The Choice of the New Latin American Middle Classes: Sharing or Self-Caring

With the growth of the middle classes throughout Latin America we also witness growing discontent and protest. The same has happened in Asia, Africa and even Europe (see the other contributions in this issue). More welfare and freedom is apparently accompanied by more demands towards governments, as well as equally more disappointments. Sassen (2013, pp. 125–126) explains this by pointing to the fact that the middle classes have been the main beneficiaries of the liberal welfare state. Now, however, ‘they are protesting against the state because the state is failing them – “austerity politics” is one important manifestation of this failure’. The question emerges: Is the increase in protests in Latin America really related to the growth of the middle classes? And if so, what would explain this dissatisfaction?