Continued ...

The next major challenge is that the principal engine of political and cultural development in a society is that society’s middle class.

As a result of the severe damage inflicted on Iran’s economy in recent years, Iran’s middle class, which in 2011—only thirteen years ago—comprised 54 per cent of Iranian society, has fallen to 38 per cent. The affluent class has likewise declined from 7 per cent to 3 per cent. If we exclude the 30 per cent of Iran’s population of ninety million who are children under eighteen, the country’s middle class comprises a population of roughly twenty-four million.

These figures matter because in developed countries the affluent class comprises between 15 and 30 per cent of the population—for example, around 15 per cent in Germany and 30 per cent in the United States—while the middle class comprises approximately 50 per cent.

Our major problem in producing cultural transformation is not simply the shrinking of the middle class. The larger problem is the structure of Iran’s middle class.

In our country the middle class has been formed primarily around the economic sphere. A large proportion of our middle class consists of shop owners. In our country, one out of every eight families earns its living through a shop or small commercial enterprise. In developed countries, the corresponding figure is approximately one family in every thirty to forty.

A significant part of the middle class also consists of government employees, numbering close to 2.5 million people, most of whom are regarded as belonging to the middle class.

In developed countries, more than 60 per cent of the middle class consists of professional, managerial and academic workers, while 15–20 per cent consists of technicians and professionals employed in the service sector; only 20–25 per cent of the middle class consists of owners of small commercial enterprises and government employees.

Thus, in developed countries, this large professional and academic section of the middle class creates and sustains highly effective resistance in defence of citizens’ rights, cultural development and political development.

Our middle class is organised primarily around the economy and the market, while its academic and professional component is shrinking. Some time ago I read that, in one survey concerning the desire to migrate, more than 70 per cent of doctors and nurses, university professors and students responded that they were seriously considering migration.

If all of this is not sufficient reason to reflect on the challenges of cultural and political development in our society, another major issue concerning the middle class is women’s participation in the labour force and social production, which in societies such as Germany and the United States is 45–55 per cent, while in Iran it is only 12 per cent.

None of these figures means that owners of shops and small businesses, or people in the lower income percentiles of our society, are disconnected from culture or indifferent to political development. Such an interpretation would certainly be reductionist and incorrect, and counterexamples are not difficult to find. The point is to attend to demographic structure and compare it with that of a developed society so that we can arrive at a realistic understanding of the challenges before us.