Middle-class values
So-called middle-class values do not have a single, agreed definition, but are said by various writers and politicians to include such qualities as hard work, self-discipline, thrift, honesty, aspiration and ambition.[1][2] Thus, people in lower or upper classes can also possess middle-class values, they are not exclusive to people who are actually middle-class. Contemporary politicians in Western countries frequently refer to such values, and to the middle-class families that uphold them, as worthy of political support.[1]
Contents
Contrasts
Middle-class values can be contrasted with other values that may be held by other people belonging to other classes and historical time periods, such as:
- Tribal thinking or clannishness
- Contentment with a low material standard of living
- Valorisation of strength and petty violence
- Anti-intellectualism
- Criminality
- A life of easy leisure and being served by servants (a value often exhibited by the upper classes), as opposed to hard work
History
Spread of middle-class values
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. British economic historian Gregory Clark has controversially claimed, in his book A Farewell to Alms, on the basis of extensive research, that Britain may have been where the Industrial Revolution began because the British people had a head start in "evolving" – through a combination of cultural and possibly even genetic changes – a critical mass of people with middle-class values.
Others have claimed, by contrast, that the "natural inclination" of workers at the early stages of the Industrial Revolution was to work as few hours as needed to earn a subsistence living, and workers had to be brainwashed into working long hours. Some have claimed that compulsory education and advertising played a part in this brainwashing - compulsory education instilling obedience and hard work at an early age, and advertising instilling desire for consumer goods that had to be paid for with more work.
In A Farewell to Alms Clark disputes such explanations, citing persistent large differences in labour productivity in India and Britain, even when British managers and identical machines to those used in Britain were used, and even though both countries have compulsory education for children.
Mechanism of transmission
The mechanism of transmission of "middle-class values" is not fully understood. Middle-class values, or the lack thereof, are often transmitted partly from parents to children by upbringing and parental discipline, partly by teachers and others in the community, and partly by mainstream media, such as the quintessentially middle-class newspaper The Daily Mail. According to Gregory Clark, it is possible that there is also a substantial genetic component, and this is why social mobility is so low across societies and across history, as he establishes in his book The Son Also Rises.
Criticism
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See also
References
- Clark, Gregory. A Farewell to Alms. Princeton University Press (2007)
- Clark, Gregory. The Son Also Rises, Princeton University Press (2014)
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