Zhang Jin: Contemporary Western Leftist Research on the Middle Class: Current Status and Issues
After the Second World War, the rapid economic recovery and development of Western capitalist countries fostered a burgeoning middle class. The class structure trended toward diversification, characterized by the large-scale emergence of organizational managers and technical staff. The discrepancy between Marx and Engels' assertion that the class structure in the capitalist era "tends toward simplification" and the reality of a "pluralistic social class landscape" gave rise to numerous class theories. These included theoretical constructions adapting to changes in the new class structure, as well as assaults on Marxist class theory—some even proposing the "disappearance of class" or the "obsolescence of class" thesis. Since the 1980s, the problem of the "rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer" has become prominent in Western capitalist countries. According to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies, a US think tank, the total wealth of US billionaires grew 19-fold between 1990 and 2021, while median US wealth increased by only 5.37% over the same period. Under multiple forms of squeeze, the middle class appears to be in a state of disappearance. Consequently, research by Western Leftist scholars centered on the middle class and the class structure of contemporary capitalist states has revealed new dynamics.
I. The Impact of the Rise of the Middle Class on Marxist Class Theory
Marx and Engels pointed out in the Manifesto of the Communist Party that class antagonisms in the capitalist era have a tendency toward simplification; society increasingly splits into two great hostile camps: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The intermediate petty bourgeoisie, with the accumulation of capital and the development of social production, would be squeezed out of the primary class relations of capitalist society. However, with the emergence of joint-stock companies and the banking system at the end of the 19th century, a white-collar stratum and a managerial stratum appeared in Western capitalist countries, making occupational categories and the composition of the labor force more rich and diverse. During the stage of imperialism, the monopoly position of Western capitalist countries in the world market and colonies led to internal differentiation within the proletariat of these nations, producing members who were partially bourgeoisified.
After World War II, the class structure of capitalist countries underwent further changes. During this period, "sufficient labor supply, continuous technological progress, and the gradual emergence of mass consumption sustained a long-term economic prosperity unprecedented in capitalist history." Additionally, under the dominance of Keynesianism, government intervention in full employment, unemployment benefits, and welfare protections enabled "most working people in the United States and Western Europe in the 1950s and 1960s to expect stable jobs and real wage growth." The virtuous cycle formed between economic growth and public income laid a solid foundation for the large-scale rise of the middle class in Western capitalist countries. Earl Wysong summarized the social class structure of the United States from 1945 to 1975 as "diamond-shaped," during which 80% of Americans were located in the middle stratum, presenting the image of a "middle-class society." From the perspective of occupational categories, C. Wright Mills analyzed the changes in the American class structure after World War II, arguing that the "traditional middle class"—represented by independent farmers, shopkeepers, and small business owners—was shrinking, while the "new middle class"—represented by professional and technical personnel, managers, school teachers, office white-collar workers, and sales clerks—was growing substantially.
In the late 1970s, the decomposition and reorganization of productive labor caused by the globalization of labor supply and labor processes, along with the establishment of neoliberal dominance, led to changes in internal corporate organization and production structures. A key manifestation was the increased flexibility of enterprises and an expanded share of employment in small and medium-sized firms. In France, "at the end of 1975, firms with more than 500 wage-earners accounted for 21%; by 1996, they were 11%. Conversely, firms with fewer than 10 wage-earners rose from 18% to 26% over the same period." Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, in The New Spirit of Capitalism, referred to the capitalist crisis since the 1970s as the "crisis of Taylorism." John Myles and Adnan Turegun called the rise of self-employed labor, the increase in wage labor in small firms, and the decline of medium-sized firms the "return of the petty bourgeoisie," arguing that "the 1980s proved to be a turning point in the (unfortunate) fortunes of the petty bourgeoisie, both in social life and in the academic world." How to understand the contradiction between the binary antagonistic class structure and the large-scale rise of the middle class, as well as the contradiction between the transitional nature and the "return" of the petty bourgeoisie, has increasingly become a question of the era.
