The deepening of capitalism and rise to prominence of the ‘middle’ classes in post-colonial societies over the past few decades has now well and truly become one of the most important thematic concerns of scholars across disciplinary and geographical boundaries. And rightfully so – for too long class analyses of both western and non-western societies have focused on the ‘polar’ classes with all that has come in the ‘middle’ either relegated to the ranks of ‘petty bourgeoisie’ or, in more recent times, banished to the realm of the ‘informal’.

The centrality of the intermediate strata in the Pakistani story of capitalist modernity is, however, still to be adequately understood, both conceptually and in empirical terms. An inordinately large segment of the intelligentsia as well as arm-chair critics continue to depict Pakistani society as predominantly ‘feudal’, thereby understating the extent of urbanization and the substantial political and economic clout of non-agricultural commercial classes.

In many ways, the lack of attention paid to the intermediate strata in particular, and changes in the class structure at large, can be explained by the continuing reliance on ‘traditional’ analyses of the state. I have already mentioned the handful of recent studies that have attempted to capture the specificities of statecraft in contemporary Pakistan through novel theoretical lenses. Research work done on the evolving class structure of Pakistan's society lags further behind; recent efforts tend to rely on limited data and dated conceptual tools. The need to engage in more detailed research on actually existing capitalism in Pakistan can be gauged from one of the few insightful studies on the middle class which estimates it to total almost one-third of the country's population of 187 million.

In this chapter, I identify members of this burgeoning class, their sociological backgrounds, and explain their centrality to my narrative about common sense politics. In doing so I engage – although not exhaustively – with the scholarly literature on the intermediate classes, as well as recent theoretical debates on the nature of capitalist modernity in non-western contexts. In the final analysis I demonstrate that the intermediate classes have become the major protagonists of the contemporary political economy of patronage.

New Contenders for Power

In the first two chapters, I highlighted the main features of the refurbished patronage machine that emerged in Pakistan during and after the Zia years.