Have a beautiful week. Today´s post is in order of importance a crucial message that I am trying to stimulate our audience to think about. We have to remember that as Middle-Class members, we have a huge personal duty on our shoulders when it comes to our democracies maintenance, improvement and sustainability.

Democracies are so new, as much as the Middle-Class.  The Middle-Class is obliged to think and act about how to use our talents and education to be prosperous, and help others to reach integral prosperity. Historically, we have inherited more than 6,000 years of chronicles, in which the leaders of the civilizations were believed to be representing the power by heritage of a Deity, or from Gods. This baton power was passed from the Deity to the ruler of a nation, and power was transferred on and on and on from parents to children. Political rulers were designed by “blood” biological transferred rights. Regardless of the civilizations that adopted a one-monotheism or multiple Gods religions, such as Christianity (Catholicism, Protestantism, and the rest of Christ-Centrist denominations), the Islamic Muslim religions, Judaism, Buddhism, and the rest of religious indigenous or tribal theological establishment of the New World; the leaders, who were the owners of the land and its resources, were always inherited. From generation to generation, from the nobles (kings and queens) to the first child born, power supremacy was expanded by marriage of the owners of the kingdoms, or by force (conquering). And the rulers or monarchs tied the knot with their religious clergy to impose and keep the authority of their states.  Given that comprehension of our history, the word modern “democracy” turned around the traditional power scheme, radically, since the French Revolution: 1789 took place in our evolution human development and here we are 231 years later, trying to find out the Middle-Class path that is the basis for an infant democracy. A democratic system that is still trying to define, polish and refine itself by improving its economic systems, new discoveries and technologies.

The Middle-Class has grown in some countries but not in others. On my last publication, I shook your views in relation to the risks of the Middle-Class families (which for Eleonora Escalante definition of multidimensional poverty, represent only 12% of the global population). Some countries as China, United States and the OECD nations have been able to begin to build their Middle-Class strong and robust. But still the numbers are low. The Middle-Class is around one billion people all over the planet. How could it be?

Well, first of all we have to comprehend that the Middle-Class age as a group is only 231 years. And whatever we are, we have conquered it through high quality education. Well-Paid high-skill jobs and top managerial, professional skilled entrepreneurs that serve industries all over the world are basically the Middle-Class. The majority of those high skilled directors, managers and skilled professionals, including well recognized university and school professors from developed nations are selected because they hold high quality brains acquired by expensive and meritocratic education (including master degrees and doctorates). Of course there are prospering entrepreneurs who don´t hold an university degree, but these are the outlier – exception to the rule of the Middle-Class cohorts. And those “managers” households or successful entrepreneurs homes are on average cashing in revenues per year between US$28,800 to US$175,200 annually. As it is right now, and according to Eleonora Escalante Strategy, if you don´t have a possibility to earn at least a minimum of US$28,800/year (globally), the status that corresponds to you is to be a low-class worker, or simply part of the working class or the lower income class. In the Low-Class, we find lower educated managerial and professional supervisors, intermediate occupations for skilled technical-vocational workers and personnel that is employed by Middle-Class owned businesses. In addition, the unskilled working class is also part of the Low-Class. When it comes to the Middle-Class all over the world, it is relevant and non-coincidental to observe that, the minimum income level for a LMIC (Low Middle-Income Class) – US$2,400/month per family coincides with the amount of money that President Trump CARES Act provided per month to a two adult household (without children) who earned less than US$99,000 per year per individual, before the pandemic.

Given the paradigm of the Middle-Class, how can we make it grow and strengthen it?. If the paradigm of the Middle-Class is “There is no Middle-Class without high-quality education and financial well-being”, then how can we improve the quality of education for those who are wishing to belong to the Middle-Class? Again the answer goes to the professors.  We land in the professors responsibility to provide the excellent content required to educate kids since maternal kindergarten, all through K-12 up to University. There is not good education without good professors, and before going virtual in the education sector, we have to make a clear effort to upgrade and reinforce the minds, knowledge and integrality or completeness of mindset content to all the professors in the world. In addition, it is required that all professors in the planet or academicians or producers of good quality academic content (that is my case) can emerge from poverty and belong to the Middle-Middle-Class (earn at least between US$60,000 to US$120,000 per year before income taxes). Professors have to be the first ones to move from the poor working class to the Middle-Class group of households.

