[fennecfoxen]

You're on Hacker News. Plenty of people here are programmers pulling in six-figure incomes (more than most managers in this nation) but only some of them have the power to fire anyone. If you say we can't call these people "middle class" (or better) we're choosing language which is either at odds with reality or at odds with communicating effectively (pick one).

[crpatino]

Historically speaking, there's no such thing as Hacker News. One could draw parallels and say that programmers are managers that control not fellow human workers but machines. But we would be splitting hairs.

The point of the argument is that middle class is a social layer between a much larger underclass and a much smaller elite class. And yes, many of those in the middle class make it there by virtue of their specialized knowledge and not the number of warm bodies they oversee. Though there is much room for variation.

Two examples come to mind. In the guilds of the middle ages, master craftsmen were undoubtly middle class. They were typically self employed and had firing power over their apprentices or waged journeyman working under them. Also, in the classical world, there were such things as highly specilized slaves. They were treated fairly well compared to the grunts chopping wood or carring water from the wells, but they were slaves nonetheless. AFAIK, they did not have firing power (or life-or-dead power) over other slaves, though it was legal for them to receive monetary compensation and eventually buy their own freedom.

[AnimalMuppet]

I think crpatino is looking at it based on (social) class rather than on income. To the degree that you can separate them, whether one is a manager or not puts one in a higher social class. But as non-managers start making large incomes, and as demand outstrips supply for some technical fields, that distinction doesn't seem to reflect reality very well...