The Peruvian Middle Class and the Mask of StatisticsJan LustAbstract: In the last decade, economic developments in Peru have generated debates on the middle class. These debates are not discussions about the concept of the middle class but on where to put the income class boundaries in order to determine its size. These discussions are a factor in the ideological class struggle between the forces that point to a change of the current development model and the classes in power in that a definition of the middle class based on income categories makes it possible to sustain that Peru has been transformed in part into a middle class society. As a consequence, as the argument goes, there is no conflict anymore over the possession of the means of production and exploitation has become an outdated concept. In this article we intend to demonstrate that the determination of the size of the middle class on the basis of income categories does not contribute to a comprehension of societys social structure but rather mystifies its social realities.Keywords: Peru, economic active population, income categories, middle class, social structureIntroduction

Over the last decade economic developments in Peru have not only triggered discussions about the sustainability of the development model based on the extraction of the countrys mineral resources, but have also generated debates on the middle class. It is considered that economic growth of the past decade has been translated in the growth and strengthening of the Peruvian middle class (Jaramillo & Zambrano, 2013: np).

The debates on the Peruvian middle class are not discussions about the concept of the middle class but, rather, on where to put the class boundaries in order to determine its size. For instance, according to Gamero and Zeballos (2003: 12), in 2003 the Peruvian middle class consisted of all those families whose average monthly income ranged between US$426 and US$1224. Adrianzn (2003: 173) considers that the average income of the middle class in Lima fluctuated between US$536 and US$955. It must be obvious that by just changing the boundaries the size of the middle class increases or diminishes. It might even happen that households pertaining to the middle class receive an income below their countrys average (Birdsall, Graham & Pettinato, 2000: 4).The current debate on the middle class in Peru does not help us to understand how the Peruvian social structure has changed as a result of the forces of capitalist development unleashed over the last decade. Rather it is a factor in the ideological class struggle between the forces of resistance to the current development model (indigenous and peasant movements, workers, trade unions, etc.) and the classes in power. This is not a sociological debate on the middle class but on how best to define the middle class, as a statistical grouping of individuals according to their level of income or according to their relation to the market, i.e. their consumption capacityor, in Weberian terms, their life chances.

In this article we argue that the determination of the size of the middle class on the basis of income categories does not contribute to understanding societys social structure but rather it mystifies social reality. We use data on the evolution of the Peruvian Economic Active Population (EAP) in order to support this argument. We hope this article contributes to further studies and a sociological debate on the Peruvian middle class.

Of course, determining societys social structure on the basis of an individuals relation to income might be useful when describing differences in the social conditions of the different strata of the population, and perhaps in order to construct policies to alleviate social problems such as poverty. However, it does not enable us to get to the structural root of these problems. A definition of the middle class based on income categories makes it possible to sustain that Peru has been transformed in part into a middle class society. As a consequence, there is no conflict anymore over the possession of the means of production and exploitation has become an outdated concept.

This article is structured in six parts. In part 1 we briefly review the current debate on the size of the middle class, calculated on the basis of income categories. In part 2 we present an account of the debates in the 1970s and 1980s in Marxist circles on the concept of the middle class. This helps us to comprehend that the current debate on the middle class has been disrobed and conceptually devaluated in order to suit the political and ideological interests of the dominant classes. Part 3 analyzes the evolution of the structure of the Peruvian EAP according to company size in the period 2001-2013 and the corresponding levels of remuneration for the years between 2001 and 2012. In part 4 we discuss the current practice to determine the size of the middle class based on income categories in relation to the data presented in part 3. Part 5 addresses the question as to whether the middle class should be considered as a statistical grouping or as a social class grouping. Here we review the debates between Marxists in the 1970s and the 1980s in the light of the data on the structure of the Peruvian EAP. In part 6 we present our conclusions.1. A review of the debate on the size of the middle class

The discussions in the last decade on the middle class are not reduced to Peru. Indeed, the issue is topic of debate between all those individuals and institutions that occupy themselves with the social structure of society. On the basis of household surveys of 13 developing countries, Banerjee and Duflo (2007: 1-5) define the middle class as those individuals whose daily consumption is between US$2 and US$4 or between US$6 and US$10 (at purchasing power parity exchange rates). The methodology used by these authors permit to politically and sociologically eliminate the working class. One is poor, middle class or rich. In the same line of thought, Kapsos and Bourmpoula (2013: 4) elaborate on a model for generating national estimates and projections of the distribution of the employed across five economic classes for 142 developing countries over the period 1991 to 2017. On the basis of per capita household consumption (at purchasing power parity), the following economic classes are identified: (i) the extreme working poor (below US$1.25); (ii) the moderate working poor (between US$1.25 and US$2); (iii) the near poor workers (between US$2 and US$4); (iv) the developing middle class workers (between US$4 and US$13); and, (v) the developed middle class and above workers (above US$13). Ravallion (2009: 446) for his turn determines the class boundaries of the middle class by starting from the premise that middle class living standards begin when poverty ends []. The developing worlds middle class is defined as those who are not deemed poor by the standards of developing countries but are still poor by the standards of rich countries. For the upper bound the author uses the poverty line of the United States and as the lower bound he employs the median amongst 70 national poverty lines for developing countries.

