... a site of negotiation and inherent instability. Industry and its technologies opened a set of social relations that gave rise to the middle class. It is relatively easy to define the upper class as those who enjoy social privilege by virtue of aristocratic birth and those with established fortunes - either made or inherited - that allow access to social ... accruing excess capital. Members of the working class did not have the luxury of imagining that their financial circumstances would improve significantly. The middle class seems more difficult to define. Cohen, synthesizing a wide ra...

• Word Count: 7291
• Approx Pages: 29
• Grade Level: Undergraduate