MAKING SENSE OF THE POSTWAR MIDDLE CLASS

[...]we know a great deal about how the eighteenth-century "middling sort" became a middle class of entrepreneurs and small proprietors, and how the emergence of a corporate economy gave rise to new professions and white-collar occupations and made the middle class more diverse. [...]the sheer profitability of debt-related investment ensured that standards of credit-worthiness would continue to decline and the financial industry would develop more esoteric devices to hedge against the increased risks of default.