SirKodiak
03-10-2010, 08:00 AM
http://www.newsweek.com/id/234589
Pretty long article for some.
Last year 70 million people joined the emerging-market middle class, with incomes between $6,000 and $30,000.
The emerging bourgeoisie is a patchwork of contradictions: clamorous but rarely confrontational politically, supporters of globalization yet highly nationalistic, proud of their nations' upward mobility yet insecure and fearful they will fall back, fiercely individualistic but reliant on government subsidies, and often socially conservative. Many of the aspiring elite seem willing to let the powers that be—whether authoritarian governments or elected ones—call the shots as long as they deliver the spoils of growth. And command-and-control states, like China, are now doing that better than suburban America. A 2009 Pew study on the global middle class found that its members are generally supportive of democratic ideas like free speech and competitive elections. Yet experts at Pew and elsewhere say they are often willing to sacrifice those ideals for prosperity. Newly unfettered from poverty, they are also unwilling to take on much political risk. In Brazil and Russia, the middle classes are more worried about freedom from hunger than freedom of speech, and distrust virtually all democratic institutions.
In the last 10 years, the Western idea that political freedom is a prerequisite for economic freedom has lost credibility in the East. As the West declines in economic and political clout, and Eastern models begin to deliver prosperity and stability, the link is fraying. More Russians today support "a strong leader" over "democracy" than did 10 years ago—no wonder, given the plunge in living standards that followed the collapse of the Soviet empire. Russia's new middle class is among the staunchest supporters of the Vladimir Putin–Dmitry Medvedev continuum, for the simple reason that they have the most to lose.
I am not so sure they really are that much different than the American middle class today.
Pretty long article for some.
Last year 70 million people joined the emerging-market middle class, with incomes between $6,000 and $30,000.
The emerging bourgeoisie is a patchwork of contradictions: clamorous but rarely confrontational politically, supporters of globalization yet highly nationalistic, proud of their nations' upward mobility yet insecure and fearful they will fall back, fiercely individualistic but reliant on government subsidies, and often socially conservative. Many of the aspiring elite seem willing to let the powers that be—whether authoritarian governments or elected ones—call the shots as long as they deliver the spoils of growth. And command-and-control states, like China, are now doing that better than suburban America. A 2009 Pew study on the global middle class found that its members are generally supportive of democratic ideas like free speech and competitive elections. Yet experts at Pew and elsewhere say they are often willing to sacrifice those ideals for prosperity. Newly unfettered from poverty, they are also unwilling to take on much political risk. In Brazil and Russia, the middle classes are more worried about freedom from hunger than freedom of speech, and distrust virtually all democratic institutions.
In the last 10 years, the Western idea that political freedom is a prerequisite for economic freedom has lost credibility in the East. As the West declines in economic and political clout, and Eastern models begin to deliver prosperity and stability, the link is fraying. More Russians today support "a strong leader" over "democracy" than did 10 years ago—no wonder, given the plunge in living standards that followed the collapse of the Soviet empire. Russia's new middle class is among the staunchest supporters of the Vladimir Putin–Dmitry Medvedev continuum, for the simple reason that they have the most to lose.
I am not so sure they really are that much different than the American middle class today.