Introduction
In his article ‘Class in the 21st century’, published in 2012, Göran Therborn already wondered if we were entering a century of the middle class. He suggested that the middle-class society had emerged as the symbol of an alternative future (Therborn 2012, 17), being promoted among others by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on global development perspectives (OECD 2011) and Nancy Birdsall (2010).
As if to confirm his suspicion, the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) 22nd Human Development Report (UNDP 2013) had a trendy focus on the new global players from the southern hemisphere. Following the Brookings Institution (2012) and Kharas (2010), the report defines a (southern) middle class by means of a daily income or expenditure from US$10 to US$100. Martin Ravallion (2009, 17), former World Bank Acting Chief Economist and director of their research department, advocated an even more flexible definition of middle class in the so-called developing world, with a household consumption per capita of US$2–13 a day at 2005 purchasing power parity (PPP). In contrast, Andrew Sumner (2012, 37) dubs the US$4–10 group as the ‘in-betweeners’, i.e., between poverty and a secure middle-class lifestyle. The US$2 threshold was also a reference point in a 2011 briefing by the African Development Bank, which declared that over 300 million Africans, or one-third of the continent’s population, had entered the middle classes. A review in 2012 reconfirmed the bank’s almost obsessive gospel about the role of the middle class in the continent’s rapid and accelerated development: the ‘rise of Africa’s middle class, now thought to number between 300 and 500 million people’ is identified as a ‘key factor’ (African Development Bank 2012, 13). But it requires substantial creativity to visualise how the defined minimum income or expenditure (be it a paltry US$2 a day or even the substantially higher US$10) allows for a lifestyle and social status that qualifies as middle class even in African societies.
This, in turn, feeds considerable doubts that such a middle class could play a pioneering role in the transformation of societies towards greater social justice and less inequality (see Furness, Scholz and Guarin 2012). Ravallion (2009, 17) is at least honest enough to admit that such a definition of middle class is at best precarious, since ‘the vulnerability of this new middle class to aggregate economic contraction is obvious: one-in-six people in the developing world now live [on] between $2 and $3 a day.’ As Raphael Kaplinsky from the UK’s Open University quipped in his lecture at the general conference of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutions (EADI) in mid 2014, such a category means that everyone not starving qualifies as middle class.2 A background paper compiled in preparation for this conference engaged in much detail with conceptual issues of the middle class(es). But again, it concentrated almost exclusively on a merely economistic classification of these social strata (Wietzke and Sumner 2014). This underscored the randomness of interpretations, which is not solved by introducing sub-divisions such as lower, middle and upper-middle classes. Rather, this underlines the arbitrary character of such terminology in the middle-class debate.
As problematic as fiddling with figures is the deficiency as regards a rigorous definition of middle class, not only because of the almost exclusive emphasis on the financial/monetary aspect, but also often ignoring – or only considering in passing as a kind of secondary aspect –the professional and social status, cultural norms and lifestyle-related attributes as well as political orientation(s) and influence. ‘Middle class’ is rather used in an inflationary manner to cover almost everything without any further internal differentiations that exist within a very broad band of income groups, thereby signifying little to nothing. While ‘recognising that the middle class is as much a social designation as an economic classification’, Kharas (2010, 11), as a prominent example, opts ‘to measure the middle class in terms of consumption levels’.
