• Tja@programming.dev
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    9 months ago

    What are you talking about? Capitalism is the system that focused on (in some countries even created) the “middle class”, because it’s beneficiary to have a whole group of people that have all their needs met and have disposable income to keep the machine running.

    If you don’t have money for iPads, cars, vacations, avocado toast and fancy lattes, capitalism grinds to a halt and crumbles.

    The biggest companies and richest people of the world and not selling bread, water and shelter. They are selling fashion electronics, electric cars and ads on entertainment websites.

    • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      The middle class was created by the economic rights and protections provided by The New Deal and decades of unionization efforts. Crediting capitalism is not only disingenuous but also downright insulting to those who fought capitalists tooth and nail for what you’re crediting those capitalists for.

      • Tja@programming.dev
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        9 months ago

        The middle class existed long before the new deal or unions. Like a century before.

        • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Actually the term was coined at the 1939 Worlds Fair and popularized in '44 with Roosevelt’s signing of the GI Bill, but if you have even the smallest shred of evidence for your claims, go ahead, I’m humoring.

          • Tja@programming.dev
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            9 months ago

            The term “middle class” is first attested in James Bradshaw’s 1745 pamphlet Scheme to prevent running Irish Wools to France.[6][7]

            Go check the Wikipedia sources

            • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              That’s not a source, that’s a number. You have to link the sources, you can’t just paste Wikipedia. In any case this is a discussion about specifically the American middle class.

              Edit’: Also I found the Wikipedia article you’re citing and it directly contradicts your point: “The modern usage of the term “middle-class”, however, dates to the 1913 UK Registrar-General’s report, in which the statistician T.H.C. Stevenson identified the middle class as those falling between the upper-class and the working-class.[14] The middle class includes: professionals, managers, and senior civil servants. The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle-class is control of significant human capital while still being under the dominion of the elite upper class, who control much of the financial and legal capital in the world.”

              • Tja@programming.dev
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                9 months ago

                See, you went to Wikipedia like a big boy and checked the sources yourself! Good job!

                You also found, that it was not related to the new deal, nor to unions and it was defined in terms of capitalism. It must have been exhausting!