The Middle Classes

What a funny phrase that is...

In the UK, it is seen as the affluent to be Middle Class. Rugby is middle class. Football is working class.

In the US, during the election, Obama kept talking about America's middle classes. Doing a bit more digging, it's hard to understand exactly what level of society he exactly means. Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class

In India, there has been much revelrie in the growth of 200 million people in the middle classes.

I think of it as one thing I have been struck by has been the lack of a major middle class here in Moz, as I understand it to mean.

So the question arises: is that what developing countries should be striving for, as India has sucessfully done, to raise the educated stratum in society into a stronger middle class? Does that just mean a more powerful consumer? Are the middle classes really a larger Services Sector?!

I guess we need to think if that should really be the objective for development and if a 'larger' middle class just serves to stratify society even further.