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Hadas Weiss. We Have Never Been Middle Class
We Have Never Been. Middle Class. Hadas Weiss
Contents
Acknowledgments: The Middle Class (A Love Story)
Introduction: We Have Never Been Middle Class
1. What We Talk about when We Talk about the Middle Class
2. The Discreet Charm of Property
3. All Too Human
4. Goodbye Values, So Long Politics
Conclusion
Notes
Index
Отрывок из книги
Acknowledgments: The Middle Class (A Love Story)
Introduction: We Have Never Been Middle Class
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I hope, then, that my decision to address an inclusive “we” in this book will not be taken as a sign of my ignorance of or disrespect for real differences between people. I know and appreciate that there are many people who live under vastly different conditions, people unable to command resources and lacking the potential to fare better (or worse) as the result of their investments, people who share none of the premises upon which this book is based. Rather, this form of address emerges out of my determination to take seriously the structural forces that have generated and popularized the image of a porous and expansive middle class and rendered it plausible. My intention is to pick apart this plausibility for those to whom it applies, for example those who are inclined to read this book. I do assume that, like me, you are products of some investment in education, if in nothing else—that you dedicate time and money to learn more and that you implicitly believe in the long-term significance of these endeavors. Speaking directly to a readership that makes investments of this kind, I hope to tap into something else we have in common: the proclivity to reflect on our received wisdoms.
With more of us out there insecure and struggling despite the prudent investments we have made and continue to make for our future, the promises of the middle class no longer seem so credible, and the time is ripe to start doubting as, indeed, many already do. Yet doubters come in different forms. Some respond by rejoicing in the fact that through popular access to global financial markets and their instruments, we can now escape the straitjacket of middle-class renunciations, outgrow expectations for security and piecemeal progress that would issue from our judicious consumption and incremental accretion of property and education, and instead get A Piece of the Action.5
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