{
  "id": "middle-class.centre",
  "term": "middle class",
  "sense": "centre",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 18,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "A range of income and wealth that a collective self reads as its centre, making its boundary wider so that most members read their own income as inside it.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "collective-self.shared",
      "boundary.limit",
      "class.category",
      "self-model.reflexive",
      "in-group.inside",
      "range.spatial",
      "income.financial",
      "wealth.range",
      "read.information",
      "centre.location",
      "make.verb",
      "wide.spatial",
      "member.social",
      "inside.spatial"
    ],
    "interaction": "A class set by income is used as the group's centre; because members at many values read themselves as inside it, the range stretches and the boundary widens with it.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "a class most members read themselves into",
      "a centre whose edges move with who claims it"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "working-families.broad",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "working families draws the edge by work; the middle class by a range of wealth"
    },
    {
      "id": "one-percent.few",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "the one percent splits off the top; the middle class widens the centre"
    },
    {
      "id": "class.category",
      "type": "is-a",
      "note": "class is any category; the middle class is one read as the group's centre"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "middle class",
    "middle classes",
    "middle income",
    "the middle class"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-middle-class.centre"
}