Some scholars have questioned Marxist class theory based on the rise of the middle class. As early as the end of the 19th century, Eduard Bernstein "revised" Marx's theory based on new conditions in the class structure. He argued that along with the substantial growth of social wealth and capitalist productive forces, the antagonism between the two great classes predicted by Marx had not appeared in Germany at that time. The traditional middle class (small and medium business owners) had not perished with the development of monopoly; instead, the burgeoning middle class (the clerical stratum) flourished alongside modern large-scale production. Since the 20th century, some scholars have used the emergence and rise of "new classes" to deconstruct the historical mission and subjective status of the proletariat. For instance, André Gorz proposed the theory of the "non-class of non-workers"; Daniel Bell argued that the primary class of post-industrial society would be a professional class based on knowledge rather than ownership; Alvin Gouldner stated frankly that the future ruling class would be a "new class" composed of humanistic and technical intellectuals; Ralf Dahrendorf focused on the differentiation within the working class caused by differences in technical levels and labor proficiency, arguing that Marx's judgment regarding the homogeneity of the working class no longer accorded with the class landscape of capitalist society. In the 1990s, Terry Nicholls Clark and Seymour Martin Lipset proposed that "class is an increasingly outmoded concept," arguing that as society becomes more affluent and knowledge and technology innovate social production—particularly with the advancement of automation and mechanization—the demand for unskilled manual workers decreases while white-collar, technical, professional, and service positions increase. "The class structure looks more and more like a diamond protruding in the middle, rather than a pyramid." They argued that "Marx largely ignored the existence of such a middle class and expected them to either develop into capitalists or become part of the working class." To this end, Clark and Lipset advocated for the "improvement" of Marx's theory.
Clearly, utilizing the rise of the middle class to challenge Marxist class theory constitutes a misreading. One misreading is the claim that Marx ignored the existence of the middle class. In fact, the inner meaning of Marxist class theory is rich, encompassing both an "early model of polarization between wealth and poverty caused by capital accumulation" and a "late model of a continuously expanding intermediate class in capitalist society." Marx and Engels not only possessed extensive thoughts on the intermediate classes but also noted the growing trend of a managerial stratum formed by the separation of ownership and control of the means of production. Through textual analysis of Marx’s works, Jon Elster concluded that Marx mentioned "roughly 15 groups appearing as classes across various modes of production," and that capitalist society included multiple groups such as "industrial capitalists, financial capitalists, landowners, peasants, the petty bourgeoisie, and wage laborers." Another misreading treats Marxist class theory as an empirical analysis of class composition. In reality, while analyzing class differentiation, the economic conditions and political stances of different classes, and their influence is a vital component of Marxist class theory, it must never be equated with an empirical analysis of class composition in the economic or sociological sense. The essence of Marxist class analysis is a historical materialist analysis; it analyzes the relations of exploitation and the contradiction between labor and capital based on the unequal ownership of the means of production.
II. A Review of Western Leftist Middle-Class Theory
Changes in the relations of production lead to changes in class structure, which in turn foster new class theories. How should we understand the changes in the employment structure of laborers brought about by the development of productive forces and technological transformation—specifically the phenomenon of decreasing industrial workers and increasing organizational managers and technical staff? How should we locate the middle class, and how should we explain the multiple differentiations within the labor force? Western Leftist scholars have proposed various perspectives on these issues.
Nicos Poulantzas, based on the nature of middle-class labor as well as their role in the production of surplus value and the characteristics of their value identification, proposed the theory of the "new petty bourgeoisie." He argued that, on the one hand, employees in the tertiary sector, corporate managers, and technical workers differ from the proletariat engaged in productive labor; they mostly engage in non-productive labor, do not produce surplus value, and have a strong identification with capitalist ideology. On the other hand, they differ from the bourgeoisie as they do not own the means of production and belong to the hired, salaried group. However, because they emerged during the stage of monopoly capitalism and differ from the previous "petty bourgeoisie," Poulantzas defined these new social groups appearing in post-war Western society as the "new petty bourgeoisie."
