The role traditionally attributed to the middle class is “maintaining stability.” This is the function politicians most often have in mind when they launch into paeans to the middle class or bitterly lament that “we don’t have one.”
On the other hand, often the same people, without the slightest hesitation, expect almost revolution from the middle class. In other words, the function of a source of changes—or, more precisely, of a group capable of supporting change—is also attributed to the middle class.