The whole upper/middle/... arrangement is confusing the issue. IMO, we should rather be talking about the worker class and the rentier class, defined solely by the proportion of their earned vs unearned income. Basically, if you can lose a job and still pay your living expenses, then you're in the rentier class. If you have to sell your labor to pay your bills, you're a worker - even if you sell it for a lot of money.
> If you have to sell your labor to pay your bills, you're a worker - even if you sell it for a lot of money.
There are useful distinctions even between this though. What Piketty refers to as the "patrimonial middle class" has significant assets during and at the end of their life, but still needs to sell their labor to pay their bills. This distinction aligns more closely with the traditional lower/upper/middle arrangement (they'd be upper-middle class). This article[1] (unfortunately paywalled if you don't have an Economist subscription) covers it pretty well, but it's pretty well-trod ground at this point: there's a substantial chunk of the population that isn't rentier/leisure class, but often aligns with them politically, and your proposal's elision of this group means it's missing an important dynamic in class politics.
Eh, I'm not so sure. Early retirement is in reach for much of this group, as long as it's accompanied by an adjustment in living standards; that's practically what defines them.
If the rentier/laborer divide is the _only_ important distinction, why is it so relatively easy for this group to skip across the line?
