GETTING AND SPENDING

When Taiwan lifted restrictions on foreign travel in 1985, Florence Chen, a financial manager for Swiss pharmaceutical company Zuellig Pharma Inc., and her husband, Benjamin, were among the first to venture abroad. They jetted off for a vacation in the Maldives, an Indian Ocean playground frequented by well-off Europeans. Since then, the Taipei couple has visited Europe several times. The mother of two children, Florence takes home as much money as her husband: about $3,700 a month. And she is spending a healthy chunk of it to make sure her kids ``have everything we did not,'' including weekly English and piano lessons. ``English and cultural skills are a must in today's world,'' she says matter-of-factly.

Chen is by no means alone in her pursuit of the good life. Just visit Kmart on Narodni Trida in downtown Prague, where the aisles are packed with Czechs snatching up Nintendo Game Boys and Michael Jordan basketball hoops. Or at a branch of Mexico City's Bancomer, where Mexican consumers are lining up for credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages. From Braslia to Budapest to Bombay, a vibrant and vital middle class is quickly emerging, as more countries loosen state controls and embrace market economies.

True, many of the world's newly affluent groups will develop along paths vastly different from those in the U.S. and Western Europe. They diverge widely in geography, political history, and social mores. But just as the aspirations of a broad middle class changed 19th century Western Europe, the desire of its 21st century counterparts for stability, prosperity, and freedom will transform the world.

Part of this transformation will be political. While no one expects authoritarian regimes to collapse overnight, they're destined to relax controls in coming years, as the local middle classes flex their muscles. ``Whenever the new middle class has emerged, political reform has followed in its wake,'' says Raymond F. Wylie, professor of international relations at Lehigh University.

Pressures for social change will mount, as well. Middle-class people usually want fewer restrictions on their private lives, including the ability to travel abroad and gain access to information. And ultimately, they will press for solutions to many of the same problems gripping the industrialized world: pollution, health care, crime, and drugs.

GRADUAL CHANGE. The flourishing of these emerging middle classes hinges on continued economic prosperity. Should developing nations that are booming today suddenly fall victim to political or ethnic turmoil, their middle classes are certain to suffer. Moreover, runaway inflation--the unwelcome partner of many an emerging economy--could easily wipe out their gains. As a result, global middle-class members covet stability, insurance against losing their newly created jobs or their still-novel personal freedoms. ``The middle class does not support drastic changes,'' says Lui Tai-lok, an expert on the middle class at Chinese University of Hong Kong. ``They want a more gradual, evolutionary kind of change.''

They may not have that luxury this time, however. Where it took more than a century for Britain's middle class to develop, in some places that same process is being accomplished in only a decade. With linkups to the rest of the world through advanced telecommunications and cable and satellite TV, the new middle class can instantly receive a clear picture of Western riches--and demand a similar lifestyle.

Asia is the hot spot in this international race to prosperity. Indeed, if Asian economies continue their dizzying 5%-to-8% annual expansion of the last decade, their middle classes will grow at double or even triple that rate, estimates Linda Y.C. Lim, director of the Southeast Asia Business Program at the University of Michigan. In fact, Lim predicts that the Asian middle class, excluding Japan's, could top 700 million people by 2010, wielding an astounding $9 trillion in spending power--50% more than the present-day gross domestic product of the U.S.

NEW RELIGION. But the fast-advancing Asian nations won't be the only ones that will enjoy a middle-class surge. The economies of Latin American countries such as Mexico are benefiting from privatization, the breakdown of trade barriers, and a sharp curtailment of inflation, providing hope--and, sometimes, shock (page 180)--for millions of middle-class strivers. Meanwhile, citizens of Russia and Eastern European nations such as Poland are renouncing the doctrine of communism for a far-more-tempting religion: the chance to get rich. Even in post-apartheid South Africa, where for 50 years only whites could dream of a comfortable middle-class lifestyle, a small circle of black professionals is expanding quickly

. Defining the composition of this global middle class is tricky, because of widely varying levels of development among Asian and Latin American nations (table). But a reasonable estimate is that one-fourth of the world, some 1.2 billion people, enjoy middle-class lives. In many ways, household income is a poor gauge of class. A middle-class family in Bombay, for example, may earn $6,000 annually, while one in Taipei can easily pocket six times as much. Income figures also ignore vast differences in international purchasing power. Rent and electricity in China are heavily subsidized by the state, giving Chinese consumers more spending power than their modest salaries might suggest. Besides, income distinctions don't reflect education or values--two increasingly important barometers of middle-class status.

