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The middle class is a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class. The common measures of what constitutes middle class vary significantly among cultures. ==History and evolution of the term== The term "middle class" is first attested in James Bradshaw's 1745 pamphlet ''Scheme to prevent running Irish Wools to France.''〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Home : Oxford English Dictionary )〕 Another phrase used in Early modern Europe was "the middling sort".〔"To be one of "the middling sort" in urban England in the late seventeenth or eighteenth century was to live a life tied, one way or another, to the world of commerce.".〕 The term "middle class" has had several, sometimes contradictory, meanings. It was once defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry of Europe. While the nobility owned the countryside, and the peasantry worked the countryside, a new ''bourgeoisie'' (literally "town-dwellers") arose around mercantile functions in the city. In France, the middle classes helped drive the French Revolution.〔Georges Lefebvre, La Révolution Française, 1951 1957〕 Another definition equated the middle class to the original meaning of capitalist: someone with so much capital that they could rival nobles. In fact, to be a capital-owning millionaire was the essential criterion of the middle class in the industrial revolution. The modern usage of the term "middle class", however, dates to the 1913 UK Registrar-General's report, in which the statistician T.H.C. Stevenson identified the middle class as that falling between the upper class and the working class. Included as belonging to the middle class are professionals, managers, and senior civil servants. The chief defining characteristic of membership in the middle class is possession of significant human capital. Within capitalism, "middle class" initially referred to the ''bourgeoisie'' and the ''petite bourgeoisie''. However, with the impoverisation and proletarianisation of much of the ''petit bourgeois'' world, and the growth of finance capitalism, "middle class" came to refer to the combination of the labour aristocracy, the professionals, and the white collar workers. The size of the middle class depends on how it is defined, whether by education, wealth, environment of upbringing, social network, manners or values, etc. These are all related, but are far from deterministically dependent. The following factors are often ascribed in modern usage to a "middle class": * Achievement of tertiary education. *Holding professional qualifications, including academics, lawyers, chartered engineers, politicians, and doctors, regardless of leisure or wealth. *Belief in ''bourgeois'' values, such as high rates of house ownership, delayed gratification, and jobs which are perceived to be secure. *Lifestyle. In the United Kingdom, social status has historically been linked less directly to wealth than in the United States, and has also been judged by signifiers such as accent (Received Pronunciation and U and non-U English), manners, place of education (Public school (United Kingdom)), occupation, and the class of a person's family, circle of friends and acquaintances. *Cultural identification. Often in the United States, the middle class are the most eager participants in pop culture whereas the reverse is true in Britain.〔("Discusses middle class snobbery as regards popular culture" ). ''The Times''.〕 The second generation of new immigrants will often enthusiastically forsake their traditional folk culture as a sign of having arrived in the middle class. In the United States by the end of the twentieth century, more people identified themselves as middle class than as lower or "working" class (with insignificant numbers identifying themselves as upper class). The British Labour Party, which grew out of the organized labour movement and originally drew almost all of its support from the working class, reinvented itself under Tony Blair in the 1990s as "New Labour", a party competing with the Conservative Party for the votes of the middle class as well as the working class. By 2011, almost three quarters of British people were also found to identify themselves as middle class.〔http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13626046 Discusses middle class snobbery as regards popular culture.〕 In the 21st century, the middle and working classes have differentiated themselves from the global elite with the political slogan "We are the 99%". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Middle class」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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