An emerging middle class is defined by disposable time, property, servants, fashion, and bargaining power based on professional expertise. Its deeper roots are traced through medieval town charters and even huscarls, while its distinct political influence becomes clearer after the English Civil War. Estate managers, lawyers, bankers, ship captains, and merchants could demand better pay and conditions because states and elites needed their skills. Frustration over taxation without meaningful influence on government is presented as one cause of the English Civil War. Many nobles shared or accommodated those concerns because their estates and investments depended on middle-class managers and financiers.
Chapter · 32:32-36:23
Professionalization and the political power of the middle class
A social-history digression links professional skills, leisure and property, taxation, and the financial dependence of nobles to the middle class's growing influence.