In the case of Latin America, the discussions follow a similar pattern as described above. By defining the middle class as an income level four times the poverty line, Hopenhayn (2010:27-28) concludes that the composition of the middle class has been changed due to an increase of national income. Solimano (2010: 40) follows the reasoning of Hopenhayn as he argues that when an individual leaves poverty he or she enters the middle class. Castellani and Parent (2011: 14) compare four different forms of measuring the middle class: (i) a purchasing power parity based definition US$2-20 (purchasing power parity of the year 2005) per capita per day; (ii) a distribution-based definition: leaving out the poorest and the richest quintiles; (iii) a median income-based definition: 50-150 percent of median income (poverty, according to the authors, is generally defined as 50-60 percent of median income); (iv) a poverty-line-based definition: the lower bound is the national poverty line (national, urban) and the upper bound is three times the national poverty line. Researchers of the World Bank (Ferreira, et al, 2013: 29-37) define the Latin American middle class as those individuals that earn an income between US$10 and US$50 per day (at purchasing power parity). By defining the middle class on the basis of income categories, it was possible for these authors to eliminate the capitalist class, the working class and the peasantry, and to replace them by the categories lower class (poor), vulnerable class (not poor and not middle class), middle class and the upper class.

2. The middle class: points of disputeThe debates in Marxist circles on the question of the middle class, or maybe better the new middle class as before the 1970s the middle class was generally called petty bourgeoisie, have been fed by the shift from relatively high-wage factory work in heavy industry to low-wage service occupations (Kolko, 1988: 309). According to Kolko (1988: 311) in 1984 up to 65-70 percent of the jobs in Europe were in the services of all sorts and three out of four American workers occupied jobs in the service sector. But data presented by Maddison (192: 148) suggest that for the major capitalist countries 58 percent of the labor force was occupied in the service sector. Regarding the debates on the middle class in predominantly the United States and Europe, Wright (1985: 40-41) tells us the following: The first systematic solution proposed by Marxists in the recent debates over the conceptual problem at hand is to classify the middle class as part of the petty bourgeoisie. Sometimes the rational for this place is that such positions involve ownership of skills or human capital, and this places them in a social relation with capital akin to that of the traditional petty bourgeoisie (owners of individual physical means of production). A more common rationale for this solution revolves around the category unproductive labour, i.e. wage-labour which does not produce surplus-value (e.g. clerks in banks). Such wage-earners, it is argued, in a sense live off the surplus-value produced by productive workers and thus occupy a different position from workers within the relations of production.

The problem of defining the concept of the middle class is expressed in the difficulties to establish clear boundaries between this class and other classes. According to Becker (1973: 276), as the middle class is not a homogeneous class it is not a social class per se. It is but a divided fragment of the totality of social labor. The middle class is only an appearance; its reality is a cleavage between administrative labor and the managers. This split, in turn, reflects the more fundamental and extensive schism between productive and unproductive labor, and more deeply, between the producing class and the ruling class. Poulantzas (1976: 182), for his part, considers the middle class as the melting pot of a mixture of classes and the dissolution of their antagonism, mainly as a place of circulation of individuals in a constant process of mobility between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This group appears as the dominant group in the heart of current capitalist societies. I say group, because indeed, having to do with a dissolving whole of the class struggle, the very use of the term class is utterly useless; employment, the use, in this context, of the term middle class means, in the case of this current, that classes have ceased to exist. According to Therborn (1998: 49-50), since the middle class is not a bearer of a determined mode of production but the product of a capitalist development, it cannot be considered as a class in the strict Marxist sense.

