Middle Class In Brave New World

In Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984 both tell tales of a society where the middle class ceases to exist. Neither of these books portrays a middle social class and thus the boundaries between the rich and the poor is evident. Huxley and Orwell warn of the middle class in the social hierarchy and how a buffer is needed in a social hierarchy in order to maintain a satisfied nation by envisioning a disastrous future where the buffer is not present. By applying the same idea today, one is able to witness the economical effect that ensues upon the middle class in first world countries such as the United States. Huxley and Orwell’s warning came true to a certain extent where the middle class today suffers from the economical repercussions

The cases of intentional inflation have been so bad especially in Korea, housing prices rose by a few hundred percent over the past decade (Kotkin), that the middle-aged workers have to work decades just to save up for a house. There have also been a lot of scandals where estate owners would make secret deals in order to raise the price of a certain area together. These market manipulations are ruining the middle class because each house purchase could potentially end as a bankruptcy (Knapton) as it just simple costs too much. This means that the middle class can no longer properly afford houses and thus they are required to live in their parent’s basements until the day when they are able to buy a house. Even if these inflations were supposed to be natural, it is abnormal for the supposedly middle class to have such little buying power with their salaries, when the buying power of the middle class decreases it is usually an indication of a dying middle class since it signifies less money in circulation. This means that middle class is slowly being absorbed into the lower class as their salaries cannot keep up with the prices for basic necessities rises. Either way both leads to the fact that the middle class is either disappearing or weakening due to their decreasing purchasing power. Orwell warns about something similar to this in 1984, where the outer party members barely go by with food and equipment whilst the inner party members such as Goldstein can practically order and buy anything that is considered to be unorthodox or illegal in the world. Goldberg himself states that this is a way of controlling the citizens to continuously work for their basic survival and thus a cycle that shouldn’t be broken. Much like 1984 the continuous inflation of prices could mean that only