without unions there will be no strong middle
class,http://www.unionworld.us

Must be a U.S. phenomena as there is a strong middle class in many
Asian countries with either no unions or Government controlled
unions.

Bruce-in-Bangkok
(correct Address is bpaige125atgmaildotcom)

You got figures on how many middle class there are as a percentage of
the population, versus the western world?? - must be a GREAT place
to
work, why else would the western world offshore its manufacturing
there? - maybe, no unions to put a brake on the excesses of
capitalism.

Andrew VK3BFA.


The largest middle class in the world..is in India. By several orders
of magnitude

From _Business Week_, one year ago:

"The next two groups-seekers, earning between 200,000 and 500,000
rupees
($4,376- $10,941), and strivers, with incomes of between 500,000 and 1
million rupees ($10,941-$21,882)-will become India's huge new middle
class.
While their incomes would place them below the poverty line in the
United
States, things are much cheaper in India. When the local cost of living
is
taken into account, the income of the seekers and strivers looks more
like
$23,000 to $118,000, which is middle class by most developed-country
standards. Seekers range from young college graduates to mid-level
government officials, traders and business people...
"...The middle class currently numbers some 50 million people, but by
2025
will have expanded dramatically to 583 million people-some 41 percent
of
the
population. These households will see their incomes balloon to 51.5
trillion
rupees ($1.1 billion)-11 times the level of today and 58 percent of
total
Indian income."

So India's middle class is growing rapidly, but it is still about half
the
size of the US middle class. Definitions of middle class vary all over
the
place but the median definition puts America's middle class at around
45%
of
households -- well over 100 million people.

The original post stated, or implied, that the unions were responsible
for the develop of the middle class. I replied that it must be a U.S.
phenomena as in Asia a middle class was developing without a union.

The middle classes in Asia have traditionally been bureaucrats, military,
professionals, and entrepreneurs, Bruce. That was true in most of the
world
before the late Industrial Revolution. It's also true that the middle
classes in most of the world are a fraction of the percentage of the
population that they make up in the US. The US was the first country in
which ordinary workers can legitimately be counted as middle class. How
large do you count the middle classes in Asia?

Now you are getting into semantics. What constitutes a "middle class".

You are correct that as beginners in progress in most Asian countries
the "middle class" is largely made up, as you say, of "bureaucrats,
military, professionals, and entrepreneurs", but that wasn't the
subject of the original conversation. It was the statement that
"without unions there will be no strong middle class". That was what I
was responding to.

But really, in the context of the O.P. what/who makes up the middle
class is immaterial. the important fact is that it is there and it
does have, at least,some political influence.


I'm shore that developing countries have a smaller middle class then
developed countries. In Thailand, for example, approximately 60% of
the population still make their living by agriculture and to a great
extent by subsistence farming.

But still, since the early 60's a middle class has developed and
without the aid of a union.

The middle class developed without a union in most places. And the middle
class thus developed was always small. The phenomenon of the mass middle
class, made up largely of workers, is one that parallels the development
of
large unions.

I can only comment that the original post credited unions with
creating the middle class... which is quite simply false.


That's true. Because what really created the middle class was the US
government. It did this by putting people to work in WWII, paying them high
wages, and making it legal for unions and collective bargaining to work.
Without that most Americans would still be in the working class or working
poor class.

Hawke