Comment by JonFish85 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JonFish85 | Hacker News Reader

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I don't understand "PEOPLE WHO DON’T NEED MONEY.", specifically where the author states "We’ll need a new name for the group of people who have the incomes of the lower middle class and the cultural habits of the wealthy or upper middle class."

Don't we have that already? Comparing the present-day to a generation or two ago, incomes and quality-of-life have changed, but the "middle class" is still the middle class. Two generations ago, having 2 television sets, 2+ cars per household, phones for each person (child or adult), trips overseas, eating foods from all over the world, etc. meant upper class (or quite close to it). Nowadays I'm guessing(!) most families have more than one car, everyone has a cell phone, people travel the world, eat foods from various cultures regularly and go to college more than ever before.

But there's still a notion of "middle class", and always will be. The current "middle class" lives fairly close to the "upper class" of a few generations ago in a lot of ways. Why that is is up for debate (lack of savings? lower wages? Could be a lot of things), but overall I'd say based purely on lifestyle, our current middle class has the cultural habits of the upper class of a few generations ago.

He means something different. Normal middle class people always want more money so they can buy a bigger TV or car, or go on better vacations. The author's talking about people who mainly enjoy things that aren't expensive: the Internet, conversation, libraries, art galleries, thrift shop fashions. So with a professional income, their happiness isn't limited by money.

See I'd argue that it isn't about money. It's a matter of wanting things to make life fun/interesting. "Normal middle-class people", whatever those are, are always going to want things/experiences/what-have-you -- it's part of the human condition. Conversation, libraries, art galleries have been around for thousands of years, so that's not really going to change things at all. The internet certainly has changed the pattern of behavior for humans as a whole, and made access to information much less skewed towards the upper classes, but I don't see how that's going to make the "middle class" disappear.

In a sense, I don't think most people's happiness is limited by money. Surely the lack of money can bring unhappiness, but I think generally the middle class is happy, and has been for the recent past (just for the sake of argument, the last 3-4 generations).

Maybe my definition of "middle class" is wrong? To me, the "middle class" encompasses the people who still have to work a job, but are able to pay all of their bills in a timely fashion, save some money, and generally support themselves and their dependents. Lower class would mean people living paycheck-to-paycheck or maybe slightly below: just existing means going backwards. Upper class would mean essentially people whose wealth means they can choose to work or not work, and can essentially afford any needs & wants regardless of hours-worked.

Status Anxiety is what you are looking for

But some of those things are expensive. They are just paid for by someone else. A subtle but important distinction. The funding for the opera for example, a token amount might be ticket sales, but mostly it's the taxes of people who have zero interest in opera. So that needs to be factored into the definition.

Lower class: will never get a mortgage. Middle class, worry about the mortgage. Upper class, will never need a mortgage.

New class: Has no need of a mortgage due to not having interest in owning a house

I strongly suspect membership of this class is temporary.

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