The role of middle class(es) in Africa
The Human Development Report 2013 promoted the gospel of the emerging middle class as a cure to the developmental impasse. It predicted a massive expansion and global reconfiguration of the middle class:
Between 1990 and 2010, the South’s share of the global middle class population expanded from 26% to 58%. By 2030, more than 80% of the world’s middle class is projected to be residing in the South and to account for 70% of total consumption expenditure. (UNDP 2013, 14)
Notwithstanding such reservations, the ominous middle classes have sneaked as a popular subject into African Studies too, and occupy the thoughts of economists, political scientists, sociologists and social anthropologists alike, often with strikingly ahistorical perspectives and lacking any awareness of class-related social structures and trajectories, which are anything but new, as is often suggested. As Lentz (2015) documents, the discovery of the middle class(es) is by no means engaging with a new social phenomenon, as earlier work on African elites already engaged with analyses of similar social segments in society. Resnick therefore rightly observes that ‘scholarship around class formation and its implications for Africa’s political economies has deep roots’ (Resnick 2015, 574f). One just needs to recall the works of Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral, who discuss the African petty bourgeoisie of their days (kind of tantamount to today’s middle classes, though seen from a perspective more aware of class analysis) half a century ago with differing to opposing conclusions (see Peterson 2007). While Amilcar Cabral had assumed that at least considerable parts of the petite bourgeoisie would commit class suicide, Frantz Fanon stated in the chapter on ‘The pitfalls on national consciousness’ in his manifesto on The wretched of the earth:
In an under-developed country an authentic national middle class ought to consider as its bounden duty to betray the calling fate has marked out for it, and to put itself to school with the people: in other words to put at the people’s disposal the intellectual and technical capital that it has snatched when going through the colonial universities. But unhappily we shall see that very often the national middle class does not follow this heroic, positive, fruitful and just path; rather, it disappears with its soul set at peace into the shocking ways – shocking because anti-national – of a traditional bourgeoisie, of a bourgeoisie which is stupidly, contemptibly, cynically bourgeois. (Fanon 2001, 120–121)
As Gibson (1999, 111) summarises with reference to Fanon, ‘the new huckstering middlemen of the postcolonial dispensation stole Africa.’ The debates on class and state in Africa of the 1970s, using categories such as ‘labour aristocracy’, ‘state class’, ‘bureaucratic class’ and the like all testify to a vibrant engagement with what in our days miraculously re-emerges as the ‘middle class’.3 Similarly, The interpreters – about a handful of young intellectual protagonists who had studied abroad but returned to independent Nigeria and are at the centre stage of Wole Soyinka’s first novel (1965) – can be understood as an implicit anatomy of a diverse collection of ‘middle-class’ aspirants torn apart between the old and the new, with rather differing orientations beyond the seemingly common. Other African novelists have in different ways and forms also engaged with such middle-class protagonists since decolonisation and thereby offered lively and often not very flattering illustrations of their behaviour and attitudes.
In contrast to such markers, the current debate appears to be rather short in memory, given the obvious but largely ignored trajectories. It implies to a large extent the assumption that the middle class(es) are a positive ingredient for the development of African societies. But such optimism seems rather unwarranted both in terms of the potential economic role of such middle classes and as regards the expectations concerning their political role. Handley (2014, 13) could not find any ‘great deal of evidence that Africa’s new middle classes on their own will necessarily drive growth in the ways predicted by our normative models’. She is rather sceptical as regards the transformative potential of these new segments. This is reinforced in the political sphere by findings in the Afrobarometer Survey. These suggest that
middle-class persons display a pervasive suspicion that their fellow citizens are incapable of casting a responsible vote. Afrobarometer surveys repeatedly show that, as education rises, individuals are more likely to agree that ‘only those who are sufficiently well educated should be allowed to choose our leaders’ and to disagree that ‘all people should be permitted to vote, even if they do not fully understand all the issues in an election’. (Bratton 2013, 281)
On balance one can conclude that neither economic growth nor the proclaimed rise of a ‘middle class’ automatically heralds the spread of democratic values or the anchoring of social security for the majority of the people. A recent IMF Working Paper conceded that economic growth rates – considered a precondition for the expansion of a middle class and redistributive effects – do not automatically translate into social progress. Examining the correlation between growth dynamics in sub-Saharan Africa and social indicators, Martinez and Mlachila (2013, 22) conclude that ‘for the most part there is little correlation between growth and social indicators in general’ and that ‘growth is but an ingredient in the dynamics.’ They state further: ‘While in principle growth should increase the amount of available resources to undertake social programs, the success hinges crucially on a complex interaction of a number of institutional and policy factors.’ However, a middle class is no guarantee of policy factors conducive to greater socio-economic equality and improved living standards for the poor.