In contrast with the current debates on the middle class, the debates in the 1970s and 1980s were centered on the definition of the middle class. Burris (1980: 19) defines the new middle class as those positions within the social division of labor which share a common position with the proletariat in terms of two basic ownership relations: (1) non-ownership of the material means of production, and (2) the alienation of ones labor power in exchange for a wage, but which are distinguished, in varying degrees, by some combination of the following relations of possession: (1) control over the immediate employment of the material means of production, and (2) control over the exercise of ones own labor and/or the labor of others. In more concrete terms, Burris (1980: 29) divides the new middle class in four general categories depending upon their major function with respect to the capital accumulation process. 1. The supervision and control of the labor process: managers, foremen, technical supervisors, etc. 2. The reproduction of capitalist social relations: teachers, social workers, health professionals, state administrators, lawyers, cultural workers, etc. 3. The accounting and realization of value: professionals in advertising, sales, accounting, banking, finance, insurance, etc. 4. The transformation of the technical means of production: scientists, engineers, research technicians, etc.The debates between Marxist scholars on the middle class were not only concentrated on how to delimit the class boundaries with other classes, but, as we have already seen in Burris, also on how to determine the class fractions within the middle class. Poulantzas (1973) considered that within the new middle class or the new petty bourgeoisie it should be possible to define the old and the new petty bourgeoisie because capitalism was not able to produce a new class in the course of its development. Poulantzas (1973): The first is the traditional petty bourgeoisie, which is tending to decline in size: these are the small-scale producers and small traders (small property). They include forms of artisanal work and small family businesses in which one and the same agent is both owner of the means of production and of labour and is the direct worker. Here there is no economic exploitation in the strict sense, inasmuch as these forms do not employ paid workers (or only very rarely do so). Labour is principally provided by the real owner or the members of his family, who are not remunerated in the form of wages. Small-scale producers derive profit from the sale of their goods and from participating in the total redistribution of surplus value, but they do not extort surplus value directly. Secondly there is the new petty bourgeoisie, which tends to increase under monopoly capitalism. It consists of the non-productive wage-earning workers mentioned above; we should add to it civil servants employed by the state and its various apparatuses. These workers do not produce surplus value. It should be noted that in another work Poulantzas (1976: 223, 232) not only distinguished the new petty bourgeoisie from the working class on the basis of the production of surplus value, i.e. the transformation of material reality, but they could also be differentiated on the basis of their political and ideological functions. For instance, surveillance activities are not only non-productive (no surplus value is produced), but are also functional for the reproduction of the capitalist system.

Finally, the criteria of functionality brings us to Carchedi (1987a: 119) who considers the new middle classs structural interests [to be] contradictory since this class partly performs the function of labor (i.e., it carries out the labor process) and partly performs the function of capital (i.e., it carries out the work of control and surveillance within the production process). Claudio Katz (2012: 255), by making reference to Carchedis Two models of class analysis (1986) and his Frontiers of Political Economy (1991), writes that the bourgeois classes are not only defined by the ownership of the means of production and by the place they occupy in the production structure. This social sector includes a whole network of assistants that develop the functions of coercion, persuasion and administration required for the reproduction of the system.

3. The Peruvian Economic Active Population according to company size and remunerationThe Peruvian economy is for employment heavily dependent on the economic activities of very small companies, i.e. those companies that employ between one and 10 individuals. According to data, in 1999 72.3 percent of total urban occupied EAP worked in companies that employed one to 10 individuals. In 2006, for the occupied EAP as a whole, this had grown to 76.1 percent. In 2013, 70.9 percent of the occupied EAP worked in companies that employed between one and 10 individuals. In Tables 1a and 1b we present data on employment according to company size in the period 2001-2013. Rounding differences mean that the percentages do not add up to 100 percent or exceed 100 percent.Table 1a: Total occupied Economic Active Population (EAP) and EAP according to company size (in percentages of total occupied EAP): 2001-2007Individuals employed2001200220032004200520062007

Total occupied EAP (x1000)11862.212033.912836.713059.8

13120.4

13683.0

14197.2

1-10 77.8%76.9%78.2%78.0%76.9%76.1%75.2%

11-506.6%6.7%6.8%6.6%7.1%6.8%7.0%

51 and more14.1%15.3%13.9%14.4%14.9%16.0%16.7%

Not specified1.4%1.1%1.1%1.1%1.1%1.0%1.1%

Total99.9%100%100%100.1%100%99.9%100%

Source: INEI (2010), Per: Evolucin de los indicadores de empleo e ingresos por departamentos 2001-2009, p. 81 and http://www.inei.gob.pe/estadisticas/indice-tematico/ocupacion-y-vivienda/ (consulted 30/12/2014).Table 1b: Total occupied Economic Active Population (EAP) and EAP according to company size (in percentages of total occupied EAP): 2008-2013Individuals employed200820092010201120122013

Total occupied EAP (x1000)14459.2

14757.7

15089.9

15307.3

15541.5

15683.6

1-10 74.0%73.2%73.5%72.5%70.9%70.9%

11-507.6%7.7%7.4%7.2%7.6%7.8%

51 and more17.3%18.0%17.8%18.8%19.7%20.0%

Not specified1.1%1.1%1.3%1.5%1.8%1.3%

Total100%100%100%100%100%100%

Source: INEI (2010), Per: Evolucin de los indicadores de empleo e ingresos por departamentos 2001-2009, p. 81 and http://www.inei.gob.pe/estadisticas/indice-tematico/ocupacion-y-vivienda/ (consulted 30/12/2014).

