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The Global Economy in Turbulent Times
book

The Global Economy in Turbulent Times

by See-Yan Lin
June 2015
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
600 pages
27h 11m
English
Wiley
Content preview from The Global Economy in Turbulent Times

CHAPTER 93 The Emerging Bourgeoisie1

For Karl Marx, “the bourgeoisie . . . has played a most revolutionary part” in history. He is right. In the past two decades, the new middle class (NMC) has surged forward, silently producing a revolution within emerging markets in wealth creation and in lifestyle. By and large, they are a product of growth.

Who Are They?

There is no best definition of the NMC; it all depends on what the objective is. US$2 a day is commonly accepted as the poverty line in developing nations; beyond this, people join the middle-class in the sense they have moved out of poverty. My old friend, Homi Kharas (formerly with the World Bank and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, a US think tank), had promoted the definition of today’s global NMC as households with disposable income (or daily expenditure) of US$10 to US$100 a day (RM30 to RM300) per person at 2005 purchasing power parity prices (i.e., their domestic buying power at 2005 prices).

Two recent reports tell their story: “Global Trends 2030,” just published by the Paris-based European Union Institute for Security Studies (ISS), quoted in the Financial Times,2 and “Perspectives on Global Development 2012—Social Cohesion in a Shifting World” by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (the rich world’s think tank, also based in Paris).3 According to them, the NMC is global and on current trends, its members will rise from 2 billion in 2013 (split about 50–50 between developed ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781119059967