So what is ‘middle class’? – South African realities
‘By definition’, as Keeley (2015, 39) suggests, ‘middle class’ is a relative term – it’s somewhere above poor but below rich, but where?’ A team headed by Peter Alexander from the University of Johannesburg explored this question further in South Africa’s biggest township. Phakati – Soweto's middling class is a documentary produced in 2008/2009, which illustrates, mainly through interviews, the final stages of a survey, initiated in 2006.4 Investigating class identity was a core part and aim of the empirical work. The outcome was revealing as regards the term middle class in the perceptions of those interrogated. In total 2284 respondents were classified according to their work status. Among them, 129 were considered to be petty bourgeoisie (self-employed professionals or small businesses not looking for work), 24 as employed middle-class (salaried managerial positions) and four as bourgeoisie (Phadi and Ceruti 2011, 95). In terms of occupational categories, two-thirds of the persons in the sample were without occupation (being unemployed, pensioners, students etc.). Respondents were then offered a variety of class- or status-related labels with the option for multiple self-categorisations. Sixty-six per cent (66%) of the respondents classified themselves as middle class (Phadi and Ceruti 2011, 96), followed by 43% working class, 38% lower class and 13% upper or top class (Alexander 2013, 235).
Watching the documentary, the explanations given by a wide panorama of individuals living in very different socio-economic circumstances (ranging from a woman who was owner of a company in the educational sector occupying a spacious, posh house in the upmarket part of Soweto to an unemployed woman in a shack coping with the daily life without water and electricity) were almost stereotype. Those in the upper segment argued that others were better off, while those in the lower and lowest segment referred to others still worse off. Such comparison disclosed ‘an identity understood as “neither rich nor poor”’ (Phadi and Ceruti 2011, 101). Respondents positioned themselves as ‘living somewhere between those who were “suffering” and those who had “everything”’ (Alexander 2013, 236). According to Phadi and Ceruti (2011, 99), ‘Sowetans who declare themselves middle class are thereby distinguishing themselves from mediocrity.’ Their identities ‘not only reflect the material reach that social location confers, but also the width of the social view that different social locations permit’ (Phadi and Ceruti 2011, 102).
The self-perception clearly had to do with a form of pride, of dignity, and of belonging: the middle-class label ‘was linked to self-respect, to upward mobility and aspirations’ and ‘regarded as normal, thus neither “above” nor “below” other people’ (Alexander 2013, 236). As Alexander adds:
when Sowetans look ‘upwards’ they tend to emphasis [sic] cultural and individual characteristics, and when they look ‘down’ they tend to stress economic considerations, such as unemployment. Linked with this, ‘class’ can be seen as something positive, because unlike ‘race’ it permits upwards mobility. (Alexander 2013, 236)
Being ‘middle class’ is a kind of fluid ‘in-between’ self-categorisation of most residents. While the differences in their social status, lifestyle and (in)security are enormous, they all merrily classify themselves as being part of a rather arbitrarily defined ‘middle’, with others socially positioned below and above. But South African realities (in the plural) are by no means confined to the Soweto setting or other township locations.
A contrasting analysis was almost in parallel undertaken by Ivor Chipkin (2012) on ‘middle classness’ in the townhouse suburbia of Roodepoort, a previously ‘white’ residential area of the wider Johannesburg city, now also inhabited by residents representing components of a black middle class. Despite all differences to the township habitat of Soweto, a ‘common world’ emerges there too. This world ‘is not associated with new patterns of sociability that transcend race or ethnicity’. But assertions that different groups defined by ethnicity would ‘signify antagonistic social positions’ and survive especially among white middle-class members, have been replaced by ‘an openness to black South Africans that may well be unprecedented outside liberal and/or leftist political circles’ (Chipkin 2012, 83). He therefore concludes, that ‘ordinary life refers to the pursuit of identity, of structure, rather than revolt or resistance to it’ (Chipkin 2012, 82). The Roodepoort townhouse complexes signify a ‘paradoxical common world conjured into being through a new regime of property right and mediated by body corporates’ (Chipkin 2012, 82). He asserts that ‘spaces of order have been constituted through a regime of (private) property,’ which is not necessarily in compliance with ‘a post-apartheid society tending towards socialism or participatory democracy or, at least, subject to the morality of the Constitution’ (Chipkin 2012, 86). It is, in other words, the identity of ‘haves’, who consider their own possession as the only important point of reference.
