The Problem with the Middle Class

Once a gateway for the working class, the middle class have become gatekeepers for the elite

Vivek Ramaswamy opens his book Woke Inc. with the words “I am a traitor to my class.” As a biotech entrepreneur worth many hundreds of millions of dollars, his crusade against ESG (Environment Social and Governance) certainly makes him a heretic; and I salute him for it.

Rebels within the upper caste of the homogenous global corporate superstructure are few and far between. Ramaswamy, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are probably the most notable of the current paradigm (and that’s only if one makes certain assumptions about both Trump’s and Musk’s motives; assumptions I’m personally getting less comfortable with as time passes, especially in Elon’s case). One could voice similar doubts about Ramaswamy, especially in light of his presidential bid, but having read his book and listened to him speak in long-form, I believe his heart to be true.

Rebels such as Vivek Ramaswamy rarely emerge within the ruling elite, yet here is where we need them the most – and thus I’m rooting for Vivek.

But we need rebels in the middle class too and, as such, I am also a traitor to my class.

I have none of Vivek’s penetrating insight into the halls of power, but one thing I know intricately is the middle class.

I was born middle class in the British midlands; I was raised middleclass in middle New Zealand (not to be confused with Middle Earth!); I remained middleclass despite both elite private schooling and relative poverty as a tertiary student and angry young musician, and then relative wealth as a blue-pilled big city yuppie in what I refer to as my Patrick Bateman phase; and I remain middleclass to this day, slowly sliding backwards into the mire of our disintegrating standard of living, but still middleclass – with one important distinction: I have come to largely resent and even to despise my fellow bourgeoisies.

As the clerical functionaries of the neoliberal world order, the ruling elites need the support of the middle class. Not only does the bulk of their tax revenue come from us, but we staff their institutions. An unhappy and unruly middle class spells trouble and thus great care has been taken over the decades since its emergence to placate, flatter, and bamboozle this potentially dangerous segment of the population.

To date this has been largely effective, and those who have stepped outside of the orthodoxy have become pariahs – the kind of folk who perhaps don’t get invited to the neighbourhood barbeque. But with the advent of the internet a growing subset of the middle class has been emerging: those who have done some digging, unearthed some inconsistencies, and began voicing populist questions and objections more traditionally associated with the working class.

It is to this heretic subset that I now belong, and I suspect, you may also. We glide in and out of both worlds, perhaps working a corporate 9-5 by day and hammering out subversive missives by night; perhaps sheltering behind a pseudonym or conversing only with a chosen few on matters of political sensitivity, for we know that our position is precarious and that to be identified as a heretic within our class could lead to our destruction.

Guys like Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy can afford to be rebels. They have the fabled ‘fuck-you money’. But people like us can be cancelled, and thus we tread carefully – for we operate on enemy soil, working and often living alongside those who would see us excommunicated for wrong-think.

This is the problem with the middle class. It guards its perceived status jealously and has little tolerance for dissent. It’s not that these folk are evil, or even desirous of our misfortune, we the subset of questioners and objectors; it is simply that the middle class is a nice place to be and even the smuggest and most hubristic among them know instinctively that it is more akin to a lifeboat than a luxury liner, and to rock that boat is dangerous to all therein.

As such, the middle class has developed a unique set of characteristics with which to furnish its own smooth sailing.

I have identified three distinct features of the middle class which embody its ironic facilitation of the system that seeks to marginalise and eventually destroy it. It is important to note that I do not apply these traits universally, but a long and reflective scrutiny of those who make up my social class, analysed against my own past behaviour, has left me in no doubt that these are indeed common features shared by a majority of its constituents.

I have approached this didactically but it helps to understand at the outset that numbers 2 and 3 are effectively byproducts of the first.

1. Strident entitlement

While most members of the middle class are vaguely aware that their status is not unconditional, and that the layer of fat which separates them from the underclass is perhaps not as thick as they’d like to think, it is important for this stratum of society to engage in a grand delusion.

It is crucial for the middle class to believe itself special in order to sustain its faith in a system that manifestly takes from them at an ever-increasing rate. To believe otherwise immediately opens a door which eventually leads one to the point of rebellion, and members of the middle class instinctively know this and avoid it by way of the grand delusion of status.

To believe in one’s own anointed status shields one from the terrifying truth, that perhaps he is just as expendable and inconsequential as the fellow from the other side of the tracks who wears a high-vis to work and struggles even to pay the rent for a council flat.

To believe oneself above the great unwashed and more closely aligned to the billionaire class that she apes in her Instagram stories is a soothing analgesic for the weekly return of Monday morning, and the slow, hungover climb up the frontside of the week: work, bills, and the dissipating dream of homeownership.

But to believe oneself special alone is not enough. To make it feel real one must adopt a tangible attitude of entitlement. Only though the grim determination that one truly deserves amazing things like fancy clothes, luxury cars, swanky restaurant meals, and overseas holidays can one maintain the illusion that they are truly special and justify the lines of credit necessary to maintain such a lifestyle.

I doubt whether this strident entitlement was a feature of the original 19^th Century middle class, the Greatest Generation, or even the young Boomers, but it certainly came to encapsulate the bourgeoisie of the late 20^th Century, and to apply the term to those of 2023 would almost seem too kind – a more accurate descriptor might be rampant narcissism.

