UPPER MIDDLE CLASS

1. UPPER MIDDLE CLASS • Merchants made up large number of individuals within the upper middle class • Most successful parlayed their wealth into banking • Another group within the upper middle class were professionals • Lawyers, judges, notaries, teachers and doctors • Lacked social prestige • Never seemed as “manly” as more respected aristocratic and business vocations

2. GROWING CONFIDENCE • For a long while, the upper middle class was content to look up to and emulate the aristocracy • But as the wealth of this group increased, so did its desire for recognition • As commerce increased by 3-400%, so did profits • These profits emboldened the upper middle class to make it courageous enough to ultimately challenge the political and social position of the aristocracy

3. BANKS • At the center of 18th century commercial capitalism was Europe’s banking centers • Great banking houses attracted the deposits of great magnates and the upper middle class with interest rates of 10% • Drew money from the countryside and concentrated it in major urban centers • Managed by a handful of important banks which compounded wealth of upper levels of society through government loans and commercial investments

4. BANKING CENTERS • Greatest money centers were London and Paris • Great financial families of London were linked to the aristocracy • Parisian banking families rivaled aristocracy in wealth and sometimes prestige • Foreign bankers attracted to Paris because it was the principal market for government bonds Bank of London

5. MERCHANTS • Merchants in England and Holland were primarily involved in seaborne trade • Either through British East India Company or the Dutch West India Company • 5000 or so merchants controlled these companies • Monopolized colonial trade • Most other merchants made their livings as either wholesalers or retailers • Less profitable than overseas trade

6. WORK ETHIC • Upper middle class lived comfortable, though rarely luxuriously • Cultivated soberness, dependability, and restraint • Not given to free spending habits of the aristocracy • The idea that dominated their values was the concept of the work ethic • One should work hard and avoid goofing off • Primary goal in life was accumulate capital by working hard and avoiding squandering wealth • This attitude separated them in terms of lifestyle and outlook from the aristocracy

7. MORE MIDDLE CLASS VALUES • Emphasized education • Their sons flooded the universities of the time • Also put great deal of stress on the family • Idealized as a tightly knit group with women assuming a specialized role and children disciplined to show emotional restraint and to always work hard • Religion also highly valued • As long as it did not criticize the acquisition of wealth

8. CO-OPTION? • Upper middle class did sometimes buy noble titles • Not only for social prestige but also for the exemptions and privileges that accompanied these titles • Also bought noble estates • But often used them as collateral for business loans • Even though some members of the upper middle class entered the aristocracy through the purchase of titles, they almost always took their attitudes, lifestyle, and business sense with them • Were not co-opted by aristocracy but instead transformed it in their image

9. FRENCH REVOLUTION • French Revolution began in 1789 as an organized effort by the aristocracy to gain political concessions from the monarchy • Which had become inflexible and incompetent • Aristocracy planned to use the Estate General to get concessions from the king • Ancient semi-representative assembly which the aristocracy forced the king to convene in the summer of 1789 • Aristocracy planned to dominate it

10. RESULTS • Essence of the French Revolution was that the upper middle class gained control of the French government and then used this power to enact legislation which legally undermined the Old Regime and guaranteed the political, economic, and social advance of the wealthier members of the so-called Third Estate • When combined with the Reform Bill of 1832 in England and the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 in southern and central Europe, the aristocratic dominance of Europe would be shattered forever

11. INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION • Political victory of upper middle class was reinforced by the Industrial Revolution • Began in England in the middle of the 18th century and then later spread to the rest of the continent • Growth of mass production within the factory system expanded the wealth of the upper middle class, creating huge fortunes and tremendous power • Far greater than the wildest dreams of any great magnate

12. DUMB ASS ARISTOCRACY • Aristocracy refused to respond to the new economic opportunities that the Industrial Revolution created • Great magnates refused to invest in commerce or industry • Committed to the idea of inherited wealth and looked down their noses at what they called “acquired wealth” • Money earned through hard work and wise investment

13. BIG PROBLEMS • Inflation rate of 2% a year set in around 1750 • Played havoc with relatively fixed incomes of aristocracy • Some tried market agriculture but this was not a good long-range solution • Others tried to extract more dues and labor from their peasants with very limited success • Others just got deeper and deeper in debt and eventually lost their land through foreclosure • Middle class generally bought these bankrupt estates

14. AGRICULTURE • Big problem was that agriculture was not the answer • Contributed less and less to expanding gross national products of most countries during the Industrial Revolution • Wholesale price for food also declined from 1815 to 1850 • Made commercial agriculture progressively less profitable • Aristocratic incomes fell throughout Europe

