The middle class, or, as political scientists put it, "an educated middle class," is the base of a democratic society. After all, it was the middle classes of France, America, Russia, and China which made the revolutions of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. These were all libertarian revolutions even if, in the case of Russia, and China, they inaugurated communist regimes.

It’s arguable that the Russian and Chinese revolutions were proletarian or peasant revolutions, but as Crane Brinton observed in his book (in the 40s), "The Anatomy of Revolution," the poor are too weak to make revolution and revolutions are not made for a standard of living. ("It’s not the economy, stupid!")

Since then the middle class in democratic states has been rightly regarded as the "agent of change," of change unleashed through peaceful and constitutional means. Hence the complaint about its indifference in our time and place.

The real question now is why the middle class seems indifferent. Social critics reply that the middle class is so comfortable it’s upset by mass demonstrations. But then it wasn’t upset by the demonstrations that led to EDSA. The generalization, therefore, is, well, too general.

More likely, there’s a sense of frustration, disappointment, and fear in the middle class about the turn of events since 1986. It may not have heard of Francesco Guicciardini, Machiavelli’s contemporary, who once wrote, "Do not exert yourself on behalf of those changes which do not alter the reality you dislike, but only the faces of men, for you will still be left with the same dissatisfaction," but it seems to know him from experience.

Of course, neither Senator Arroyo (for that matter, the democratic opposition) nor any journalist is suggesting that the middle class make revolution. If at all, they are one with the bishops who preach a "moral revolution," an awareness of the exertion demanded by a truly democratic order.