The occupied EAP is not the same as total EAP. The difference is made up of the unemployed and persons looking for work who were not employed before. In the last eight years, the difference between the occupied EAP and total EAP was between 600,000 and 750,000 persons.

The companies that employ one to 10 individuals are characterized by low levels of capital accumulation and reduced levels of productivity. Hence, the earnings of individuals that work in these companies are very low. As a matter of fact, these individuals earn a living that just passes the minimum wage level. In Table 2 we present data on the development of the minimum wage level in the period 2001-2014. In Tables 3a and 3b data is provided on the average remuneration of the occupied EAP according to company size for the period 2001-2012. Finally, in Graph 1 we compare the minimum wage and average remuneration of persons working in companies that employ 1-10 individuals in the period 2001-2012.Table 2: Minimum wage level: 2001-2014 (in nuevo soles)PeriodsMinimum wage in nuevo soles

10/03/2000 - 14/09/2003410

15/09/2003 - 31/12/2005460

01/01/2006 - 30/09/2007500

01/10/2007 - 31/12/2007530

01/01/2008 - 30/11/2010550

01/12/2010 - 31/01/2011580

01/02/2011 - 13/08/2011600

14/08/2011 - 31/08/2011640

01/09/2011 - 31/05/2012675

01/06/2012 -750

Source: Ministerio de Trabajo y Promocin del Empleo (www.mintra.gob.pe).Table 3a: Average remuneration of the occupied Economic Active Population according to company size: 2001-2006 (in nuevo soles)

Company size in persons200120022003200420052006

1-10458.9487.1482.4465.2471.0488.8

11-50862.91059.0966.3946.4931.31014.9

51 and more1250.01342.61574.31363.21326.81426.5

Source: http://series.inei.gob.pe:8080/sirtod-series/ (consulted 30/12/2014).

Table 3b: Average remuneration of occupied Economic Active Population according to company size: 2007-2012 (in nuevo soles)

Company size in persons200720082009201020112012

1-10551.6624.3657.1698.1775.4824.3

11-501030.11081.21213.11229.61342.61347.5

51 and more1516.61660.71786.71748.01798.11937.4

Source: http://series.inei.gob.pe:8080/sirtod-series/ (consulted 30/12/2014).Graph 1: Minimum wage and average remuneration of persons working in companies that employ 1-10 individuals (in nuevo soles): 2001-2012

The size and the remuneration of the occupied EAP that works in very small companies tell us a lot about the character of the Peruvian economy. Peru seems to be a country in which the majority of the laborers do not substantially contribute to the production of surplus value in order to enable the enlarged reproduction of capital within the country.The relative low levels of value adding production by companies that employ between one and 10 individuals is expressed in the small size of the internal market. Given these reduced levels of value adding production, the exports of traditional goods occupy a dominant position within total exports and are of major importance for economic growth. However, these sectors are not of crucial importance for the economic survival of the big majority of the EAP as they live in a kind of capitalist subsistence economy.

4. The size of the Peruvian middle class and the hiding of social and economic realitiesA definition of the middle class on the basis of income has the disadvantage that class boundaries succumb to arbitrariness as no general accepted objective criteria exist on where to put the class boundaries. As we have seen in part 1, the different points of view that currently exist on the issue of the middle class are precisely those on where to put the class boundaries, calculated on the basis of income categories.

In the introduction of this article we referred to the works of Gamero and Zeballos, and Adrianzn with regard to the size of the Peruvian middle class. As an example of the unsuitability to define the Peruvian middle class on the basis of income boundaries, we proceed to analyze their class boundaries in the light of the data presented in part 3.

Gamero and Zeballos determined the class boundaries of middle class families in 2003 between the thresholds US$426 and US$1224. In nuevo soles these boundaries were 1482 and 4258. According to the average remuneration of the occupied EAP in 2003, only individuals working in companies that employed 51 individuals or more earned an income sufficiently high to be counted as middle class, i.e. 13.9 percent of the employed. The rest of the working people did not count as middle class. What were they? They were the near poor, the working poor?

The class boundaries proposed by Adrianzn makes it harder to find individuals pertaining to the middle class. In this case, the boundaries are 1,864 and 3,322 nuevo soles. The average remuneration in 2003 of individuals working in companies that employed 51 or more individuals was not sufficiently high to count these individuals as pertaining to the middle class. When we compare the class boundaries set by Gamaro and Zeballos and Adrianzn in 2003 with the average remuneration in the years between 2004 and 2013, we obtain Table 4.

