Middle class is currently far from being dissolved. Jobs are still there, salaries are paid, taxes are collected.<p>As for &quot;what caused the crisis of jobs and industrial society&quot;, the answer is of course automation (this is one thing where Marx was right). The full-blown crisis was imminent 100 years ago (which is why socialist regimes appeared), but it was delayed by two world wars (there are no unemployed in wartime), the Cold war, and rise of the clerks &#x2F; bureaucracy.<p>Socialism was Marx&#x27;s answer to the idea of automation of production, but it didn&#x27;t work out 100 years ago. It will not work now as well. We have to think of something new.