The End of Middle Class Politics? by Sotiris Rizas (review)

Abstract

The 2008 economic nearmeltdown confirmed what has been in the offing since the advent of neoliberalism and globalization more than three decades ago: universal, adult, franchisepropelled, entitlementbased middleclass prosperity — one of the most visible achievements of the Western economic way of life — was no longer sustainable. For instance, the percentage of Americans who considered themselves middle class declined from 61 percent in 2008 to 51 percent in 2016. Similar trends appeared in Europe as well. The weakened position of the middle class was one of the main issues addressed in the 2016 US presidential election. Fearful of being accused of invoking class warfare, the various candidates avoided the term middle class and instead employed more innocuous expressions, such as “working families,” “hardworking men and women,” or “people working full time.” Donald Trump concentrated his appeal to the middleclass sectors that had suffered the most damage — including industrial workers, fixedincome earners, and those living in rural areas — and promised to restore their sagging fortunes. Not only was he able to accomplish a hostile takeover of the Republican Party, but, to the dismay of most prognosticators, he went on to win the presidency. Sotiris Rizas’s The End of Middle Class Politics? is a serious and muchneeded attempt to shed light on the role and nature of the middle class, identify the underpinnings of its relative economic affluence, and understand the recent and ongoing erosion that has created an environment that no longer “connotes aspirations, but uncertainty and distress since it is identified with a way of life which is not sustainable.” The book seeks to pinpoint the causes and key characteristics as well as the evolution of the middle classes in the Western economic way of life, which began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, by concentrating on five important Western countries: France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The author considers these countries as the most important in the Western world, for they “set the stage for the most widespread affluence in modern history during the postwar period.” Differences notwithstanding, the key ingredients permeating this success story included universal and expanding adult suffrage, private enterprise, entitlements, and a level of income that “afforded housing and consumer durables, education, health, and a comfortable life in general.”