The BBC’s Africa business report, broadcast on 1 and 2 January 2016 as part of a continental outlook for the year, featured a conversation with three South African observers of the economic trends. The debate ended with views on the emergence of the new segments of the socio-economic strata dubbed the African middle class(es). Asked about their attitudes and roles, one of the participants attributed to them not much more than greed and individual aspirations to accumulate wealth and status as a generation seeking ‘instant gratifications’ with ‘no loyalties’ to any political or other ideological orientation.
Such conclusions seem to suggest that there is no social force in the making, which by status and definition would indeed be the torchbearer for more democracy, participation, human rights, social equality and redistribution of wealth beyond group-centred benefits and interests. One might call this to some extent a class interest, shared by many members of these middle classes across the continent. But depending on the circumstances ethnicity, pigmentation and other criteria matter as much (and at times even more) than such – at best diffuse – class awareness.
A recent survey among black members of the South African middle class, defined by higher professional positions (and clearly over and above the earlier suggested minimum income) investigates the meanings and political attitudes among the members of such a black middle class (BMC). Based on interviews, Ngoma (2015, 41) argues that ‘the high levels of intra-racial inequality bond the BMC to race-based alliances rather than class-based alliances’ and reaches the conclusion that ‘occupation and income as class markers do not automatically translate into a [sic] class identities’ (Ngoma 2015, 43). But she also observes that ‘the BMC is becoming increasingly confident in its class position, a development allowing it to begin critically assessing the wider political landscape,’ which also ‘indicates a deeper commitment to the developmental needs of the class itself’ (Ngoma 2015, 81).
The three different case studies from South Africa, which has the biggest slice of the defined African middle-class cake, shows the need for a much stricter definition and investigation of class-based belonging and orientation. We should be more cautious than promoting simplifying and sweeping explanations as regards the scope for potential political reforms and their impact on social change in the sense of transformation of societies, which middle classes (defined in whichever way) might be able or willing to promote. As Handley points out,
in order for a new middle class to act in a way that is politically and economically transformative, it needs … first, a collective identity (what used to be a [sic] called a class consciousness) – that is, as a class it must be aware of its interests and have the ability to organize collectively in pursuit of those interests. (Handley 2014, 13–14)
As she adds, ‘the middle class ought ideally to see its interests as, at least, compatible with the interests of the broader society’ (Handley 2014, 14), which ‘is a fairly demanding set of conditions’.
How much class have the African middle classes?
While at pains with a definition, Keeley (2015, 39) suggests that ‘this new middle class … has at least risen above day-to-day subsistence living and can plan for, and invest in, the future.’ But if that is all one has to offer as classification, one feels provoked to further ask which future this means – a future for the middle class(es)? Or maybe rather a renaissance of the term class, as Therborn (2014, 10) suggests with reference to the ominous middle-class debate? At least, as he observes further, this discourse brings back reflections related to class(es).
Summarising her explorations of the middle classes in Nairobi (sensibly in the plural) Spronk (2014, 110) suggests that a truer measure of the phenomenon than the income-based position might be socio-cultural, with the lifestyle as ‘an important marker of their identity’. Considering urban young professionals as avant-garde, she further suggests that their lifestyles cultivated ‘are not merely an expression of desires, but can be understood as realising and maintaining subjective realities’ (Spronk 2014, 111). For her a focus on ‘“middle classness” thus illuminates how education, urbanisation, and social stratification have contributed to social and cultural change in Africa.’ She concludes that considering ‘class as an aspirational category and the ways in which it is practiced allows us to see that forms of capital that are not, strictly speaking, economic, are central to understanding middle-class formation’ (Spronk 2014, 111). While this is a step forward in grasping the formative aspects of so-called middle classes, the term consciousness (never mind class consciousness as a political awareness) remains limited to the diagnosis that ‘young professionals are highly conscious of their distinctive position in Kenyan society’ (Spronk 2014, 110), which seemingly relates more to status than anything else.
