The Stalled Social Elevator and the Middle Class

The social elevator has stalled, leaving the middle class perched between floors, precarious and without clear direction. The fate of the middle classes has meant bearing the costs of economic crises, even when others have fared worse. The maintenance of the welfare state and its contribution to political stability have waned. The familiar middle class remains fossilized. Living standards and savings falter. No one expresses gratitude for the middle class as the backbone of the West anymore. Prophets reappear whose voices once echoed the instincts of the middle class, asking for a hearing. Some observers may someday explain how the crisis of the middle classes fed the secessionist whispers in Catalonia, reshaping political debates and regional loyalties.