What happened to the middle class, blue collar man?

[minionofmidas]

It was never so outside certain privileged, highly unionized special fields. Auto workers being the obvious example.

[minionofmidas]

Prole drift, a term the inimitable Paul Fussel coined. The thing is, so many of those higher skilled blue collar, and lower middle class jobs, got "commodityized" as it were.

And all the time well-paid whitecollar people whose jobs could be done by a zombie try and fail to commoditize the remainder...

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Which of course is exactly what the second grandpa in LBJ's example did.

[minionofmidas]

One could argue that the term 'middle class' was largely a psychological construct. People who described themselves as 'middle class' could range from people just above the poverty level [...]

Very good point Orthodox. The term "middle class" (and in Germany "Mittelstand" even more so) is therefor a powerful political weapon of the Right.

Because I'm average even though 90% of the population earn less than me! Rich begins at 20% more than whatever I take home!