See you in a couple of years

This survey has argued that, to misquote Scott Fitzgerald, the middle class is different: meritocratic, thrifty, individualistic, committed to education. Some of these attributes and attitudes may be permanent, or at least only partially subject tot eh vagaries of the economic cycle. Admittedly there is little hard evidence from emerging markets to support or contradict this assertion.

People love to mock the middle class. Its narrow-mindedness, complacency and conformism are the mother lode of material for sitcom writers and novelists. But Marx thought "the bourgeoisie...has placed a most revolutionary part" in history. And although The Economist rarely sees eye to eye with the father of communism, on this Marx was right.