While devoting parts of her essay on the positioning of class in African Studies and drawing a dividing line between the ‘elite’ and the ‘young professionals’ as subject of her study (Spronk 2014, 100), Spronk stops short of properly engaging with or applying class analysis. This might be indicative for the current, still infant stage of an assessment of the African middle classes in terms of a proper class analysis. At least there seems to emerge a generally growing awareness, that the original ‘middle-class hype’ had been somewhat superficial. As Thurlow, Resnick, and Ubogu (2015, 593) observed, ‘many of the absolute and relative measures … fail to approximate classical concepts because certain income and expenditure levels may be necessary, but certainly not sufficient, to qualify a middle class.’ But despite their final appeal to apply ‘a more robust conceptualisation that would be minimally applicable in other areas of the world as well’ (Thurlow, Resnick, and Ubogu 2015, 604), they fail to translate ‘classical concepts’ into classical class analysis.
Revisiting an earlier debate, dating back to the first (provisional and incomplete) thoughts expressed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their preliminary reflections on the notions of ‘class in itself’ and ‘class for itself’ might be illuminating.5 This is more than a semantic distinction between members of a social class, who share similar positions in relation to the mode of production but remain unaware of their common interests as a class and therefore do not act collectively. They are in Marxist terms a class in itself. In contrast, those that are aware of their collective strength, pursuing joint interests in an organised manner to achieve common goals, are considered a class for itself.
In his essay on class consciousness, Georg Lukács (1971, 46–82) has pursued such an approach more profoundly further (see Nineham 2010). This is not a nostalgic step backward, but a step forward in coming to terms with the socio-political impact the ominous middle classes might have – or not have, if one defines class consciousness as ‘the self-understanding of members of a social class’ (Munro 2015). Lukács was aware of the different forms of social formations and their (re)production in different societies with differing degrees of penetration by the capitalist mode of production. But he also maintained that, ‘every society constitutes an economic unity. The only question that arises is whether this unity enables the individual sectors of society to relate to society as a whole in such a way that their imputed consciousness can assume an economic form.’ (Lukács 1971, 56) And he suggests that ‘the relation to the whole created by the consciousness of one’s status is not directed to the real, living economic unity’ (Lukács 1971, 58). Rather,
Status – consciousness – a real historical factor masks class consciousness; in fact it prevents it from emerging at all. A like phenomenon can be observed under capitalism in the case of all ‘privileged’ groups whose class situation lacks any immediate economic base. The ability of such a class to adapt itself to the real economic development can be measured by the extent to which it succeeds in ‘capitalising’ itself, i.e. transforming its privileges into economic and capitalist forms of control. (Lukács 1971, 58)
For Lukács the (petty bourgeois or peasant) ‘other classes’ in the early 20th century have an ambiguous or sterile outlook ‘because their existence is not based exclusively on their role in the capitalist system of production’. Their class interest therefore ‘concentrates on symptoms of development and not on development itself, and on elements of society rather than on the construction of society as a whole’ (Lukács 1971, 59; original emphasis). This suggests that what is lumped together under the label middle classes represents at best an opaque awareness if not about themselves (in the plural), then at least about society and their position, aims and politics. What then is left in terms of explanatory meaning of the term? Such ambiguity explains the different political and social orientations of members of a middle class, their different roles and positions in social struggles, and their difference in interests. Not by coincidence, the later critique by Fanon diagnoses a similar limited historical role of an African middle class, when he bemoans its role of intermediary. ‘To them, nationalization quite simply means the transfer into native hands of those unfair advantages which are a legacy of the colonial period’ (Fanon 2001, 122), but not ownership over productive resources developed further for the use and benefit of the local population. Rather, ‘this under-developed middle class, reduced in numbers and without capital, which refuses to follow the path of revolution, will fall into deplorable stagnation’ (Fanon 2001, 121).
