Defining janitors with 401K’s as “capitalists” is a kind of social promotion comparable to the elevation by progressives like Teixeira and Abramowitz of shoe-store clerks who dropped out of college into the “mass upper middle class.” Genuine capitalists derive most of their income from the return on their investments or savings, not from labor. By this definition, there are hardly any capitalists in the U.S. Most of the rich are the “working rich,” who derive most of their income from wages or professional fees, not from investments. We are a nation of wage earners, some paid well and others poorly.

— The fantasy of a vast upper middle class [via]