During one of our frequent philosophical clashes, Elizabeth recently told me, in shrill and strident tones no less, “I deserve overseas holidays!” I love my girlfriend, but this statement is emblematic of the entitlement to which I refer. She has constructed in her head an idea of herself as so exceptional and virtuous that she should be afforded exotic travel as a fundamental right. She has mistaken the agency that her relatively high income grants her, with a divine endowment of status; and as her savings lose value daily to inflation, and the world controllers continue to discuss a Net Zero future that would put an end to Elizabeth’s biannual junkets, she clings grimly to this delusion.

2. Rank servility

It is all well and good to consider oneself special and entitled, but unless one is actually special or entitled (a champion Formula One driver, or a prince, for example), then this delusion becomes difficult to maintain because of the obvious upper stratum of elites who sit above you.

The way to reconcile this incongruity? To swear allegiance to the elites.

The old – if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

In this way the middle class can mitigate its own relative lack of status by aligning itself aesthetically and ideologically with the elites, adopting their mannerisms and talking points, copying their fashions, and imitating their lifestyles to the extent their limited means allow. In this way they more closely resemble the elites in form, even though in function they are much more closely aligned with the lower orders.

Indeed, I am fond of saying to those of my social and economic class who make the mistake of professing some kind of affinity with the upper crust in my presence, that they have more in common with a roadworker than they do with Kim Kardashian. This is an objective truth and only a minute of honest arithmetic proves it.

But the deluded members of the middle class have no interest in honest arithmetic and as such, one observes in them a rank servility that would make even Bertie Wooster blush.

This is the essence of snobbery – the craven middleclass social climber who has become so stridently entitled and so determined to believe in their own myth that there is no humiliation or degradation of their character that they would not endure to make themselves appear more adjacent to the elite.

This servility exists at all levels of the middle class and takes a variety of forms – from the nebulous adoption of luxury beliefs by the armies of young influencers, most commonly espoused through vapid Instagram and TikTok reels; to the shameless worship of ‘experts’ and celebrities; to the toadying senior executive type who would sell his own mother up the river for a cruise on his boss’s superyacht – it all serves the same function and is crucial to the middle class’s notion of itself as adjacent to those who actually sit far above them.

3. Lethargic credulity

Such sycophancy is an effective way of aligning oneself with the elite that one wishes themself a part of, but it is of little use if one does not believe in the things he says and does as an expression of this alignment.

Even the most insipid fool will encounter significant cognitive dissonance in the act of sucking up to someone whose ideas and pronouncements repel him. This presents a problem for the otherwise honest and free-thinking middleclass member who wishes to insulate his own strident entitlement from intellectual critique by aligning himself with the truly entitled.

There is only one way to address such a spiritual conundrum – to adopt a lethargic credulity about the system you serve, the masters who govern it, and the stories they tell you about themselves and your relationship with them.

The old – don’t know, don’t care, I’m trying to watch the game.

Ask no questions and believe the TV. Most have this drummed into them via the education system, news media, advertising, and government propaganda. But there are entire auxiliary industries dedicated to the enablement of this lethargy – most notably the dopamine industry: sugar, alcohol, porn, social media, reality TV… Any product that triggers that wonderful little rush and has us reaching immediately for more is highly effective in disabling our critical thinking capabilities, and as such, of great utility to anyone interested in remaining credulous, and of great value to those who stand to benefit from our credulity.

Pleasure provides an escape, and it is healthy to indulge such luxuries as the natural reward for work well done. But pleasure is also addictive.

For you, as for me, these escapes are likely short lived, and we do not allow the lethargy that accompanies pleasurable recreation to cloud our purpose or disrupt our long-term goals. But we are in the minority, and for most, these little thrills are not a temporary escape but a continuous narcotic overlay.

I know from repeated experimentation that the longer I indulge in daily pleasures such as alcohol, binge TV, and even listening to some kinds of music, the further I drift from my understanding of the world, and the more tempting a return to apathy, acceptance or even some form of credulity becomes.

Credulity of the sort required to go along daily with a fatuous system of control does not necessitate serious mental gymnastics – merely laziness. And this lethargy can be abundantly catalysed via any of the innumerable pleasures and distractions on offer to 21^st Century consumers.

From our iPhones to our takeaways, from our cocktails to our vacays – all these trappings of middleclass life are weaponised to create the lethargy and inertia which facilitates mass acceptance of the program. And the middle class falls greedily on them at every turn.

Like Vivek Ramaswamy, I am traitor to my class, but not because I’ve done something incredibly brave and blown the whistle on the top dogs. My crime, and that of my compatriots, is less obvious: we have disavowed the silent code of go along to get along.

We aspire to return the middle class to an honourable cohort that both uplifts those beneath it and constrains those above. We reject the shiny intoxicants of consumerism in favour of our own unblemished cognizance; and as such the snobbish fawning over celebrities and powerbrokers interests us not – indeed it disgusts us; so much so that that we gladly embrace our condition of imperfection and humility, and are proud to state that we are not special, nothing is promised to us – we are deeply grateful for that which we do have, but recognise its impermanence, and thus when they do come for our earthly riches, we will still know who we are.