modern social theorists—and especially economists—have defined and re-defined the term "middle class" in order to serve their particular social or political ends.
Within capitalism, middle-class initially referred to the bourgeoisie; as distinct from the nobility, then with the further differentiation of classes as capitalist societies developed to the degree where the 'capitalist' became the new ruling class, the term came instead to be synonymous with petite bourgeoisie.
I feel like if you asked someone on the street what middle class was they wouldn't say any of that.
Bourgeoisie means middle class?
If you look it up that's exactly what it means...
Even though many would say bourgeoisie means rich.
Also, what's up with that chart?
There's a class called Miserable? Really? Gross.
Also if you have $100k you are "poor"?
Lol who the hell made this garbage?
It's also very unclear how debt fits into all this.
Most people have negative wealth via debt.
Most people live paycheck to paycheck.
We can see how unclear this all becomes.
This is the kind of chart I'm much more familiar with.
Looking at income ranges rather than "class".
At the same time in many situations it doesn't even matter how much people make. The culture that we live in today cultivates an atmosphere of constantly spending beyond our means no matter how much money we are actually making. Even when I was making $12k a year in California, I was able to save up more and make better investments then most people who make $100k+. It's really crazy when you think about it, and also it becomes much more obvious how/why immigrants from say Mexico will come here on a work Visa making minimum wage and still have plenty of money left over to send back home. The mindsets and culture and family units operate completely differently.
There's also an argument to be made that middle-class 50 years ago means something a lot different than it means now. The middle-class has been getting squeezed for quite some time, and everyone knows that's a bad situation for the economy long term. Attacking small businesses during COVID and making people more dependent on work from home situations didn't exactly help this predicament.
Seriously though what's up with this chart.
Poor, middle class, and millionaires? And Miserables?
I'm having trouble understanding how this is the #1 portrayal.
Not lower-class or white-collar or upper-class...
Miserable and millionaire...
Meh, whatever.
Crypto though.
Seems like anyone who toughs it out in crypto long enough is simply bound to become a millionaire by design. What kind of effects will this produce within the economy? A strong middle class is a strong economy... but what happens when the crypto middle class is actually upper class on every other metric. I think living in a world with this kind of abundance is going to be pretty strange with an even weirder transition period.
How many couples out there fight about money as their #1 argument?
What if money is no longer a problem? Will crypto actually improve relationships? Is it possible that crypto could even statistically reduce domestic disputes and things like that? It's possible. It's also just weird to think about. Money can change a lot of things, especially when it is available in abundance.
Money in abundance is also known to cause corruption and greed. Even if money is abundant, our mindsets will likely still be rooted in scarcity for quite some time. Show me one billionaire who lives in abundance. Most rich people hang on to every last dollar like it's their last; that's how they got rich in the first place: scarcity mindset.
The grass is always greener.
There seems to be a tendency in crypto to keep the wealth preserved inside the community. I've seen it myself firsthand. People on Hive are much more likely to spend Hive on an app on Hive. They might have spent the money and it's "gone" but now the app owner controls that Hive, and the app owner might not spend it and choose to power it up instead. This is a lot different than dumping Hive on an exchange and draining the liquidity pools for everyone.
We also saw this happen with NFTs. Ethereum whales were willing to drop millions on JPEGs. A lot of that had to do with keeping the value within the system instead of allowing it to be extracted to another platform. People like to keep money "within the family" by nature. It's all part of the tribalism and community mindsets we see forged around here.
With crypto constantly expanding in value at exponential speeds, we must assume that the middle class is going to be a lot more wealthy than their predecessors. Not only that, they won't be drowning in debt and they'll even own the means of production, because the network owns the means of production and stakeholders own the networks. This is especially true on DPOS where our votes actually depend on the value we have locked in, and elections can't be hacked because they are enforced by encryption on an account to account basis. No more worrying about if those ballots were counted correctly or not.
Realizing lost potential
How many people out there want to better themselves? How many want to learn more and build more value than they are now, but they can't because they are stuck in a holding pattern of living paycheck to paycheck and barely getting by?
The demand is there.
We see it flaunted and exploited on a daily basis. How many MLM pyramid schemes are focus fired directly at housewives looking for a way to make some extra money?
- Amway (cleaning products)
- Herbalife (supplements shakes)
- Avon (makeup)
- Mary Kay (makeup)
- Doterra (essential oils)
- Scentsy (candles)
- Lula Roe (clothes)
- Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Like... what if crypto actually comes up with a non-scam that actually creates a community for these people and empowers them to build real value? The shear untapped potential that crypto has yet to monetize is a thing of legend, and everyone is still stuck on the fact that some of them are scams, and thus all of them must be scams.
Crypto is going to empower millions of people, and sure there will always be scams. That's the name of the game in a crazy permissionless system where code is law. But there will also be... not scams; Networks that actually deliver on their promises. There will be 'MLMs' and 'Ponzi schemes' that actually do what they claim to do (making them not scams at all), and that's pretty wild when you start thinking about how we haven't even come close to reaching this reality. Still early in the game.
Conclusion
In the last 50 years, the definition of 'middle class' changed greatly. In the next 50 years, the definition of 'middle class' will shift again just as hard, but in the opposite direction. The average person is on the verge of becoming a millionaire by design. Abundance is popping up all around us. All we have to do is show up to collect it and share it with others while building community.