What’s (not) in the middle-class debate?
Therborn (2014, 10) stresses that discourses on class – whether right or wrong – are always of social relevance. The worldwide boom of the middle class(es) debate is therefore a remarkable symptom of our decade. The social class will remain also in the future a category of central importance. But as he states elsewhere, it remains to be seen if the future social developments will be characterised more by the new middle class(es) or by the plebeian masses (Therborn 2012, 27 and 29).
The role ascribed to the middle class(es) as a source of hope seems to be at least in parts of the literature bordering on wishful thinking, if not acting as an ideological smokescreen. These narratives are the flip side of the ‘continent of hope’ propaganda, the prevailing currency for promoting investment opportunities for external actors in resource extraction. Middle classes seem to come in handy as justification for the notorious ‘trickle-down’ effect, in the absence of any meaningful employment creation or local capital accumulation through value-added activities. As even the African Development Bank (2012, 13) has to admit, income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient has widened in recent years, and six countries in sub-Saharan Africa are among the world’s 10 most unequal countries. At the same time, none has achieved the goals set with regard to poverty reduction in the first UN Millennium Development Goal. Even the global trend is no reason for enthusiasm: ‘more than 15 percent of the world’s people remain vulnerable to multidimensional poverty,’ while ‘nearly 80 percent of the global population lack comprehensive social protection.’ At the same time, some ‘12 percent (842 million) suffer from chronic hunger, and nearly half of all workers – more than 1.5 billion – are in informal or precarious employment’ (UNDP 2014, 2).
As other analytical approaches to social structures and power show, it is neither the middle class(es) nor the upper fifth of the income pyramid that has any influence on the distribution of wealth in societies. They too are at the receiving end. It is indeed the top decile (if not the top five per cent or an even smaller fraction) among the haves that mainly executes control over societies and to a large extent decides on the course of social engineering. Their forms of appropriation and enrichment are the ultimate determinants of the scope and limit of poverty reduction by means of redistributive measures in favour of those in the bottom half of society. To understand inequalities and the mechanisms of their reproduction, the motto coined by Palma (2011) is appropriate: ‘It’s the share of the rich, stupid.’ Even Nancy Birdsall (2010, 11), who has continued high hopes of the indispensable middle class, admits that in many developing countries ‘the relevant political economy might better distinguish between the rich – with political salience – and the rest.’
One is tempted to suspect that the middle class(es) hype in some of the contexts we witness seeks to propose a historical mission of these social layers in terms of future perspectives, which in the light of the real (also material and political) power relations and structures of societies and the global economy they are never able to live up to.
In another contribution to this debate, Birdsall (2015, 24) combines several hypothetical assumptions resulting in such a scenario pinning hopes on the growing middle class(es) as a relevant (if not decisive!) contributing factor towards better governance: that economic growth continues unabated; that inequality would not increase further but could decline; that ‘a larger middle class has a greater interest in a responsive and accountable government’; and that ‘a larger middle class is more likely to support a social contract in which the taxes it pays are largely channeled to collective and public goods from which all – including the strugglers and the poor – benefit.’ This scenario too seems in tendency bordering on wishful thinking, which detracts from the real challenges in a world of growing inequalities. Allocating such strategic prominence to the emerging middle class(es), elevating them into a historic mission they are expected to fulfil, at the same time allows the really rich to continue business as usual. Such misdirected focus overlooks the real dimensions of class and power at play when it comes to shaping social realities.
