Tuesday, January 19, 2010

The Disappearing Middle Class

It was indeed fascinating to realize that no real revolutions are happening in recent years!& even more fascinating to delve into the various reasons being cited,the most thought-provoking being the apparent disappearance of the ‘middle-class’! It’s unfortunate that, although Liberalization has uplifted the middle class to slowly start merging with the upper elite, it has not had equally +ve effects on the plight of the poorest people.Probably this disconnect between the middle class and the poor has only left the latter even more helpless and weak. Can we ensure the progress of the middle class without leaving the poorest behind?
Priyanka[30093]

4 comments:

Archie@Sunny (p30048) said...

On the contrary, the middle class seems to be largest section present in the society today and evergrowing. Its just that each one of us,nowadays has become less and less sympathetic to other people’s needs. With a competitive lifestyle, people are trying to outdo each other in every respect and a person who'd compromise his own luxuries for some marginalised person's necessity would be considered a fool, moreso by his own family. It’s the same value-system which today is the toast to today’s power-hungry society and may very well be passed on to the future generations.

Gaurav Singhi said...

I think the right way to go about it is to ensure the upliftment of the 'weaker section' or the poor because such action would more often than not mean overall development because the better off groups don't need assistance of this sort and any help to the downtrodden would effectively trickle down to the middle class.

vamsi said...

Sunny,I don't think competition is a big enough reason for not co-operating-we've seen in our first module that people who're competing have every reason to co-operate.I think it has more to do with the motivations and the changing requirements.Also,there's no question of compromising.What makes you think that the movements of the past were out of concern or that people were more willing to compromise then? I do think that at some level,it has to be the question would be“What’s in it for me?”

Archie@Sunny (p30048) said...

@Vamsi
We did read that it the first module, but more than in theory look at what each one of us does when it comes to working collectively wherein the marginal benefits to others from such collective is greater than one's own. It was apparent when we did the exercise with Raju Sir and it would be true in many other things as well.
Where I'd like to differ from your argument is Whether one would cooperate(a rational person that is) without any thoughts of "What's in it for me?"?