18 April

More myths of the middle. The middle class, it probably doesn’t exist. The spatial metaphors around middle or centre are misleading I think. Yes you can find a middle point between two other points, in space. But there is no middle point between political views or ideas, and in this case ‘class’ is more a perception of status, than an actual physical thing. Most people will say they are middle class, just as most people will say their political views are in the centre. As John Lennon said of America, “You think you’re so clever and classless and free, but you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see”. Like most developed societies, the vast majority of people are ‘poor’, meaning they have to work to survive. The real divide is between wealth - rent, living off accumulated money, without work - and labour. What gives an appearance of wealth to non-wealthy ‘middle class’ people is the use of credit. Debt. Where is wealth concentrated in our society? In the old, overwhelmingly. That’s historically unprecedented.