An Oxfam paper – based on data in Piketty (2014) as well as data supplied by Credit Suisse and Forbes – pointed out that about 46% of the world’s measurable wealth (some 110 trillion US dollars) is in the possession of one per cent of the world’s population. This is 65 times as much as the 0.71% of the global wealth on which the poorer half of the world’s population lives. The super-rich one per cent in 24 of 26 countries, measured between 1980 and 2012, increased their share in the wealth further, while 70% of the global population lives in countries in which inequalities further increased during the last 30 years. Ninety-five per cent (95%) of the economic growth in the USA since the financial crisis ended in the pockets of the richest one per cent of society, while 90% of the population became poorer. The 85 richest people in the world control about 0.71% of the global wealth – as mentioned above, the same proportion as the poorer half of the world population has in total to live on (all data from Fuentes-Niva and Galasso 2014). In October 2015, Credit Suisse published an updated Global wealth report, which offers some sobering new insights. While the net worth of what the report considers the middle class worldwide was estimated at US$80.7 trillion or 32% of the global wealth, the wealth for those above the middle-class threshold was put at US$150 trillion. Together, the total wealth of both groups was put at US$231 trillion, or 92% of the global wealth (Credit Suisse Research Institute 2015, 32f.).
Pinning hopes for social advancement on the emerging middle classes, as Birdsall’s (2015) optimistic conclusion suggests, is like trusting that those who are rowing the galley will decide what direction it will take. Meanwhile, the captain and his fellow officers are navigating from the bridge of the ship, and are not rowing at all. The regular crew keeps the galley moving, but only a handful of others define, decide upon and coordinate the course – unless there is mutiny. The question then should be to what extent, in each given particular setting, a ‘spring tide’ (understood as a transformation of society which goes beyond cosmetics and results in fundamental social changes) would also include segments of middle classes as active parts of such transition, and which potential role these would be willing and able to play. This, in return, requires a proper class analysis based on the empirical socio-economic and cultural realities and the degree and forms of political interaction and awareness within and among different segments of societies. The main thrust of the middle-class(es) discourse has so far not been able to gain such insights.
So what about ‘the middle’?
Despite the amount of literature using the perceived growth of an African middle class as a point of departure, assessments tend to suggest that the African middle classes are not really expanding as originally anticipated. Credit Suisse, for example, bases its annual Global wealth report on a middle-class definition of individual wealth between US$50,000 and US$500,000.6 While the report records an increase in the number of middle-class adults from 524 million to 664 million between 2000 and 2015, since the financial crisis of 2007/2008 the number of middle-class members in Africa based on this definition has declined, while the number of those above the middle-class range has increased (Credit Suisse Research Institute 2015, 34 and 35). It puts the figure of such a defined ‘middle class’ on the continent at 18.8 million (with almost a quarter of these in South Africa), quite in contrast to the 300–500 million suggested earlier by the African Development Bank. Assessments suggest that it is actually not ‘the middle’ that expands most in African societies, but the lower and upper levels, i.e. the lowest and highest segments. A report by the Pew Research Center maintains that ‘African countries experienced some of the most dramatic declines in poverty rates from 2001 to 2011; however, few countries had much of an increase in the share of middle-income earners’ (Kochhar 2015, 19). As observed by Morten Jerven: ‘What we are seeing is not a pyramid bulging in the middle but a society where the top spenders are getting richer’ (quoted in Brock 2015).
The trend to some extent also worries those who earn their money through sales in the upper market retail sectors. Market research reports for companies selling consumer goods and providing services have already adjusted their prognosis and expectations considerably, and suggest a less optimistic outlook for gains. Nestlé, the biggest global player in the food industry, scaled down its regional operations in sub-Saharan Africa and cut its workforce there in 2015 by 15% (Mwiti 2015). ‘Africans are mainly rich or poor, but not middle class,’ was the subtitle of a report in T he Economist (2015 ). Despite such observations and conclusions, however, the current engagement with the phenomenon called the African middle class(es) is anything but obsolete. Independent of their size, they signify modified social relations in African societies, which indeed deserve attention and rigorous analysis – with the emphasis on the latter.