At some uncertain point in the 20th century, the middle class became a Wi-Fi mirage. Its members learned to live as if they still had a future, although no one guaranteed it anymore. They took their children to private schools, bought for months without interest, celebrated promotions without a real increase and learned to smile on LinkedIn while the domestic Excel burned in the red.
Nobody realized when the middle class stopped being a position and started being a role. A social role that is interpreted with effort, with quotas, with appearances. Being middle class is no longer having stability, it is looking like it.
Because stability disappeared, but the script remained intact: have a car (even if it is financed for 48 months), go on vacation (although with an early bonus), pay insurance (even if it is the minimum coverage) and remain in that moral limbo of “neither rich nor poor”, as if hell were belonging forcefully to either of the two extremes.
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Overacting implies tension, wear and tear, fear. But also hope. That is why the middle class is the most obedient of all: it has too much to lose and too little to gain. He doesn’t demand much, he doesn’t protest, he doesn’t move much. He prefers to preserve the illusion rather than risk the scene.
The serious thing is that it no longer has an audience. Governments neglect it, banks squeeze it, companies make it precarious and the media romanticize it. The middle class is the favorite character in national fiction, but outside of the story, no one takes charge.
Meanwhile, many who have already left the middle class continue to act as if they still belong. And those who still keep it, do so with fear: a layoff, an illness, an increase in income or a change in algorithm is enough to lose it. Because today falling does not mean a forceful crisis, but rather a sum of small setbacks: stopping going to the dentist, postponing the gym, canceling streaming or secretly borrowing money.
And yet, there she is: visible, anxious, well-combed. As if nothing happened. As if everything was under control. As if the progress story hadn’t long gone away with interest rates.
The middle class is overreacted because reality is intolerable without a staging. Without the comfort of looking like what we once were. Or what maybe we never were. But the curtain is held on with pins. And when it falls, there will be no applause. Only silence, debts and a performance that no one dared to interrupt.
About the author:
Journalist by vocation, provocateur by default. Eduardo Navarrete is Head of Comms & Press at Fintual México and writes columns because Excel doesn’t let him express himself.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eduardo-navarrete
Mail: (email protected)
Instagram: @elnavarrete
The opinions expressed are solely the responsibility of their authors and are completely independent of the position and editorial line of Forbes Mexico.
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