> In English-speaking countries, a blue-collar worker is
  > a working class person who performs non-agricultural
  > manual labour. Blue-collar work may involve skilled
  > or unskilled manufacturing, mining, sanitation, 
  > custodial work, oil field work, construction,
  > mechanical maintenance, warehousing, firefighting,
  > technical installation and many other types of
  > physical work.
  >
  > In contrast, the white-collar worker typically
  > performs work in an office environment and may
  > involve sitting at a computer or desk.

Also, the nature of programming is the ability to automate away white-collar work. We're probably going to need new categories, once many of those are gone. We might end up with engineers, a service-worker class and a managerial/executive class.

I meant "blue collar" as a metaphor for employing a large group of regular folks, not for outside work.

Manufacturing jobs in the middle of the 20th century were a core part of the economy. As robotics and other forms of automation replace more human activities, computer programming might become somewhat similar to the assembly-line job of the past. If not, I can't think of anything else that could plausibly take that role, in which case there would not be a large middle class.

There seems to be little connection between the category of blue-collar work and programming other than it is a form of 'building'.

The crux of blue-collar work is that it predominately involves physical labor and does not require 'skill'. That's not a literal interpretation, that's the core meaning -- programming is not analogous to physical labor or 'unskilled' work.

The former, yes - the latter, no.

A boilermaker or a welder is a blue-collar worker, but doing either requires a great deal of skill.

What it does not require is 'artistry.'

If you drop the physical labor requirement, some computer programming tasks can be performed by folks without much education.

Manufacturing has historically been a low-skilled, not un-skilled job. Programming can be, too, if we change the way we teach.

That would never happen, except temporarily. Those who want power for selfish reasons (money, control, etc) will always prevail in the long run, because they are slightly more likely to seek power. It's the Darwinism of politics. What we see going on today is merely that playing out. Good politicians play by the rules and the bad ones do not. This puts the good ones at a severe disadvantage. I'm using "good" here to mean ethical and moral.