Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class starts with appropriation, not etiquette. In his account, the earliest communities were peaceful, easygoing, and mentally simple, living collectively in something like primitive communism. The leisure class appears later, in predatory primitive society. Productivity has advanced enough to produce a surplus, and surplus makes plunder worthwhile. The strongest, most savage, and most violent take other people's lives and property, becoming the first people with leisure. With handicraft and settled wealth, those who accumulated in predatory society become large landowners, holding land and the slaves or hired farmers who work it. A leisure stratum takes shape.
Waste as proof
The leisure class does not produce. It treats any profit-making activity as vulgar. Its behavior serves two purposes: waste and honor. The most expensive and inconvenient clothing, the most elaborate ornaments, complicated rituals, cultivated oddities of temperament, even the feminization of men, all serve one claim: we do not produce, and our status has been accumulated over generations. As surplus grows, the leisure class cannot consume enough by itself, so a class of vicarious consumers appears. For a long historical stretch, the world was patriarchal, and leisure status belonged to the male household head and male heirs. The wife, concubines, and uniformed servants consume on his behalf. The message is: look at how many people I keep busy consuming, and my fortune and free time remain untouched. I am truly of the leisure class.
Industrialization raises the status of human rights, blurs boundaries between strata, and draws lower groups toward leisure-class behavior. But the leisure class must defend its honor, so reputation, waste, and culture remain contested. The middle class emerges and imitates the leisure class; the lower class imitates the middle. A pyramid takes form. Churches and universities become more mundane, closer to production, no longer treating productive work with the old contempt.
The modern middle class is a social pillar. It connects the masses with the leisure class, and production with consumption; that is why it is called elite. Its rise is not mainly a story of accumulated wealth but of education. Education moves out of the leisure class and into the public, giving ordinary people a route into elite status that does not depend on inherited fortune. In this sense, the vulgarization of education and culture can benefit the masses: it at least opens a chance of upward mobility.
The middle class is not leisured
Yet the middle class is not the leisure class. The leisure class is marked by leisure, not by money; money only reinforces its non-productive identity. The middle class gains relatively high income through education, but moves further away from leisure. Farmers and other poor groups may have low incomes, but they have plenty of leisure. Money and leisure cannot be had together. The leisure class still uses social rules to keep others out. The middle class is an illusion.
Recent figures for Beijing universities suggest that master's and doctoral graduates will outnumber undergraduates. The master's halo may fade and become a standard credential. With a standard credential, one can expect only average income and social status. The path of using education to raise income and cross into another stratum seems to disappear. It is sometimes said that China has no classes and everyone is a master. But globally, capitalism covers most countries and most people, and its middle classes look precarious.
Many assume that a growing middle class will make this stratum stronger. Few ask what happens if it expands until it includes everyone except the leisure class. Human societies move from primitive communism to a two-pole order of leisure and poverty, then to a three-part order of leisure, middle, and poor, and finally perhaps back to a two-pole order of leisure and middle. It looks cyclical. Whether it ends in a communist society of common wealth, Marx answered yes.
Before that arrives, the spread of education is eroding the middle class and fading its labels of high education, high income, and elite status. After industrialization, the democratization of education was won through struggle. Now it is closing the route by which education led toward the leisure class. Education gives, and education takes away.
When education can no longer confer an elite label, how does society decide each person's stratum? In the primitive period, mutual affection; in predatory society, violence and savagery; in feudal society, bloodline and inheritance; in industrial society, education and habits. What comes next? When degrees or knowledge cannot sort people, only wealth and power remain. Wealth depends on accumulation and inheritance; power comes from the unknown. In any case, a degree or knowledge will no longer be a strong class label. It will still be a necessary label for becoming a qualified citizen. Those who produce but cannot cross into the true leisure class will face ever sharper competition. The masses will be pushed further from leisure. Politics, education, culture, consumption, and cities all accelerate the process.