Opinion: The Middle Class Economy Was a Failed Experiment—And We’re Sliding Back into a Neo-Feudal Future

Are you ready for the neo-digital feudal era?

America Before the Middle Class

Before the 20th century, the United States economy was largely a tale of two extremes—wealthy industrialists and landowners at the top, and working-class laborers, farmers, and immigrants at the bottom. Economic opportunity existed, but it was often brutal, uncertain, and limited by class, race, and geography. The Gilded Age of the late 1800s solidified this divide, with monopolists like Carnegie and Rockefeller consolidating power and wealth while laborers toiled long hours in dangerous factories, tenements, and mines. America was a land of opportunity, yes—but only for the few who could seize it. For the majority, it was survival, not prosperity.

Early 1900s America had wealthy industrialists and landowners at the top, and working-class laborers, farmers, and immigrants at the bottom.

The Rise of the Middle Class Economy

It wasn’t until the Great Depression shocked the nation and World War II mobilized it that the American economy underwent a seismic shift. The New Deal created government-backed jobs, labor protections, and social safety nets. The GI Bill educated a generation of returning soldiers. Manufacturing boomed. Suburbia exploded. For a few golden decades, a working American with a high school diploma and a union job could afford a house, a car, a vacation, and college for their kids.

This was the era of the "Middle Class Dream"—a postwar experiment where capitalism, labor rights, and government regulation temporarily coexisted to create the largest, most prosperous middle class in history.

But that dream is unraveling.

Crushed in the Middle

Today, the middle class is dying—not from a single cause, but from a relentless barrage of expenses and policies that strip it bare. Wages have stagnated since the 1970s, even as productivity and executive pay soared. Housing costs have exploded, especially in urban areas where jobs are concentrated. Healthcare, once a basic employment benefit, now bankrupts families. Education—once the ladder out of poverty—is now a debt trap.

At the same time, taxes and regulations increasingly favor the ultra-wealthy. Trickle-down economics failed to trickle. Wall Street saw record profits while Main Street businesses shut down during COVID. The wealth distribution we once tried to rebalance has tilted back—almost completely—to the top.

A Return to Neo-Feudalism

What we’re seeing now is not just inequality—it’s reversion. A regression back to a time when power and property belonged to a select few, and everyone else rented or served. Homeownership is dropping while renting rises, and investment giants like BlackRock and Vanguard are buying up residential real estate by the neighborhood.

In 2020, renters made up about 36% of U.S. households. By 2035, it's projected that renters will outnumber owners in many urban and suburban regions, with close to 50% of U.S. households being renters nationwide. By 2050, that figure could exceed 60%, especially as younger generations are priced out of ownership and institutional investors dominate the housing market.

Even tech billionaires are proposing “worker housing” near company compounds—Elon Musk’s Texas housing projects for employees, for example. On paper, it's convenient. In practice, it resembles the company towns of the 19th century: live where you work, depend on your employer for both income and shelter, and don't rock the boat.

Your labor, your location, even your leisure—owned and operated by your corporate overlords.

Forecasted projection of the rise of renters to owners by mid-century

 The Threat of AI to the Middle Class

And then there’s artificial intelligence.

AI promises efficiency, but it threatens middle-class knowledge work: customer service, administrative tasks, paralegal work, technical writing, even code. While blue-collar jobs were outsourced decades ago, white-collar roles are now being digitized—at scale. The jobs that once sustained a suburban home and two cars? Automated. Outsourced. Gone.

Those who control the algorithms and data pipelines will amass even more wealth. Those who don’t will compete for lower wages, less security, and fewer rights.

A Closed System of the Elite

We’re fast approaching a point where wealth is no longer circulated—it’s compounded. The ultra-wealthy invest in one another’s ventures, buy each other’s properties, and fund candidates who legislate in their favor. The economy becomes a closed loop of privilege and power.

Meanwhile, the rest of us—no matter how educated, skilled, or ambitious—are left scraping for access, stuck paying rent to landlords who don't live in our cities and buying goods from corporations that don't pay taxes.

The American middle class was a historical fluke—a brief window when labor, capital, and policy aligned. That window is closing.

The Serfs of Silicon Valley

If you’re a Millennial or Gen Z, you must realize something crucial: the middle class you were born into—or at least told to aspire toward—has only existed for about 60 to 70 years, max. That’s a blink of an eye in the lifespan of empires. For most of human history, there was no thriving middle class—just a small elite ruling over masses of workers, peasants, and servants.

The post-WWII middle class economy was not the norm; it was a rare window of economic alignment, fueled by strong unions, abundant jobs, and deliberate policy choices. Now, that window is closing.

If we don’t intervene—through voting, organizing, and reimagining the systems that define our economic lives—we risk letting this era vanish entirely. And in its place, a new digital feudalism will rise: where landlords are hedge funds, employers are feudal lords, and freedom is nothing more than a line in a commercial.

We aren’t just watching history repeat—we’re living its undoing.