Abstract
Before exploring the political implications of the emerging middle class, best to begin by defining the term. The economists who herald the growth of the middle class in the developing world today largely construe the term solely as an income category. This is in stark contrast to Marx, who defined class in terms of a social group's relation to the means of production, and it is in stark contrast to Weber, who defined class in terms of a group's pattern of consumption. But even if economists agree to conceive of the middle class as an income category, they differ on how to define this category – whether in relative or absolute terms.3 Some, like Lester Thurow, define middle class relationally. People are middle class if their income falls between 75% and 125% of the median income in a given society. Others define middle class in absolute terms. In the case of Milanovic and Yitzhaki, the boundaries of the contemporary global middle class are set between the average income levels that currently prevail in Brazil and Italy (threshold and ceiling, respectively).4 Still others like Diana Farrell define middle class in terms of relative access to discretionary spending. For Farrell, the middle class is distinguished from the poor in that it does not live “hand to mouth.” Members of the middle class are defined as those who have roughly a third of their income left over for discretionary spending after covering the basic cost of food and shelter.