The middle class are any class in the middle of a social schema. In Weberian socio-economic terms they are the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socioeconomically between the working class and upper class. In Marxist terms, middle class commonly refers to either the bourgeoisie before or during capitalism, or some emergent new class within capitalism. In common parlance middle class refers to a set of culturally distinct contemporary Western cultures that emphasise sedentary consumerism and petty property ownership within capitalism