What this Country Needs

We need to find some definitions that we can all agree on.  It is no wonder we can't solve problems in this country.  We can't even agree on what the problems are.  We all look at things from a different angle, some of us wearing rose colored glasses, others wearing magnifying glasses, and some wearing bifocals. Worse yet we can't even agree on simple definitions.  

For example, there is a lot of talk about the demise of the middle class in America.  But what is "middle class"?  Depending on what the definition of middle class happens to be I recently discovered that I am either poor, wealthy, right in the middle of middle class, or something even less descriptive called "thriving" which is, I suppose, something that is supposed to be good.  

Various academics and economists have argued that middle class should be defined by income,  others say consumption is a better yard stick, or wealth, or demographics or aspirations.  I fall at completely different places on each of those yardsticks.   So if we can't even agree on the definition of middle class, how can we know if we have a problem or know how to solve the problem if we have one?  I don't even know if I'm middle class or something else.  If I'm not middle class am I wealthy?  It most often doesn't feel that way, but some yardsticks say I am.  I guess it goes back to perspective, and if perspective is what makes the difference then I don't see a simple solution to the problem....or even if there is a problem.   

Maybe the definition of Middle Class is like the definition of hard core pornography, we can't easily define it, but like Justice Potter Stewart famously said in his 1964 opinion in Jacobellis v Ohio,  "I know it when I see it".  

For the record, I do see the demise of the middle class as a problem.  Regardless of how you define middle class when you remove a person from the middle he has to go somewhere else, either on the poorer side or the wealthier side of middle. Actually it isn't the person who moves, it is his money.  For the last 20 or 30 years more who might have once been considered middle class have moved toward the poorer side of the middle. At the same time vast amounts of wealth has flowed out of the middle toward the wealthy at much higher rates than wealth has moved the other direction.  Like Potter Stewart, I may not be able to describe all the ways this is bad for our country, but still, I know it's not a good thing. There are just some things that you know without the need for deep and involved definition. Our economy is like an engine, and just like an engine, when things get out of balance bad things almost always result.