If an income of $200k/year is "middle class"....

[The Magistrate]

17. There Is Something To That, Sir

I would hold, though, that they lack the independence which is part of the classic definition. Even the managerial knowledge ( which I agree is a real thing, and overlaps with the classic definition ) is worthless outside the corporation. Only if such people parley their salary into a stock of capital on which they can live by investment, or by some independent enterprise, outside their salaried employment, do they escape from being, by virtue of living on salary, really workers who sell their time, albeit skilled workers whose skills are intellectual rather than rooted in some physical craft. Their position is analogous to than of non-commissioned ranks in an old army; whatever prerogatives of authority and pay they may enjoy, they enjoy these only at the pleasure of their commissioned superiors, and can lose their stripes at any time. They remain enlisted men, when all is said and done.