15. LEGAL REVOLUTION • Aristocracy stripped of its legal privileges and protection as legal systems across Europe turned more and more towards the interests of the upper middle class • Remnants of feudalism destroyed in France, Prussia, Austrian Empire, and Russia • Feudal dues and fees, right to charge tolls, exclusive right to hunt, and local monopolies abolished • Entail and primogeniture disappeared • Adoption of written constitutions established equality before the law for all people • Aristocrats were no longer a class set apart and above the rest of society

16. DECLINE IN POWER • Political and social power of aristocracy also eroded • Lost former positions in government, bureaucracy, military, and the church • Did not completely disappear but their proportion was less and less every year from 1789 onwards

17. OH SHOOT, NOW YOU HAVE TO BE QUALIFIED? • Major reason for this decline was two-fold • Growth in the size of military and civilian bureaucracies • Introduction of competitive examinations for civil service jobs • Meant that there were not enough qualified aristocrats to fill all these jobs since only educated men with necessary technical and academic training received positions Lord Castlereagh

18. THE CHURCH • Many aristocrats still held high positions in churches • But churches did not count for much in terms of wealth and power by World War I • due to loss of landed property during French Revolution, the separation of church and state, and the growth of secular public education • Domination of the Church by the aristocracy was useless because the Church did not count for much anymore

19. SUMMARY • Deprived of its legal privileges, rapidly losing its monopoly on government service, and stubbornly clinging to sources of income that were increasingly inadequate, the aristocracy declined in terms of political, social, and economic power as the 19th century wore on • Whatever vestiges of influence and prestige that they still possessed, came to an end on the battlefields of World War I • World War I delivered a coup de grâce to a social group that had been dying a lingering and painful death for over a century

20. A NEW AGE • Wealth and achievement replaced titles as the most distinguishing features of the new upper middle class elite • Many of the upper middle class came from families who had gained their wealth in commerce and banking in the 18th century • But it was the rising group of new industrial entrepreneurs who personified the new age of the 19th century • New industrialists and inventors became symbolic of progress and the new European royalty

21. MANAGERIAL SKILL • Entrepreneurs possessed managerial ability • Indispensable for the large scale producton and complex financing of industry • Production grew to a scale never seen before • More raw materials were need, the various stages of production needed to be integrated under a single factory roof, and labor had to be recruited and disciplined • This made managers vital to the success of industry

22. “NEW MEN” • In order for the Industrial Revolution to succeed, men had to be willing to invest in the new enterprises • Most industrial projects required a fairly large investment of money • Those individuals who were willing to do this were known as entrepreneurs • They were the ones willing to finance large scale industry and its associated activities • If successful, they could amass tremendous fortunes and wield tremendous power

23. JOHN MARSHALL • Father had been a successful cloth merchant in the late 18th century • Marshall parlayed this small nest egg into a vast fortune by investing heavily in the mechanization of the textile industry • Opened a production site near Leeds but first attempts to mechanize the manufacture of lace at this factory failed

24. SUCCESS • Linked up with a young mechanic named Matthew Murray who invented a flax-cording machine • Paved the way for the near complete mechanization of Marshall’s factory • By early 19th century, Marshall had a number of factories, over 1000 workers, and was a multi-millionaire • Yet he always was looking for new and better ways to improve production through the implementation of machines Matthew Murray

25. WERNER SIEMENS • Did his own inventing • Invented insulated wire and the electrical dynamo • Established factory to make telegraph equipment in 1847 • By the 1860s, he monopolized the sale of telegraphic equipment in Russia and had a major share of this market in virtually every country in Europe

26. INVENTIVE • Began to manufacture electrical cable when demand for that product began to rise • Rapidly came to dominate this growing market • His inventiveness never slacked off • As an old man he invented the electric elevator in 1880 and helped set up the first electric streetcar in Berlin in 1881

27. ENTREPRENEURIAL CREED • Through the efforts of propagandists like Samuel Smiles, men like Marshall and Siemens inspired the creation of a new entrepreneurial creed • Men who worked as hard as the great entrepreneurs could become just as successful • Wealth and prominence were within the reach of anyone who adopted the upper middle class values of thrift, hard work, and self discipline • Anyone could succeed if they practiced “diligent self-culture, self-discipline, and self control” Samuel Smiles

28. INDUSTRIAL MANAGERS • During the early days of the Industrial Revolution, the concept of management was closely linked to ownership • Mainly because so much of industry began as family enterprises or as partnerships • It was only when the smaller company gave way to the large corporation that a separate and distinct class of industrial managers began to emerge • Example is Imperial Chemical Industries of England • Started as Brunner and Mond, a small partnership between John Brunner and Ludwig Mond

