Outlet society-low cost society: the middle-class comes back home

Abstract

The crisis of capitalism has resulted in a new scenario which is increasing inequality and generating a change of social stratification, and which affects also the middle-classes. This social group has generated a large number of discussions within Social Sciences concerning its conceptualization, not to mention the links between social status and social mobility. In the field of consumption, outlet establishments and low-cost products have expanded in the last decade. Not only important contingents of middle-classes have gain access to them, but lower-classes, which means they have acquired signs of the upper-class status. This paper links the evolution of middle-classes to the process of consumption of outlet and low-cost products as well as, the emergence of a society, which does not differ much from that kind of products. This fact leads to an increase in social inequality, poverty and exclusion. The main results and conclusions lead us to a scenario in which, the middle-class, after social mobility in recent decades and the adoption of indicators of the upper-class status, which are their reference groups, comes back to its origins, that is to say, the lower class (the working class).