The class classification criteria of American Leftist economists Richard D. Wolff and Stephen A. Resnick share similarities with Poulantzas. Both draw on Louis Althusser’s structuralist theory, using epistemological overdetermination to guide class analysis and taking the role of different classes in the production of surplus value as an important standard for class division. They argue that two types of class processes exist in capitalist society: the "fundamental class process" of producing and appropriating surplus value, and the "subsumed class process" of distributing surplus value. The subjects of the former are productive workers and capitalists, while the subjects of the latter are non-productive workers (managers) along with commercial and money-lending capitalists. This makes class division more complex and pluralistic.
Harry Braverman analyzed the new changes in class structure from the perspective of the social form of labor, based on the different determinate forms of labor. He proposed: "For capitalism, what matters is not the determinate form of labor, but its social form—its capacity as wage labor to produce profit for the capitalist." The existence of the working class depends on the social form of its labor rather than various concrete forms. In Braverman's view, although the specific operations and concrete forms of labor performed by industrial workers differ from those of professional employees such as commercial employees, administrative managers, and technical workers, none of them possess economic or occupational independence. Except for being employed, they cannot participate in the capitalist production process. Therefore, they all belong to the category of wage workers; the different groups are not in opposition to one another. On the surface, the emergence of the white-collar stratum seems to represent the development of a massive non-proletarian "middle rank," but in substance, they are merely a new type of proletariat. As office work is decomposed into a set of simple motions, and with the use of automated and semi-automated machinery, more and more work becomes deskilled, and the office becomes a site of manual labor. The view that office work is superior to manual labor in terms of skill, prestige, and class status is actually a prejudice. Anti-Marxists’ use of the emergence of white-collar workers to question Marx's views is entirely untenable.
Erik Olin Wright’s positioning of the middle class focuses on the contradiction between the class location occupied by the middle class and the diverse class characteristics it exhibits. He proposed the concept of "contradictory class locations" and divided the class structure into a matrix of twelve positions based on their relationship to the ownership of the means of production, authority, and scarce skills and expertise. In Wright’s view, the middle class "on the one hand, as they are excluded from ownership of the means of production, they are similar to the working class; on the other hand, because of their effective control over organizational and skill assets, they have interests opposed to those of workers." Their role as controllers of knowledge and scarce labor gives the middle class a special status within the organization of production and the labor market, allowing them to appropriate a relatively large share of social surplus. Wright referred to the special value that allows the middle class to appropriate relatively more surplus value as "loyalty rent," asserting that the middle class occupies a "privileged position within exploitation relations." The contradictory nature of the middle class—being like capitalists yet not capitalists, and like workers yet not workers—places them in a contradictory location within class relations. Based on empirical analysis of Western capitalist countries, Wright pointed out that the proportion of managers and experts, as well as contradictory locations within class relations, are continuously expanding, making the capitalist class structure increasingly complex.
Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich did not limit themselves to a binary class structure but proposed a tripartite class structure, arguing that the Professional-Managerial Class (PMC) constitutes a third class distinct from the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The Ehrenreichs argue that traditional Marxist analysis of capitalist class structure focused on the polarization of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. However, as capitalism reached the monopoly stage, a third class appeared—the Professional-Managerial Class [7]—which specifically includes cultural workers, engineers, and scientists. In terms of class relations, the PMC shares common interests with the working class but is opposed to the bourgeoisie on the issue of ownership of the means of production. Yet, there is also antagonism between the PMC and the working class. On the one hand, the PMC possesses a technocratic vision and cultural hegemony over the working class; on the other hand, the working class feels the oppression brought by the PMC more directly in daily life, leading to hostility toward them.
