Concluding Remarks

In every society, the fortunes of each person are a function of his ability to recognize the opportunities open to him and exploit them without delay. In industrial society in particular, income and the means to earn a good income have become the major forces separating one class from the other. However, as the knowledge age advances, the requirements to recognize and exploit opportunities have become complex; they need capital, skills, experience, and formal and informal education. As a consequence, the traditional socioeconomic gaps separating the rich and poor began to reflect sociocultural divides. Due to the adoption of the free market philosophy in the 1980s, the middle class began to lose income and power and shrink in size, losing its influence and constructive role in society. The economic shift from manufacturing to services and the changing nature of knowledge itself have caused opportunities open to members of the middle class to narrow drastically and irreversibly. A knowledge barrier, consequently, was added to the capital and skill barriers causing upward mobility in the new economy to decline substantially. This chapter explains what had happened, why it happened, and what is needed to adjust to the new reality and regain what was lost and live a normal life.