So, in the broadest sense, this new middle class can be best described as those with disposable incomes--people no longer concerned about daily survival who have joined the ranks of modern consumers. Beyond funding the purchase of televisions and automobiles, that increase in wealth allows its owners to spend on intangibles such as education--and to worry about societal ills that endanger their newfound lifestyles. The global middle classes ``eat similar foods, they see the same entertainment programs, and they are likely to converge more as commerce assumes a dominant role,'' says Sarthi Acharya, deputy director of Bombay's Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Already, multinational manufacturers are hungrily eyeing this huge influx of new consumers into the global marketplace. Little wonder: The emerging middle class's eagerness to upgrade its material well-being is sparking ravenous demand for everything from BMW's in Taiwan to $114 bottles of Remy Martin XO cognac in Guangzhou, turning the marketing even of luxury goods into a global affair. And many multinationals such as Unilever PLC envision a not-so-distant future when profits from emerging markets will outstrip those in the industrialized world.

One reason members of this new middle class are increasingly looking, living, and even talking more like each other is the rapid growth of media across borders (page 186). In many cases, the far-flung message is distinctly American: talk shows, Hollywood movies, CNN. In the Czech Republic, for instance, a new private TV station named Nova now broadcasts old M*A*S*H episodes. America's favorite cartoon family, The Simpsons, has become the most popular imported television show in Latin America. And Danielle Steel's steamy fiction now outsells Russian classics in Moscow bookstores. ``It's an enormous media invasion from the skies,'' says Alyque Padamsee, a Bombay media consultant--and one that's spurring local media companies to boost their own native-language offerings.

DISHES A-POPPIN. Whatever the source of the newly popular programming--the current favorite on Russian TV is a Mexican soap opera called Wild Rose--the rapid growth of media outlets, televisions, and satellite dishes in emerging countries signals a middle-class hunger for information and entertainment. Indeed, in India there are now 50,000 private cable operators, and by 1996 there will be 30 channels, Padamsee says. And despite threats by Burma's military leadership, there are at least 4,000 satellite dishes in primitive Rangoon.

Stronger than the values spawned by global advertising and MTV is the desire, widely shared among the world's middle classes, to give their children the best education money can buy. Asians, many of whom put a premium on learning, feel that top-notch schooling gives a child the credentials ensuring success. Latin Americans view education as a way for their children to bridge the traditionally wide gap between rich and poor.

In Eastern Europe and Russia, where communist authorities for decades denied a decent education to anyone who differed with the system, many parents are also determined to give their kids the skills they lacked. ``I want [my son] Jindra to go to university so he has freedom to choose what he wants to do,'' says Blanca Sedova, a secretary in Prague who wasn't allowed to attend college because her parents were expelled from the Communist Party.

EXPRESS YOURSELF. As a result, new private schools seem to be popping up everywhere. In India's 70,000-citizen university town of Dehra Dun, there are now scores of private schools. In Taipei, parents fed up with a strict Asian-style curriculum that stresses rote memorization and conformity, have started two private alternative elementary schools that encourage expression and creativity. Even in China, a nominally communist nation where at most 10% of the urban population is considered middle class, private kindergartens such as the Song Qingling school in Shanghai are spreading throughout major cities. ``Education is increasingly important because it allows young people to move up because of their credentials,'' says Thomas W.P. Wong, a Hong Kong University sociologist.

As in the West, an increasing number of families worldwide can afford such perks because both husband and wife are wage-earners. The social stigma against married women working is easing, as shown by the 40% of Hong Kong's married women who are employed. And many middle-class women in developing nations can rely on relatives or cheap household workers to look after their children. With dishwashers, washing machines, and microwaves more easily within reach, ``the homemaker roles can be automated to zero,'' says Joe Cobb, a Heritage Foundation economist.

Also, unlike poor agrarian societies where many children help relieve a family's burden of manual labor, increasingly middle-class parents deliberately have a small, more-affordable number of children. ``I want not more than two kids,'' says Ashish Deshpande, a 26-year-old Bombay psychiatrist, echoing a popular sentiment among young educated Indians.

As traditional family life changes in many fast-developing countries, societies are starting to feel the strain. The newly wealthy in countries such as the Philippines and Malaysia are moving out of extended families and forming Western-style nuclear ones. And such changes sometimes endanger the centuries-old social pact between young and old. Elderly parents who would have lived with their grown children are now being sent to new old-age homes opening in wealthier Asian nations such as Singapore and Taiwan.

Other outside--often American--influences are causing culture clashes for nations with fast-growing middle classes. In Malaysia, MTV-savvy teens mimic their U.S. counterparts who hang out at shopping malls--although such so-called ``loafing'' in Kuala Lumpur is a crime punishable by two weeks in a rehabilitation center. And in India, traditionalists worry about the social impact of hours of American soap operas such as The Bold and the Beautiful and Santa Barbara--replete with scene after scene of infidelity--that Star TV beams each day into Hindu homes where arranged marriage is still the norm.