III. New Dynamics in Contemporary Western Leftist Research on the Middle Class
Since the 1980s, the gap between rich and poor in Western capitalist countries has widened continuously, and the middle class has faced a severe squeeze. Statistical data from the Federal Reserve in October 2021 showed that as of June 2021, the wealth share of the American middle class (the middle 60% of income earners) had dropped to 26.6%, a 30-year low. Meanwhile, the top 1% of the wealthy held 27% of the national wealth, surpassing the middle class. This has brought issues such as the "middle-class crisis" and the "end of the American Dream" to the fore. What impact does the shrinking of the middle class have? How should we position the shrinking middle class and its role? How should we understand the new forms of class structure in capitalist countries after the middle class encounters crisis? Western leftist scholars have provided answers to these questions.
(i) The Situation of the Middle Class: Is the Middle Class Heading Toward Extinction?
A large-scale middle class was once seen as a key symbol of the achievement of common prosperity and the American Dream in post-WWII Western capitalist countries. However, in the late 1970s, the class structure of Western capitalist countries underwent a shift. Perrucci and Wysong [8] argue that a new economy characterized by neoliberalism, financialization, new technologies, global production, transnational power, and dual labor markets has reshaped the American class structure. This shift is represented by a move from a "diamond-shaped" class structure—dominated by an 80% middle-class majority after WWII—to a "double-diamond" class structure since the late 1970s, composed of a 20% privileged class and an 80% new working class, as the middle class gradually dies out. Hedrick Smith elaborated on the multiple pressures faced by the American middle class, including high costs caused by imperial overstretch, the logic of the new mortgage "game" behind the real estate bubble, and sharp cuts to retirement pensions. He claimed that America has transitioned from an era of middle-class prosperity and power to an era of extreme wealth expansion and large-scale economic imbalance, with the "middle ground" in a state of disappearance.
Vicente Navarro pointed out that the judgment that America is a middle-class society is directly related to the rhetorical misdirection in how relevant questions are framed. When asked whether they belong to the upper class, middle class, or lower class, most Americans position themselves as middle class; this is the primary basis upon which the American academic and political establishment promotes the idea of America as a middle-class society. However, mainstream literature on class classification fails to realize that the term "lower class" carries a strong offensive connotation. If the question were rephrased to replace "lower class" with "working class," most people would classify themselves as working class; this same phenomenon occurs in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Ricardo Antunes and Michael Zweig analyzed the predicament of the middle class from the perspective of its internal differentiation. Antunes argues that service industry workers are increasingly detached from the intellectual labor typical of the middle class and are becoming a "service-sector proletariat." Francesco Schettino and Haider A. Khan analyzed the polarization of income distribution in the United States through economic analysis and variable decomposition. They believe the problem of the disappearing middle-income stratum began during the Reagan era; those disappearing from the middle are not leaping into the high-income stratum but are instead falling into the low-income stratum, with non-white and female groups being more severely affected.
(ii) The Impact of Middle-Class Predicaments: Leading to Overlapping Class, Ethnic, and Racial Contradictions
The intensifying wealth gap in Western capitalist countries has caused more of the middle class to fall into the ranks of the proletariat. Under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economies of Western capitalist countries were hit hard. While people of color and socially vulnerable groups suffered more severely, the affected groups were not limited to these two categories. Zophia Edwards pointed out that the economic devastation of COVID-19 has caused many white proletarians and middle-class individuals to fall into precariousness and pauperization similar to non-whites. However, the hardships faced by the white proletariat and middle class did not lead them to form cross-racial solidarity or alliances with non-whites. Instead, whites attempted to restore their psychological and social status advantages, leading to the prevalence of white supremacist ideology; the United States, in particular, has displayed clear characteristics of "racial capitalism."