Table 4: Average remuneration of individuals in companies with 51 or more employed versus the 2003 class boundaries of Gamero and Zeballos, and Adrianzn (in nuevo soles): 2004-2012

Average remunerationLower bound of Gamero and ZeballosUpper bound of Gamero and ZeballosLower bound of AdrianznUpper bound of Adrianzn

20041363.21482425818643322

20051326.81482425818643322

20061426.51482425818643322

20071516.61482425818643322

20081660.71482425818643322

20091786.71482425818643322

20101748.01482425818643322

20111798.11482425818643322

20121937.41482425818643322

In the case of the lower bound of Gamero and Zeballos, starting from 2007 individuals working in companies that employed 51 or more persons were considered to be forming part of the middle class. In the case of the lower bound of Adrianzn this happened in 2012. In general terms, this means that for the period 2007-2012 between 16.7 percent and 19.7 percent of the occupied EAP, or between 2,370,932 and 3,061,675 individuals, belonged to the middle class. And to what do the rest of the individuals that worked belong? They were working class because they earned less than the middle class? They were peasants? But who were the individuals that earned more than the middle class?

In their work, Gamero and Zeballos refer to families that belong to the middle class. It must be obvious that in households that can count on more than one bread-winner it is possible that individually these persons do not belong to the middle class and even might be considered as poor. This is, of course, the death-knell of whatever analysis that intends to contribute to an understanding of societys social structure.

It might be argued that remuneration is only a part of the income of an individual and so to compare remuneration with the lower and upper bounds of Gamero and Zeballos, and Adrianzn is not correct. Of course, this is definitively true and surely this additional income might help individuals to pass the supposed lower threshold of the middle class. Unfortunately, data on this additional income per capita is not available.

The debates on the size of the middle class are discussions on the middle class as a statistical grouping. Although these debates are presented as discussions to start to understand the evolution of the social structure, in reality these discussions do more confuse than clarify. In part 1 we argued that by using income categories to determine the middle class it was politically and sociologically possible to eliminate the working class. Of course, this also made it possible to eliminate the capitalist class and, as a consequence, to eliminate the necessity of class struggle to change society social structure.

In order for the dominant classes to use the phantom of the middle class as a political and ideological instrument, the class boundaries should be set at those levels that enable to substantially increase the middle class. In their paper, Kapsos and Bourmpoula (2013) consider the developing middle class laborers to earn between US$4 and US$13 (at purchasing power parity). In the case of Peru, this means that everybody that currently earns the minimum wage is considered middle class. On the basis of the average remuneration of 2012, it is possible to conclude that the whole of the occupied EAP can be considered as middle class. So when the whole of the EAP is at least to be regarded as middle class, what does the measuring of the size of the middle class on the basis of income categories really tells us about the countrys social structure rather than hiding what lies behind the middle class conceived as a statistical grouping.5. The middle class as a statistical grouping or a social class: some reflectionsIn part 4 we demonstrated that income categories do not help us to comprehend societys social structure and, more particularly, to understand the sociological structure of the middle class. Hence, one might ask oneself if a return to the debates of the 1970s and 1980s on the concept of the middle class would be convenient. Maybe these debates might help to find some keys or points of departure to sociologically define the Peruvian middle class, taking the economic and social developments of the last three decades in consideration.

In the first decade of the third millennium the discussions on class and the class structure of Peru seem to be pointing to the necessity of a sociological debate. Benavides (2007: 121) claims that Peruvian sociology has not been very active in empirically studying the problems of social stratification in general or social classes in particular. Balbi Scarneo and Armbulo Quiroz (2009: 299) argue that no work has been done on the evolution of social stratification in Peru. In 2007 Plaza edited the book Clases sociales en el Per. Visiones y trayectorias.

The debates in the 1970s and 1980s on the middle class in what are described as the advanced capitalist countries cannot be simply transplanted to Peru. However, what surely might be learned from these discussions is that they were primarily the result of the changes in the social structure caused by the development of capitalism in the major capitalist countries. In other words, a discussion on the Peruvian social structure should begin with an analysis of the development of capitalism in Peru in general and the economic structure of society in particular. It might be discussed if this analysis should start in 1980 when democracy returned after 12 years of military dictatorship or in 1990 when Alberto Fujimori became president and introduced a more or less radical form of neoliberalism that until the day of this writing determines the macro-economic policies of the different governments that came after Fujimori.

As has been demonstrated in Tables 1a and 1b, the absolute majority of the EAP is employed in very small companies. Although in the years between 2001 and 2013 the amount of individuals that worked in these companies as a percentage of total occupied EAP diminished by seven percent points, its role as the principal employer is uncontested. So if we want to determine the middle class in Peru, it is crucial to have an understanding of the characteristics of these companies and the functions and labor performed of individuals working in these companies. Can we consider the supervisors in these small companies as managers in the same sense as these were described during the debates in the 1970s and 1980s? Do these supervisors perform the role of capital as argued by Carchedi? How do we define the owners of these small companies in relation to the proprietaries of the companies that employ more than 51 individuals? Do the owners of the small companies pertain to the petty bourgeois as argued by Poulantzas?