FAT FOOD. Moreover, many fast-growing countries are also experiencing the downside of the ``good life'' first hand. From 10% to 25% of Malaysian schoolchildren ages 7 to 12 are obese, according to Dr. Ismail Merican, who recently launched a study at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital. He chalks up the weight increases to poor eating habits that stem from increasing affluence. One sign of the times: 110 Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets in Malaysia alone. And, although nowhere near the incidence in Western countries, drug addiction, divorce, and juvenile delinquency are inching up even in tightly controlled Singapore.

All this is causing a backlash. China's communist hard-liners, for one, frequently rail about ``the lust for comfort and luxury'' of the country's ``excessive profit-seekers and businesses.'' Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, the authoritarian leader who views ``Asian values'' of strong family ties, social cohesion, and respect for authority as superior to those in the West, is also a vocal critic. And, although his policies are strict, he has considerable support from well-off Singaporeans.

``It's not nice for girls to dress like Madonna, and a lot of teenagers are worshipping her,'' snaps Karen Chan, a Singapore teacher turned full-time homemaker, who says she worries about the ``corrupting'' influence of premarital sex, drugs, and immodest dressing. Adds Abdul Ghani Othman, Malaysia's Youth & Sports Minister: ``The country wants to be a developed nation, but at the same time definitely wants to avoid all these social problems that the West has.''

Accomplishing both is unlikely. Traditions aside, rising incomes and constant media exposure to foreign ways have already so changed the emerging middle classes that the momentum probably cannot be reversed. ``Instead of being a declaration of independence, `Asian values' is the last gasp of traditional Asia before the onset of modernization,'' argues Alfred Balitzer, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College and the former U.S. Ambassador to Brunei.

At best, nations giving rise to these emerging middle classes must strike a compromise. Japan is a classic example. Although heavily influenced by the West, the Japanese have managed to maintain an extremely distinct cultural identity. ``People in Asia are used to living with contradictory philosophies and adopting only the parts they like,'' says Camille P. Schuster, professor of marketing at Xavier University in Cincinnati. ``While Western values may become one layer of the onion, the other layers are still there.''

SUN, NOT SMOG. One Western value that may find ready support among the global middle class is concern over quality of life. In Russia, where up to 30% of the population is estimated to be middle class, there is strong pressure to clean up the environment. ``The people want to see the sun at midday and not have life expectancy cut short because of poisons in the air,'' says William Zimmerman, a University of Michigan professor who recently surveyed the attitudes of 1,243 Russians.

The transition from nascent environmentalism to full-blown political activism can be slow. When it's still small in number, ``the middle class is not necessarily prodemocracy,'' argues Samuel P. Huntington, director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. In Latin America, for example, much of the middle class has for decades supported military coups during times of social chaos for fear of losing power to disgruntled peasants and workers.

In China and Vietnam, the relatively small middle classes are so money hungry after years of deprivation that the furthest thing from their minds is reforming their undemocratic and corrupt governments. ``The essential thing is to get rich,'' notes Hoang Ngoc Hien, a lecturer at Nguyen Du Creative Writing School in Hanoi. ``Corruption can help. Political reform will not.''

Indeed, the political goal of many new middle-class members is simply to maintain stability. ``If you consider that 40% of Mexicans live in poverty, then the middle classes are privileged groups,'' says Soledad Loaeza, a political science professor at El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City. ``In a situation of instability they react with defensive actions, not offensive ones.''

But as wealth spreads, the middle class will undoubtedly become more vocal. In Taiwan and South Korea, where an educated middle class emerged after three decades of booming exports, budding democracies have taken root. While still basically a conservative group that prefers stability to drastic change, this first generation of middle-class Asians also wants reforms. ``Once people have enough money so that they are no longer concerned with survival, they start to be concerned with liberty,'' says S.H. Michael Hsiao, research fellow at Academia Sinica in Taipei.

GENERALS OUT. Take Thailand. Disgusted with cronyism and corruption in the military, the country's middle class played a key role in preventing the generals from keeping political power in 1992. And in South Africa, expanding the tiny black middle class is key to building a stable democracy.

Yet a truly global middle class eager to exert both its social and political influence probably won't come into full blossom for at least 20 years, when members of a global Generation X move into positions of influence in their respective nations. This middle-class MTV generation, at home listening to rock music and familiar with computer jargon, will also benefit from the English-language instruction and improved educational systems being put in place in emerging nations. ``Teenagers and people in their 20s [already] have a middle-class culture,'' says Rudolf Andorka, president of the Budapest University of Economic Sciences. ``When they are the most important part of Hungarian society, a middle-class culture will dominate.''

In fact, that may bring some surprising long-term benefits. Many analysts argue that the growing global middle class's demands for an economically dynamic--yet politically stable--world will reshape geopolitics for the better. When there's a strong middle class, ``it's hard to get popular passions stirred for war,'' says Michael Novak, director of social and political studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington. ``Commercial republics don't make war on one another. Rarely do democratic ones.'' If he's right, then the emergence of the global middle class could bring a more prosperous and peaceful 21st century.