Faced with the anger and anxiety of the white working class and middle class arising from economic hardship and identity crises, Western capitalist countries have diverted the contradiction and "shifted the blame." First, they attribute economic hardship to immigrants. Zweig argues that immigrants are merely scapegoats found by Western capitalist countries for their own social ills. For years, the U.S. blamed most social problems on the poor and the fiscal burden of welfare, but welfare reform made the poor no longer a target of public anger. Currently, immigrants have replaced the poor as the explanation for America's economic plight, under the pretext that immigrants cause native residents to lose jobs, depress wages, and become a major burden on public finances, as well as being a poor population with criminal tendencies. However, immigrants are merely a "false target" created by the ruling class; they are viewed as "Others" and a "lower class" outside mainstream society to divert public frustration and anger away from corporate elites. Second, they attribute economic hardship to globalization. Göran Therborn used "hopes and nightmares" to describe the differing situations of the middle class in the Global South and the Global North. In the Global South, the middle class has experienced explosive growth; in the Global North, the middle class is in a state of decline, facing rising living costs and increasingly uncertain labor market prospects. Regarding the flourishing of the middle class in the Global South as the cause of the decline of the middle class in the Global North is a major incentive for the rise of protectionism and anti-globalization waves in Western capitalist countries today. However, this is actually a misunderstanding based on superficial appearances; the substantive roots hidden beneath should command our attention. Branko Milanovic, in his book Global Inequality, explained the dominant position of Western capitalist countries in the overall distribution of wealth from the perspective of the global distribution of absolute gains. From the perspective that global inequality mainly stems from inequality between nations, he expounded on the massive economic gap between the Global South and North implied by "citizenship premiums" or "citizenship losses." He pointed out that this gap can be illustrated by the difference in middle-class definition standards between developed and developing countries. As early as 2009, the World Bank's Development Research Center explained the impact of different middle-class definition standards, arguing that if developed-country standards were used to define the middle class in developing countries, only 5% of people in the latter would reach middle-class levels, and the "new middle class" in developing countries is fraught with vulnerability, easily falling back into poverty under the influence of global economic fluctuations.
Through the above analysis, we find that the polarization in Western capitalist countries is actually rooted in internal income distribution and is determined by the political systems and capital interests of these countries. However, Western capitalist countries divert the contradictions, intertwining class issues with national, gender, and racial issues. Fernando E. Gapasin argues that the unique reality of the present is that class struggle displays an "additivity," manifested in the mutual penetration of patriarchy, racial conflict, and class contradictions, which requires building broad alliances among oppressed groups. However, by blaming economic hardship on immigrants and the Global South, Western capitalist countries have intensified the division of workers along racial and gender lines, running counter to global labor solidarity. Michael D. Yates believes that the issues of race and gender, nationalism and imperialism present in capitalist society hinder the formation of class consciousness among the working class.
(iii) The Positioning of the Middle Class: "The Middle Class is Not in Ruins"
The Western Left's exposition of the political stance of the middle class is a direct continuation of the Marxist tradition. Marx and Engels believed that the intermediate position of the petty bourgeoisie determined the vacillation and conservatism of its political attitude; they are "at once enchanted by the luxury of the big bourgeoisie and full of sympathy for the sufferings of the people... Contradiction is the basis of their existence." Wright argued that the middle class bears the "pull" from both capital and labor; which direction they specifically lean depends on the environment and conditions they inhabit. Zweig believes that although the so-called "professional middle class" has become more like a skilled working class, they are unwilling to classify themselves as part of the working class for fear of affecting their professionalism. In terms of values and political identity, they are closer to the bourgeoisie, and their political attitude depends on their specific circumstances and the balance of power between the working class and the bourgeoisie. Jack Metzgar, based on Marx's description of the essential attributes of the petty bourgeoisie in his letter to Annenkov, argues that the professional middle class is "both bourgeois and people," having both common interests and conflicts of interest with the working class. Michael Lind, in his book The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite, describes the managerial elite as an emerging ruling class; he argues that while they have monopolistic influence in terms of expertise, wealth, and culture, they remain subordinate to the rule of capital.
