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The Middle Class: Toward a Precise Definition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Peter N. Stearns
Affiliation:
Carnegie-Mellon University

Abstract

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Type
Debate on Social Class
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1979

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References

1 Morazé, Charles, The Triumph of the Middle Classes (London, 1966);Google ScholarO'Boyle, Lenore, “The Middle Class in Western Europe,” American Historical Review (1966), 827–45.Google Scholar

2 Blau, Peter, ed., Approaches to the Study of Social Structure (New York, 1975), p. 222.Google Scholar

3 Blau, Approaches to the Study of Social Structure, passim.

4 Barber, Bernard, Social Stratification: A Comparative Analysis of Structure and Process (New York, 1957).Google Scholar

5 Blau, , Approaches to the Study of Social Structure, p. 237;Google ScholarGoldthorpe, J. H. et al. The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure (Cambridge, 1972).Google Scholar

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11 Poulantzas, , Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, p. 32Google Scholar and passim, see also Dahrendorf, Ralf, “Recent Changes in the Class Structure of European Societies,” in Graubard, S., ed., A New Europe? (Boston, 1964), pp. 291336.Google Scholar

12 Neale, R. S., Class and Ideology in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1972).Google Scholar This intelligent critique of the conventional upper-middle-lower division wants two middle groups for the early industrial revolution, usefully but foggily groping for a new vs. old mentality as opposed to purely structural lower-middle and middle-middle criteria. German work is advancing more rapidly; see Engelsing, Rolf, Zur Sozialgeschichte deutscher Mittel-und Untershichten (Gottingen, 1973).Google Scholar

13 On wealth and lifestyle, Barber, Elinor, The Bourgeoisie in Eighteenth Century France (Princeton, 1955);CrossRefGoogle Scholar on power position, Martin, James, Men in Rebellion (New Brunswick, N.J. 1973).Google Scholar This article does not explicitly consider the use of middle class in premodern society, where it usually is confusing and inappropriate. See Davies, K. G. “The Men of the Middle Class” Past and Present (1962), 7784.Google Scholar

14 Stearns, Peter N., 1848: The Tide of Revolution in Europe (New York, 1974).Google Scholar

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17 Daumard, Adeline, “L'Evolution des structures sociales en France” in Leon, Pierre, ed., L'Industrialisation en Europe au XlXe Siècle (Paris, 1972), 315 ff.Google Scholar For an even more extraordinarily mechanical definition of the middle class see Keyfitz, Nathan, “World Resources and the World Middle Class,” Scientific American (1976), 2835; here the world middle class is composed of anyone above the poverty line, about §900 per capita per annum, all equally avid and destructive consumers. Almost all industrial workers are by definition included in this category, creating half a billion people in t he world middle class in 1970 and tripling every quarter century. Keyfitz otherwise has some perfectly valid points about ecological impact, but his blithe distortion of class definition is appalling.Google Scholar

18 Bottomore, Classes in Modern Society.

19 Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict.

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21 Kaelble, Harmut, Berliner Vnternehmer waehrend der fruehen Industrialisierung (Berlin, 1972). There are really few studies of middle-class mobility in the past, apart from scattered discussions of entrepreneurial origins and of course the small percentage of blue collar that rose to white collar, this latter however viewed usually from working-class perspective and class percentages.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Goldthorpe et al., Affluent Workers.

23 Shorter, Edward, “Middle-class Anxiety and the German Revolution of 1848,” Journal of Social History. (1969), 190215.Google Scholar

24 Jannen, William Jr., “National Socialists and Social Mobility,” Journal of Social History, (1976), views Nazism as primarily an attack on the ruling class; Poulantzas, Classes.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Coyner, Sandra, “Class Consciousness and Consumption: The New Middle Class during the Weimar Republic,” Journal of Social History (1977);CrossRefGoogle ScholarStearns, Peter N., Old Age in European Society (London, 1976);Google ScholarRogowski, Ronald “The Gauleiter and the Social Origins of Facism” Comparative Studies in Society and History (1977), 399430.Google Scholar

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34 On conflict see also Shorter, “Anxiety.”

35 Gillis, John, The Prussian Bureaucracy in Crisis (Stanford, 1971);Google ScholarMuncy, Lisbeth, The Junkers in the Prussian Administration (New York, 1944).Google Scholar

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41 Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict.

42 Harrison, J. F. C., The Early Victorians (London, 1971);Google Scholar for correctives Branca, Patricia, Silent Sisterhood (Pittsburgh, 1975)Google Scholar and McBride, Theresa, The Domestic Revolution (London, 1976).Google Scholar

43 Branca, , Sisterhood; Carl Degler, “What Ought to be and What Was: Women's Sexuality in the Nineteenth Century,” American Historical Review (1974), 1467–90.Google Scholar

44 Bell, Daniel, The Coming of Postindustrial Society (New York, 1974). Improper understanding of middle-class evolution is basic to confusions surrounding the untidy postindustrial concept.Google Scholar

45 Coyner, “Class Consciousness.” Leisure theory has yet to be worked out satisfactorily in class terms; efforts to isolate the middle-class strand (which may have coexisted with a revived or maintained popular recreation by 1900) will deepen our understanding of modern leisure and its limitations, Marrus, Michael, The Rise of Modern Leisure (St. Louis, 1976).Google Scholar

46 Stearns, Old Age.