[ryandrake]

Only around 50% of Americans own any stock at all, including indirect ownership like IRAs and pensions. So, I don’t see the working class suffering that much due to stock market decline. They will suffer due to joblessness.

[busterarm]

If you know your history, it's the "middle class" that has directed just about every non-marxist revolution.

I guess I should add the clarification that I think most folks who consider themselves middle-class and who are investing and saving money are actually working-class.

If you don't own your residence outright or have the liquid assets to purchase it and still make investments, you are working-class.

If you live in the valley and can't afford to buy and can't uproot your job to somewhere more affordable to buy while maintaining roughly the same income level, you're working-class too.

[lsc]

>If you know your history, it's the "middle class" that has directed just about every non-marxist revolution.

One can make a strong argument (even from marxist sources) that even the marxist revolutions were mostly directed by the middle class; most of the marxists call it the intelligentsia, but these were mostly educated men at a time when that meant more than it does now. (and even now, I think most people consider a good education enough to make you "middle class" even if you don't make that much scratch.)

I mean, all this depends on your definition of a "revolution" and of "middle class" - if I define "middle class" as "powerful or educated enough to get something done, while not being super rich" and I define revolution as "overthrow of the government by people who aren't already at the top of the power structure" then it almost becomes tautological; if people are powerful enough to start a revolution, by that definition, you are middle class or better, and if an elite starts a revolution, by that definition, it's then a coup.

(I'm not suggesting those are your definitions of revolution and middle class; just that the definition of those two words (and the definition of those two words is kinda fuzzy) makes all the difference in this question)

[busterarm]

I completely agree with you, I just didn't want to trigger any socialists into a flamewar.

[lsc]

Really, I think the argument is weaker on the other side; I mean, there are a fair number of revolutions that were lead by the elites; the American revolution and the ACW to name two; I mean, the latter a lot more than the former, but even in the former, a whole lot of the leaders were rich enough that they didn't need to work more than they wanted to; most of them literally and legally owned other human beings, a level of wealth that is impossible today.

(but now it could be said that I'm changing the definition of elite to mean someone who has so much capital that they don't need to work. Still, I think that in both those wars, some of the leaders were also some of the richest people around. I'm also using a right-ish definition of revolution, especially in calling the ACW a revolution and not a reaction. I personally feel that 'reaction' might be reasonably applied to the ACW, at least, just because it was a clear attempt to roll back what would be called, really then and now, progress.)