The Middle Class Is Dying Out

Laitman_421_01Opinion (from lenta.ru): “The term ‘middle class’ has been in use over the course of two and a half thousand years – the first time it was used was around 420 BC, when the ancient Greek playwright Euripides put into the mouth of Theseus, the hero of the comedy ‘Beseeching,’ the following words: ‘It is only the middle class support who the city; he submits to its laws and authorities.’ In the following century, the idea was developed the great philosopher Aristotle, who pointed out in his treatise ‘Politics,’ that ‘the state, which consists of average people, and will have the best system of government.’ In this sense, the term originated in 1913, when the Statistical Office of Great Britain marked the term middle class as segments of the population who are between the ruling class and the proletariat. … Since then, Western sociology sees the middle class as the main support, and political and economic stability of the state – in full accordance with the precepts of Aristotle.

“But last year, American sociologists have sounded the alarm. Although the world-wide share of the poor is steadily decreasing (from 25 to 15 percent in the first 10 years of the century, according to the World Bank – the percentage of people in low- and middle-income countries during the same period increased by 6 percent and 8 percent, respectively), the USA marked a clear tendency to ‘shrinkage’ of the middle class. Some of its members are moving into the category of the rich, but much more are those who descend to the bottom bracket of income. … If in 1971, 80 million American adults, or nearly 61 per cent of the working population (131.6 million people) belonged to the middle class, in 2015 their number has increased even though in absolute terms to 120.8 million, but now of less than half of the total number of able-bodied citizens of the USA. Also the structure of the distribution of aggregate household income changed. In 1970, the middle class earned 62 per cent of money in the country, by 2014, this figure dropped to 43 percent. Wealthy Americans have increased their share from 20 percent to 49 percent. Apparently, a similar pattern is observed in other developed countries.

“This process affects the consumer goods market. The tendency to ‘wash out’ traditionally middle class products – high quality and moderately expensive – was observed at the beginning of the decade, … ‘In Paris, a lot of stores went bankrupt and closed. … On the Place de Victoire all the fashion shops closed. … Nobody is interested in fashion, no customers,’ …

Commentary: The richest people in the world who are merely 1% of the world population own more assets and property than 99% of the population.

62 people own the same amount of wealth as 3.6 billion people who are the poorest half of the population. Since 2010 the wealth of these rich people grew by 44% and that of the poor population decreased by 41%.

My Comment: The ego is pressuring every individual to a point that he must fulfill his needs. It makes no difference how rich a person may be, he will feel increasingly more “unfilled” and will continue to aspire for more until all the wealth in the world belongs to him and then the whole universe too.

So I hope that the upper class will come to their senses and stop and leave something to the lower classes. Inequality in the world is moving towards 1% wealthy people and 99% poor people with no middle class. This is the law of our egoistic nature.
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