Metzgar believes that although the professional middle class faces the dilemma of proletarianization, it is not in ruins; rather, its political stance will exert a significant influence on the United States. In his view, Ehrenreich’s analysis of the professional-managerial class [9] has positive utility, but its perspective is one-dimensional and overestimates the power of the bourgeoisie with excessive pessimism, seeing only the antagonism between the middle class and the working class. In reality, the middle class is also influencing the bourgeoisie, and the working class is reshaping the middle class. Entering the 21st century, class relations have become more complex. The professional middle class is neither a passive tool of the bourgeoisie nor the primary oppressor of the working class. However, under the influence of right-wing populism, the contradictions between the working class and the middle class have intensified, intermingled with racial issues. Within these complex class relations, the professional middle class—which accounts for one-third of the total labor force and possesses knowledge and skills useful to both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat—will significantly influence the direction of the United States by positioning themselves as workers rather than as servants of capital.
(IV) New Forms of Class Structure in Western Countries: The Emergence of the Precariat
In the "olive-shaped" [10] class structure of the post-WWII era, the middle class was the mainstay of Western capitalist countries. However, with the shrinking of the middle class, the "precariat" (unstable employment groups) has drawn attention. Wysong argues that in the new social classes of the United States, the precariat constitutes the largest proportion, reaching 47%–50%. This focus on the precariat has a profound basis in reality. Influenced by neoliberalism's push for increased labor flexibility, cuts to welfare protections, and advocacy for "de-unionization," economic insecurity in Western capitalist societies has intensified. In terms of class composition and labor-capital relations, this manifests as the emergence of the precariat and non-standard contract workers.
Western left-wing scholars recognized the emergence and impact of informal workers early on. Richard D. Vogel pointed out that an informal economy based on the exploitation of undocumented immigrants is spreading rapidly in the United States, and that this informal economy will drag the lives of all laborers into poverty. In 2011, Guy Standing creatively proposed the concept of the "precariat." The precariat refers to an emerging class spawned by neoliberal globalization and technological change; distinct from the traditional proletariat, they are in a state of informal employment with low wage levels, poor welfare protections, and are long haunted by chronic insecurity. This class classification and interpretation focuses more on psycho-cultural aspects and states of existence. In 2020, Joshua Greenstein applied Standing’s class analysis framework to data obtained from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series-Current Population Survey (IPUMS-CPS) from 1980–2018 (a joint survey by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics) to conduct an empirical analysis of the American class structure. He concluded that the precariat has become the largest class in the US and is the greatest victim of the problem of inequality. While Standing’s definition of the precariat as an independent "new class" has been criticized by left-wing scholars, they do not deny its rapid development and vital role.
R. Jamil Jonna and John Bellamy Foster argue that the concept of precarity is inseparable from Marx’s critique of capitalism and has a long history in socialist thought; it is not a new concept. Integrating their understanding of Marxism, Jonna and Foster elaborate on the reasons for working-class instability, manifesting as the relative surplus population generated by the rising organic composition of capital, women, children, the impoverished strata, and the competition for jobs from the global reserve army of labor. They point out that capitalism is a global production system that covers broader peripheral regions through colonialism, making exploitation increasingly an international phenomenon. In the era of globalization, a large number of immigrants flock to developed countries, and social production shifts to the Global South where cost advantages exist; these trends bring new insecurities to the working class in Western capitalist countries. Antunes similarly notes the emergence of a new labor category—the "precariat"—arguing that "flexible employment" is actually a disguised form of exploitation and "super-exploitation," representing the encroachment and squeezing of work into non-work time and space. Regarding Standing’s view of the precariat as an independent new class, Antunes proposes the opposite view: that wage labor itself carries instability, and the precariat is actually a manifestation of heterogeneity within the proletariat. Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, based on the changes in labor-capital relations brought about by the informatization of production and the prominence of immaterial labor, analyze the increasing instability of laborers. They argue that with the formation of trans-territorial networked production patterns, "the space for capital flow is no longer restricted by physical space, and informatized production labor relations allow capital to find cheap labor wherever it is profitable." Laborers will find themselves in an increasingly volatile employment situation and a more disadvantageous position.
