Middle Class Economics

Middle Class Economics?  Have you ever hear of it before?  So far as I can tell, they idea was invented specifically for Barack Obama’s recent State of the Union address.  What’s more, so was the proof that it works.

Like a pair of crocuses popping their heads up out of the snow, our president has taken two quarters of economic growth to signal a vibrant summer.  He seems to have forgotten that a scant year ago we had negative growth.  But hey, good news is good news—whether or not he had anything to do with it.

So what is this middle class economics that is supposed to make America great?  It appears to be no more than a rhetorical bow to middle class voters.  As for substance, not to say scientific precision, this is totally absent.

Obama loves the middle class in the same way he loves Israel.  Whenever he feels in danger of losing its support, he declares his undying affection.  Then, after things settle down, he returns to kicking it in the groin.

Barack Obama does not like the middle class.  While he hates the upper classes, and attempts to coddle the lower ones, he resents the success of the middle orders.  Remember, he once told them that they “didn’t build that.”  From his perspective, like the aristocrats of yore, they are social parasites.

So in what does middle class economics consist?  Apparently in little more than taxing the rich and putting a few hundred dollars of the proceeds in middle class hands.  How this is going to grow the economy is beyond me.

What does a genuine middle class revival need?  First it requires freedom.  Unless the nation’s innovators are liberated from the weight of thousands of soul-stealing regulations, they will not have the space to start businesses or explore novel ideas.  Freezing the economy in place makes us like Russia, not what we once were.

Second, a growing economy thrives on incentive.  People put in long hours because they want to get rich.  They take risks because they hope these will pay off.  Steal this away by confiscating what they earn and why would they take the chance?  Even French president Hollande learned this.

Third, the middle class prospers when delegated responsibility.  Before things can go right, people require the opportunity for them to go wrong.  A society that attempts to protect folks from the consequences of their choices quickly becomes one in which few are capable of making them.

The essence of a vibrant middle class is self-direction.  On the other hand, its antithesis is close supervision from Washington, D.C.  Obama wants to educate young Americans, but if he simultaneously deprives them of the opportunity to apply what they learn, they might as well remain ignorant.

As any good parent knows, we learn by making mistakes.  No doubt we benefit from enlightened guidance, but if this counsel mutates into oppressive control, all is lost.  We then become like over-protected children, constantly running to hide behind our mother’s skirts.

A productive middle class requires the courage to take risks.  If it is swaddled in a laundry list of new entitlements, the nanny state becomes the not only “didn’t you do that” state, but the “and you never will” state.

Is this what we want?  Obama has sought to rob us of our nerve in foreign policy.  Is he to be allowed to do the same domestically?  Citizens, who have been bribed into quiescence, have turned the economy, and our well-being, into reverse gear.

Liberals think of themselves as progressive.  They could not be more wrong.  One of the magnificent achievements of the American experiment was the invention of the Middle Class.  To watch it strangled by false compassion is a tragedy.

What is the cure?  An assertive middle class.  Enlightened self-interest demands that the blandishments of free goodies be rejected.  Now is the time for renewed courage!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University