Citizens require the best educators who need be rewarded properly. It is of particular interest for the Middle-Class parents, to claim and rise its professors class. For all the society, the constant education of professors in pedagogic tools and quality of the courses content is beneficial. Professors of every discipline (Sciences-Technology-Engineering-Arts-Math STEAM and all the rest of disciplines) must be living in a Middle-Middle Income Class life-style range level at least. It is not possible to hold Lower-Class or LMIC professors who live with $700/month of salary (before taxes), who live in bad violent neighborhoods, who don´t have proper transportation systems to come and go from schools, who usually have more than three multidimensional poverty variables in their households. If professors are not tip-top groomed by their systems, they will continue expanding mediocrity, teaching “meeh” second-rater or average courses content in schools, regardless of the degree of technology that is used. Zoom or Youtube or a Smart-board or tablets don´t substitute the quality of a good professor. And technologies don´t make a professor better if the professor doesn´t hold the knowledge required. What makes an excellent professor is his/her talent, his or her pedagogic methods and of course, his/her exquisite knowledge. My former boss (The Dean of the Economic-Business School where I was teaching) told me once: “A good professor has a talented curious and knowledgeable mind, even if he or she teaches under a tree without a computer, where the kids sit down in the dust. If the professor is excellent, he will provide all his talent to the students”. He added: “Give an excellent professor all the required resources that he need: beautiful classrooms, libraries, excellent quality books, balanced technology, playing spaces and outdoor areas, and he or she will produce marvels with the students!”.

Since the democracies back-bone is education, what is the responsibility of the Middle-Class on Democracies? The principles of social equality and individual rights are based in the democratic values of a nation. Our incipient Modern Middle-Class of 231 years of existence is the source of knowledge to the world. If education is the paradigm of the Middle-Class, then the only way in which democracies can evolve and improve and correct all its issues in the future is based in the knowledge that the Middle-Class is igniting to society, in the wisdom that the Middle-Class has gathered (formally, by experience and informally). Those who don´t study are unable to lead properly when it comes to build strategies to conform countries-destinies, that is why if any of my readers want to participate in politics, please you have to study and study well, not just the discipline of your preference, but also at least a Master Degree in public policy from a very good recognized university.

Refreshing the democracy basics. Democracy is a political system in which the government is selected by the majority of the people who live in that nation through elections. Political power is exercised either directly o through elected representatives. Even-though the most purest form of democracy was originally practiced by several city states in ancient Greece; in practice , and in our times, the most modern democratic states exercise the representative democracy, in which citizens periodically elect individuals to represent their interests. A representative democracy rests on the premise that if elected governments fail to perform their job adequately, they have to be voted down at the next election; and citizens have the right to choose other leaders.

A Democracy is simply a political system that has constitutional safeguards to avoid dictators or totalitarian regimes (Communist totalitarianism, theocratic totalitarianism, tribal totalitarianism, extreme right-wing totalitarianism and more recently technology totalitarianism) . Some of these protection measures are:

1. Individual´s right to freedom of expression, opinion and organization
2. Free media, only regulated to avoid monopolist and collusion practices affecting the democracy
3. Regular elections in which all eligible citizens are allowed to vote
4. Universal adult suffrage
5. Limited terms for elected representatives (a period of 5 years with possibility of re-election to a max of 10 years on a row, only if the citizens vote this way)
6. A fair and independent court system that is independent from the political and economic system
7. A non political state bureaucracy
8. A non political police force and armed service
9. A free and transparent access to all state information at every time.
10. A referendum procedure:  The REFERENDUM allows citizens, through the petition process, to refer acts of the Legislature to the ballot before they become law. The referendum also permits the Legislature itself to refer proposed legislation to the electorate for approval or rejection.

In addition a democracy to be successful must need to meet the following functions:

1. Development of a Welfare Safety Net for the most vulnerable ones
2. Provision of Common Goods
3. Control of Economic Cycles
4. Correction of the unfair tendencies of the Free Enterprise System
5. Correct Taxation Policies
6. Provision of Referendums in which an entire electorate is invited to vote on a particular proposal and can have nationwide or local forms.  

In conclusion: A democracy can exercise these functions only if it has a well prepared Middle-Class. And the preparation of a tip-top educated Middle-Class is a long process, it is reinforced and installed since kindergarten up to the university by excellent professors. There is a positive correlation between the high capabilities of professors and the degree of success of democracies. which work only through educated Middle-Class citizens that act to represent the low-class working class or the majorities. Thank you for reading to me.

Bibliography to be provided on my next post.

Disclaimer: Illustrations in Watercolor are painted by Eleonora Escalante. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY.  Nevertheless, the majority of the pictures, images, or videos shown on this blog are not mine.  I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.

Published by eleonoraescalantestrategy

Corporate Strategy Artist, San Salvador, El Salvador View all posts by eleonoraescalantestrategy