Individuals that work in small companies (1-10 individuals employed) might perform the same basic administrative functions as those in big companies (more than 51 individuals employed). As these employees do not transform use values, do not preserve use values and do not bring use values to the place for consumption (Carchedi, 1987b: 133), they perform unproductive labor. Hence, should these individuals be considered as middle class? And when we consider them as middle class, should we not make a distinction between administrative labor in small and big companies?

In line with the arguments of Burris, it might be argued that, in general terms, individuals that work in the service sector should be considered as middle class although they do not own the material means of production and have to sell their labor power. According to data and a list of branches provided by the Peruvian National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI for its acronym in Spanish), in 2012 more than half of the EAP worked in the service sector composed of the following branches: commerce, public administration and defense, education, hotels and restaurants, real estate and house renting, and other services. Should all the individuals working in this sector be counted as middle class? Individuals that work in very small restaurants and earn the minimum wage should be considered as middle class? How do we classify all those employed in use value producing, preserving and transporting economic sectors such as manufacturing, transport and mining? Can we classify both professors at business schools and teachers at state primary schools as middle class?

6. Conclusions

The current debates on the middle class are focused on its supposed size, determined on the base of income categories. As these discussions are not accompanied by debates on the sociological meaning of the concept of the middle class, these discussions help to eliminate whatever debate on the social and economic fundamentals that have caused the emergence of the particular social structure of society. As such, these debates contribute to hiding the social and economic realities that lay behind this structure.

By considering societys structure as a whole of particular statistical groupings, it is not possible anymore to determine what has caused persons to be located in statistical grouping A, B, C, D, E, etc. This is very convenient for the classes in power as it contributes to disseminate a reformist practice among those classes and social layers that might be considered as the forces for progressive social change. According to Przeworski (N/D: 16-17) it is exactly the critique of Weber on Marxs concept of class that has set the theoretical bases of what is called the theory of social stratification. Classes as historical elements were replaced by statistical analyses on income distribution, education and prestige. The analysis of social differentiation was separated from conflict analysis. In addition, Plaza (2007: 31) argues that the theory of social stratification implies the understanding of inequality starting from its consequence and not from its causes.

Our review of the various proposed class boundaries of the middle class and our examination of the definitions of the middle class that were elaborated in the 1970s and 1980s by Marxists, show the importance, or maybe the superiority, of a sociological definition of the middle class for comprehending societys social structure and for determining individuals that pertain to the middle class. Its explanatory power lies precisely in the use of criteria such as the ownership over the means of production, the control over the means of production, the relation to labor power, the control over labor power and the role of individuals in the production and the reproduction of the capitalist system, that help to define the middle class as also the superior and inferior classes. Hence, at the same time as these criteria contribute to an understanding of the social structure society, they also help to create the consciousness of the necessity of overthrowing the capitalist system. Exactly this is what the practice to define the middle class on the basis of income categories tries to avoid. ReferencesAdrianzn, Alberto (2003), Cada de las clases medias y autoritarismo, in Julio Gamero & Molvina Zeballos (eds.), Per Hoy. La clase media existe?, Lima, Desco, pp. 171-177.

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Banerjee, Abhijit & Esther Duflo (2007), What is middle class about the middle classes around the world?, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics, Working Paper Series, Working Paper 07-29, in http://economics.mit.edu/files/2081 (consulted 08/05/2014).

Benavides, Martn (2007), Estructura ocupacional y formacin de clases sociales en el Per: qu nos dice la evidencia disponible sobre el Per reciente?, in Orlando Plaza (ed.), Clases sociales en el Per. Visiones y trayectorias, Lima, Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per / Departamento de Ciencias Sociales / Centro de Investigaciones Sociolgicas, Econmicas. Polticas y Antropolgicas (CISEPA), pp. 121-137.

Birdsall, Nancy, Carol Graham & Stefano Pettinato (2000), Stuck in the tunnel: Is globalization muddling the middle class?, Center on Social and Economic Dynamics, Working Paper no. 14, inhttp://www.brookings.edu/es/dynamics/papers/middleclass/midclass.pdf (consulted 11/01/2015).

Bresser-Pereira, Luiz Carlos (1981), Social classes and strata in contemporary capitalism,in http://www.bresserpereira.org.br/papers/1981/81-ClassStrata.i.pdf (consulted 18/12/2013).

