Every great nation has an iconic character that seems to embody the economic spirit of that nation. The British shopkeeper, the German engineer, the French restaurateur; one iconic profession can at times seem to hold the key to the sensibilities and successes of their respective cultures. I believe that the American mythical archetype is the middle class laborer. This archetype represents the promise of the American dream, that those who work hard, no matter their profession, will enjoy a basic level of comfort and stability for them and their families. Though we seem farther away from this iconic middle class identity than ever before, its use as an ideal by politicians only seems to grow more frequent with each day as they promise jobs, jobs and more jobs.

They speak of a need to reinvigorate the middle class in order to breathe new life into the economy and national spirit, and rightly so. As is so often the case, the problem is clear when terrible damage has already been done — the middle class has suffered the brunt of the recession. Fortunately, it will be the middle class that pulls us out of this mess, if only we let it. We need to understand what makes it so special, however, in order to harness its potential, both economically and as a foundation of national character.

The middle class has been the only class in America with a genuine sense of risk, having no significant financial reserves to insulate against the ups and downs of economic life. The wealthy can make financial gambles and still maintain reserves, and can therefore afford riskier financial ventures. The working poor are guaranteed their maintenance through welfare and other programs, and therefore, their sense of self is not continually at economic risk. The middle class individual is middle class by his or her own efforts, and is ever vigilant to defend this status and advance it through calculated risk. They are the embodiment of the wisdom of the free market, channeling capital into safe, stable ventures. It is this qualitative definition of the middle class, rather than a specific income level, that is ever under attack from all sides. Unscrupulous and under-regulated financial bigwigs gave complex mortgages to those who never should have qualified in the first place.

The bitter hostility seen in the past year between public and private workers is not a matter of equal pay; such comparisons miss their mark. It is a disjuncture of security. The public worker has something that no small sum of money can equal. The surety of government employment frees up the need to save the bulk of one’s income as private assurance against disaster. The private laborer is thus doubly disadvantaged by the very existence of the unionized public employee – the private sphere, always permeable to the clever and hardworking, is that much diminished, and the security of government jobs is subsidized at his or her expense via taxes. In our society, the government guarantees security to a certain class at the expense of another. It should not be the government’s task to guarantee economic equality by increasing the number of wards of the state. Every form of modern tyranny and political violence has resulted from the propagation of such a privileged sphere. The state, in these cases, is usurped by an underprivileged class to establish their own dominance, at the expense of the old elite. It is crucial to draw this distinction between the two variants of that mythic middle class, the entrepreneurial and the bureaucratic, to see clearly the role of the government in moving forward. It is not to guarantee economic equality, but equality before the law.

The fight between Democrats and Republicans over the hearts and minds of the middle class is a fight of cultural attitudes, rooted in their respective bases of power. Both advance the interests of certain electorates in order to garner votes in elections. Republicans appease the upper middle class and industry by dismantling regulation wherever they can. Democrats appeal to the poor, the unions and their lower middle class base with a cloying protectionism. Both extremes, while claiming to represent the interests of the middle class, unwittingly divide it and diminish it by pitting it against itself. The proper role of government in American economic life, and the source of our past success, is to use regulation and safety nets to promote the practice of competitive capitalism. Regulation doesn’t diminish capitalism; it strengthens it by keeping it within the cultural bounds of what is considered fair and humane. The government, rather than shrinking away from all expenditures, should invest in those capital goods that can truly be said to belong to the public at large. These promote the latent entrepreneurial potential of everyone: education, infrastructure and security, not of income or employment, but against utter destitution. This distinction, so easily lost, is the answer to the riddle of the mythic middle class. In a free society, the government should only protect and promote what it can offer without prejudice to all: guarantees of freedom, basic dignity and a fair playing field.

Gavin Beeker is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at [email protected].