What is “middle class” to an American?
Yeah, the modern concept of an American “middle class” as we understand it today has a lot of its roots in the post-WWII economy, and relates to the baby boom and the urban exodus. It all has to do with this sort of post-war, post-Depression radical ownership mentality, when everyone decided that they were going to move out of the cities to the suburbs, and own a house, and a couple of cars, and raise a family, and live happily ever after. Now, this seemed plausible at the time, namely because land was available, and due to this and government encouragement, property was relatively cheap. The problem is that more often than not, this isn’t the case. Now Americans are filled with this notion of the upwardly-mobile citizen, and that ownership of property, namely real estate, is the necessary focus of people in society. The problem is not only that property ownership of this nature for most people is unnecessary, but that a lot of people don’t actually have the money to own this unnecessa