The exploitation and oppression suffered by the precariat make it an important force for social movements and political resistance in Western capitalist countries. Heinrich Geiselberger, in the book The Great Regression (Die große Regression), points out that the "precarious" are a vital force in resisting neoliberal globalization. Antunes argues that as the fastest-growing part of the proletariat, the precariat’s participation in labor struggles will play a decisive role in the fate of the entire working class in the 21st century.
IV. The Significance and Limitations of Contemporary Western Left-wing Middle Class Research
Overall, the research by contemporary Western left-wing scholars on the class structure and the middle class of capitalist countries possesses significant theoretical and practical importance. On one hand, Western left-wing scholars adhere to a Marxist standpoint, responding to doubts raised by some scholars regarding Marxist class theory. Based on new changes in the class structure of Western capitalist countries, they have proposed various middle-class theories, demonstrating a desire to develop Marxism and possessing positive theoretical value. On the other hand, Western left-wing scholars focus on the actual conditions of Western capitalist countries. In particular, their intersectional analysis of class, nationality, gender, and race is instrumental for our understanding of the complexity of class relations in Western capitalist countries and the multi-dimensional triggers of collective action and political struggle, providing strong theoretical support for Western left-wing movements.
However, research on the middle class by the contemporary Western Left also suffers from defects, such as insufficient attention to the revolutionary nature of Marxist class theory and an incomplete analysis of class.
Class and class struggle are the keys and clues for Marxist analysis of historical evolution. Yet, Marx and Engels did not stop at a historical view of class struggle; they continued to analyze the basis of class division and dissected the power behind class struggle. Marx explicitly stated: "If I was not to know the factors on which these classes rest, e.g. wage-labour, capital, etc., class would be a mere phrase." From alienated labor to the division of labor, to social surplus and the commodification of labor power, Marx delved deeper layer by layer, finally finding the basis for class division and the foundation of class generation, believing that classes "result from the changes in the mode of production." The relationship of ownership of the means of production is the primary marker for distinguishing classes. He emphasized the need to conduct class analysis deep within the sphere of production and to grasp the pulse of history within the historical evolution of the relations of production. This is what the Japanese scholar Wataru Hiromatsu called the "path of descent" from the historical view of class to the materialist conception of history.
Starting from the relationship of ownership of the means of production, the middle class—which possesses higher wage levels and education and engages in mental labor—can be seen as a manifestation of differentiation and heterogeneity within the proletariat. However, they still belong to the wage-labor group because "a better coloring and food, a better treatment, and a larger property... do not do away with the exploitation and the subjection of the wage-worker. An increase in the price of labor, as a consequence of accumulation of capital, only means, in fact, that the length and weight of the golden chain the wage-worker has already forged for himself, allow of a relaxation of it." However, whether it is Wright classifying classes based on people’s relationship to authority and scarce technical expertise, Zweig classifying classes based on power, or Wolff and Resnick classifying classes based on people’s position in the production of surplus value, none have applied the perspective of historical materialism to delve deep into the sphere of social production to recognize the proletarian attributes of the middle class from the perspective of ownership of the means of production. They failed to see the differences in the middle class's specific forms of labor, lifestyle, value identity, and economic status as multiple differentiations within the proletariat. Consequently, they show incompleteness in class analysis, causing their discussions of the middle class to instead conceal the deepest level of class relations. In addition, Marxist class theory is not just an explanation and analysis of class relations and class conflict, but more importantly, a practical and revolutionary weapon, emphasizing the thorough elimination of class oppression through class struggle. However, Western left-wing scholars' research on the political functions and revolutionary potential of the middle class in New Social Movements lacks both depth and breadth.
(Author: Zhang Jin, School of Marxism, Xi'an Jiaotong University) Web Editor: Tongxin Source: Foreign Theoretical Trends (Guowai Lilun Dongtai), Issue 1, 2022