Burris, Val (1980), Capital accumulation and the rise of the new middle class, Review of Radical Political Economics, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 17-34.Carchedi, Guglielmo (1987a), Class politics, class consciousness and the new middle class, The Insurgent Sociologist, vol. 14, pp. 111-130.

Carchedi, Guglielmo (1987b), Class analysis and social research, Oxford, Basil Blackwell Ltd.

Castellani, Francesca & Gwenn Parent (2011), Being middle class in Latin America, OECD Development Centre, Working Paper no. 305, inhttp://www.oecd.org/dev/48938096.pdf (consulted 08/05/2014).

Ferreira, Francisco H.G, Julian Messina, Jamele Rigolini, Luis-Felipe Lpez-Calva, Maria Ana Lugo & Renos Vakis (2013), Economic mobility and the rise of the Latin American middle class, Washington D.C, World Bank, in http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/978-0-8213-9634-6 (consulted 08/05/2014).

Gamero, Julio & Molvina Zeballos (2003), Presentacin, in Julio Gamero & Molvina Zeballos (eds.), Per Hoy. La clase media existe?, Lima, Desco, pp. 9-14.

Hopenhayn, Martn (2010), Clases medias en Amrica Latina: sujeto difuso en busca de definicin, in Alicia Brcena & Narcs Serra (eds.), Clases medias y desarrollo en Amrica Latina, Santiago de Chile, CEPAL / Barcelona, Fundacin CIDOB, pp. 11-37.

Jaramillo, Fidel & Omar Zambrano (2013), La clase media en Per: cuantificacin y evolucin reciente, BID, Nota Tcnica no. IDB-TN-550, in http://publications.iadb.org/bitstream/handle/11319/5940/La_clase_media_en_Peru_final2.pdf?sequence=1 (consulted 11/01/2015).

Kapsos, Steven & Evangelia Bourmpoula (2013), Employment and economic class in the developing world, ILO Research Paper no. 6, inhttp://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---inst/documents/publication/wcms_216451.pdf (consulted 09/05/2014).

Katz, Claudio (2012), Ideologa, estado y clases, inhttp://www.cronicon.net/paginas/Documentos/documentos-Claudio-Katz/kmv02-bjmprdcpt16.pdf (consulted 25/09/2013).Kolko, Joyce (1988), Restructuring the world economy, New York, Pantheon Books.

Lynch, Nicols (2013), La farsa de la clase media, Quehacer, no. 191, pp. 8-15.

Maddison, Angus (1982), Las fases del desarrollo capitalista. Una historia econmica cuantitativa, Mexico, Fondo de Cultura Econmica, S.A. de C.V.

Mandel, Ernest (1982), Clases sociales y crisis poltica en Amrica Latina, Taller de Estudios Polticos, Serie: Materiales de enseanza, sub-serie: sociologa, Lima, Programa Acadmico de CC.SS, Universidad Catlica del Per.

Plaza, Orlando (2007), Clases sociales en el Per. Aspectos terico-metodolgicos, in Orlando Plaza (ed.), Clases sociales en el Per. Visiones y trayectorias, Lima, Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per / Departamento de Ciencias Sociales / Centro de Investigaciones Sociolgicas, Econmicas. Polticas y Antropolgicas (CISEPA), pp. 19-79.

Poulantzas, Nicos (1976), Las clases sociales en el capitalismo actual, Mexico, Siglo Veintiuno Editores, S.A.

Poulantzas, Nicos (1973), On social classes, New Left Review, no. 78. No pages, in archive of author.

Przeworski, Adam (N/D), El proceso de la formacin de clase, in Adam Przeworski & Homero R. Saltalamacchia, El proceso de formacin de clase, Mexico, Universidad Autnoma Metropolitana, Cuadernos Teora y Sociedad, pp. 13-59.

Ravallion, Martin (2010), The developing worlds bulging (but vulnerable) middle class, World Development, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 445-454.

Solimano, Andrs (2010), La clase media y el proceso de desarrollo econmico: evidencia internacional para 130 pases, in Alicia Brcena & Narcs Serra (eds.), Clases medias y desarrollo en Amrica Latina, Santiago de Chile, CEPAL / Barcelona, Fundacin CIDOB, pp. 39-70.

Therborn, Gran (1998), La ideologa del poder y el poder de la ideologa, Mexico, Siglo Veintiuno Editores, S.A. de C.V.

Toche, Eduardo, Jorge Rodrguez & Molvina Zeballos (2003), Las clases medias van al paraso?, in Julio Gamero & Molvina Zeballos (eds.), Per Hoy. La clase media existe?, Lima, Desco, pp. 105-149. Wright, Erik Olin (1985), Classes, London, Verso. See for instance the study of Toche, Rodrguez and Zeballos (2003) on the Peruvian middle class.

