This is CBS Eye on the World.

Here's John Bachelor.

The dying citizen, a book by Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution,

how progressive elites, tribalism and globalization, destroying the idea of America,

we begin with the middle class, we begin in fact with Aristotle acknowledging the power

of the middle class.

Here does me the favor of translating from the Greek, he's a classical scholar.

Great then is the good fortune of a state in which the citizens have a moderate and sufficient property.

Victor, congratulations, good evening, we have a great deal of territory to cover,

but we begin with the praise of the middle class in classical Greece, in classical Rome,

and through the empires ever since.

Why?

Why is the middle class important?

Good evening to you, Victor.

Good evening, John.

For a couple of reasons, one of course is that before the industrial revolution,

anywhere from 80 to 90 percent of the population was agrarian,

and made their living by producing food, and in the ancient idea,

there was something about being autonomous, self-reliant, owning your own property,

and more importantly, combining muscles with mine,

and so that you would not be what they call rarified as an intellectual or as a sophist,

and yet you wouldn't be a physical brute, so that was a perfect combination.

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