29. IMPERIAL CHEMICAL • At first, day-to-day administration of company was performed by the two partners themselves • But as their business grew, they assigned some managerial tasks in research and development to various scientists and engineers • By the 1890s, the owners delegated various administrative functions to lawyers and accountants • By the time the founders retired, the day-to-day operation of the company was entirely in the hands of well paid professional managers

30. DECLINE OF MONARCHY • Decline of monarchy was a fact of life in 19th century Europe • German, Austrian, and Russian monarchies all collapsed in 1918 • French monarchy had already disappeared by this time • English and Italian monarchies had been transformed into figurehead institutions

31. NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS • Power increasingly shifted to national parliaments • Especially the lower houses of these assemblies • French Chamber of Deputies fell to control of upper middle class by the 1820s • English House of Commons taken over by upper middle class in the 1840s • Italian Chamber of Deputies, Austrian House of Representatives, and the German Reichstag were all created between 1861 and 1871 • Upper middle class gradually got the upper hand in these assemblies House of Commons

32. LIMITED FRANCHISE • Middle class character of government was created and preserved by means of the limited franchise • Masses did not get right to vote in France until 1848; in England until 1867; in Germany until 1871; in Austrian Empire until 1907; and in Italy until 1912 • Prior to these dates, the right to vote was restricted by a property qualification or an educational standard • Qualifications and standards that only the upper middle class could generally meet

33. PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS • Active participation in politics tendedto fall to the professions • Who were allied with the interests of the upper middle class and reflected its attitudes • Passed the legislation which created the middle class dominated society of the 19th century • Growth of national bureaucracies represented another area of penetration of upper middle class and its allies • Implementation of civil service tests also reduced hold of aristocracy and put them under control of middle class Victor Adler

34. SUMMARY • Upper middle class moved into positions of power during the 19th century • Using old and new wealth, accumulated capital, and talent, it took over society and further enriched itself in the process • Replaced the aristocracy by taking over key institutions with which it maintained its power • Upper middle class control of capital, investment, and business gave it a commanding position • So did its ability to control new legislative assemblies and growing bureaucracies • Its main ally was the new professional element in society

35. CRITICS I • The first to notice the change in elites were artists and intellectuals • Many saw the passing of aristocratic society as a loss • Criticized new bourgeoisie and its doctrines of acquisition and personal restraint • Romanticized the past in order to contrast it more sharply with the new industrial era • Criticism was heavy and the atmosphere was pessimistic Honoré de Balzac

36. CRITICS II • Stendahl and Honoré de Balzac were convinced that middle class morality, with its stress on emotional restraint for the sake of economic success, was destructive of the human personality • Thomas Carlyle declared that materialistic doctrines were creating a psychological disease that could only be described as “social gangrene” • Never mentioned poverty, injustice, and inequality of the era of kings and aristocrats

37. ROMANTICIZATION OF THE PAST • Sir Walter Scott transformed society’s image of the knight from a crude and bloodthirsty warrior to that of a gentle and compassionate benefactor • William Wordsworth glorified nobles and peasants and the agricultural society they lived in • Percy Shelley saw modern industrial society as the cause of massive poverty • Richard Wagner used his music to glorify the preindustrial past and extol the virtues of the aristocracy Sir Walter Scott

38. THE REALISTS • Post-1850 writers just as critical of bourgeois society as the Romantics • Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo, and Nicolai Chernychevsky all found this society wanting in the area of human values Charles Dickens

39. DEFENDERS • Andrew Ure was one of England’s the most popular writers of the 1860s • Glorified the uplifting character of industrial society • Declared that the city was better off than the countryside • Defended the new upper middle class as possessing “a noble spirit of industry, enterprise, and intelligence”

40. UPSIDE • Both critics and apologists of modern industrial society had a point • Triumph of the upper middle class was an improvement over the stagnant, grossly unjust system that prevailed before 1789 • Industrial system that the upper middle class created and directed did ultimately raise the general standard of living for all classes

41. DOWNSIDE • Critics were correct when they warned of the psychological and social dangers of excessive materialism • And also when they argued the masses were just as deserving as the upper middle class of a decent standard of living, a decent level of education, a decent amount of personal freedom, and a decent level of economic security • Conservative critics of bourgeois society wanted to return to a mythological past while bourgeois apologists thought that society could not get any better

42. THIRD OPTION • Did not involve a return to an aristocratic past nor the maintenance of the status quo • Socialists argued it was possible and desirable to transform society into something entirely different • Based on their belief in the creative and destructive potential of the so-called “lower classes”