[I believe you’re right... but it’s senseless. I have no idea why he chose to do that... ]
The middle class is the portion of society that is the repository of moral values such as work ethic, and most resistant to change. In the U.S. the nucleus of the middle class are the Scots-Irish who are stubbornly independent. But in Marxist theory the middle class of any society has to be reduced to poverty and fear to make it more malleable.
That's easily the best three sentence answer I've seen on FreeRepublic... Thanks Brad.