The Peruvian EAP is composed of all those individuals of 14 years and older that (i) are employed; (ii) are unemployed but were previously employed; and, (iii) are actively searching for work but were not previously employed (Source: HYPERLINK "http://www.inei.gob.pe/preguntas-frecuentes/" http://www.inei.gob.pe/preguntas-frecuentes/; consulted 02/01/2015).

For a critique in the same line of reasoning, see Lynch (2013: 10-11).

According to Birdsall, Graham and Pettinato (2000: 1) the middle class can be defined as a group of households that are neither wealthy nor poor, but that form the backbone of both the market economy and of democracy in most advanced societies.

Translation by author.

Translation by author.

Also the non-Marxist Bresser-Pereira (1981) does not consider the middle class as a class as such. According to this author, the middle class is a stratum because one cannot determine white-collar workers such as office workers, salespeople, clerks, managers, technicians, military officials and administrators as a part of the middle class as it is incompatible with class theory that is based on the role social classes play in the relations of production. Bresser-Pereira defines class as social groups that are defined by the roles they play, dominant or dominated, within societys basic relations of production.

We do not agree with this point of view of Poulantzas as the history of capitalist development has shown the ability of the system to create classes, class fractions and/or social strata. In the case of small independent companies in Europe for example, we have not only seen these disappear due to processes of concentration and centralization but we have also witnessed the rise of relatively small semi-independent companies (sub-contractors, among others) and new professions that precisely fall within what might be denominated as the new middle class or the new petty bourgeoisie (Mandel, 1982: 4-5). Burris (1980: 18): Unlike earlier intermediate groupings, such as the traditional petty bourgeoisie, this new middle class does not exist on the receding periphery of capitalist production, but emerges within the very center of capitalist economic relations. Hence, it cannot plausibly be dismissed as a declining remnant of some prior mode of economic organization, destined to disappear with the fuller development of capitalism, but poses a direct challenge to the viability of the two-class model.

Translation by author.

Source: HYPERLINK "http://www.inei.gob.pe/estadisticas/indice-tematico/ocupacion-y-vivienda/" http://www.inei.gob.pe/estadisticas/indice-tematico/ocupacion-y-vivienda/ (consulted 02/01/2015).

For our analysis it is not necessary to convert nuevo soles (the Peruvian currency) in US dollars.

It is interesting to note that Jaramillo and Zambrano (2013: np), by referring to Easterlys article The middle class consensus and economic development (2001), argue that because the middle class (i) tends to favor greater social cohesion; (ii) is a stable source of productive and skilled labour; and, (iii) is a stable source for the demand of goods and services, the domestic markets are able to become engines of growth. In the case of Peru this has not occurred, although, as we will see below, for some scholars the whole of the Peruvian EAP can at least be considered as middle class.

We have taken the average exchange rate of the US dollar versus the nuevo sol in 2003. This value was 1:3.479, in HYPERLINK "http://www.bcrp.gob.pe/estadisticas/cuadros-anuales-historicos.html" http://www.bcrp.gob.pe/estadisticas/cuadros-anuales-historicos.html (consulted 03/01/2015).

By referring to a study of the Asociacin Peruana de Empresas de Investigacin de Mercado de 2011, Jaramillo and Zambrano (2013: np) define the middle class as families whose monthly income lies between 3915 and 8230 nuevo soles. As we argue below, by just adding the income of all those individuals that belong to a family, a poor individual might become a member of the middle class.

It might be expected that over the years these boundaries would have been raised.

A Peruvian family is considered to be composed of an average of 3.7 individuals (Source: HYPERLINK "http://www.mimp.gob.pe/files/direcciones/dgfc/estadisticas_diff.pdf" http://www.mimp.gob.pe/files/direcciones/dgfc/estadisticas_diff.pdf; consulted 30/01/2015).

Ravallions definition of the size of the middle class leads to the same conclusions. For Banerjee and Duflo (2007) this only counts in the case of the threshold US$2-4. The application of the criteria of Ferreira et al. has the consequence that the Peruvian middle class is composed of at least all those individuals whose average remuneration is that of persons that work in companies that employ between one and 50 individuals.

Source: HYPERLINK "http://series.inei.gob.pe:8080/sirtod-series/" http://series.inei.gob.pe:8080/sirtod-series/ (consulted 03/01/2015).

According to Bresser-Pereira (1981), social stratification makes it possible to increase the number of strata according to the political, economic, social and ideological necessities. As such, by increasing the different social positions within a class, social stratification helps to create the illusion that class differences are diminishing. Elements of social stratification might be remuneration, occupation, age, gender, race, religion, privileges, etc. It is interesting to observe that Birdsall, Graham and Pettinato (2000: 3) seem to use the terms middle class and middle strata as synonymous.

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