Marginalized group strategy
The marginal group strategy is a practice of the extra-parliamentary opposition founded theoretically by Herbert Marcuse , according to which socially declassed people have a special revolutionary potential because they are most clearly exposed to the contradictions of capitalist society.
The fringe groups briefly became a revolutionary replacement object after agitation in the industrial sector had completely failed. In West Germany this strategy manifested itself in the home campaign as well as projects in other total institutions , such as prisons, and political homeless work. The fringe group strategy was also short-lived; it was no longer pursued from 1970 onwards.
Theoretical background and political failure
In the conclusion of his book The One-Dimensional Man , published in German in 1967 , Herbert Marcuse found that the popular masses had long since made their peace with society, only the “outlaws and outsiders” were revolutionary-oppositional, albeit without revolutionary awareness. The exploited “of other races and colors”, the unemployed and the incapable of work existed outside the democratic process. Your life needs "most directly and most really the abolition of unbearable conditions and institutions".
Activists of the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO) in Germany followed this theoretical approach for some time, concentrating on welfare education, especially in the context of the home campaign , which offered “almost ideal conditions”, “because not only the socially disadvantaged were to be found here, but the The practice of welfare education as a whole was seen as a symbol of the oppressed society ”. Young residents were asked to flee the welfare homes and go into hiding in the students' shared apartments. The strategy was only followed for a short time. The students did not realize that their experiences and their motivational structure were fundamentally different from those of the marginalized groups. While they themselves sought out of the system into which they were integrated, those on the fringes wanted into it.
As early as 1969 the Socialist German Student Union decided not to support the fringe group projects financially, since such activities with the Lumpenproletariat were not a promising revolutionary strategy. And in 1970, at a student congress in Berlin, the end of the fringe group strategy in favor of district and company work was announced. The congressional resolution resulted on the one hand from the difficulty of turning former home youths into class warriors, and on the other hand from the fact that the APO activists were burdened with the welfare children due to psychological difficulties, practical care and the drifting into crime and drug addiction. Martin Schmidt uses the example of the system-critical release movement to illustrate : The young people who ran away from the welfare homes and ended up in the release projects “did not meet political expectations and, in case of doubt, preferred to consume drugs rather than against the capitalist structures of the Federal Republic to fight".
According to Susanne Karstedt , the real success of the student fringe group work consisted in the fact that it was marginalized on the topic of general interest and a central subject of research. Measured in terms of the number of publications, citizens' initiatives, research work and statements by politicians, this was successful. In critical social work , the concept was taken up when discussions about “social reform or revolution” were held.
Thomas Trapper comments critically that the subjective well-being of those affected had only marginally interested the protagonists of the fringe group strategy . In general, he objects to the strategy issued by Marcuse, "that precisely for those who suffer from impairing and disease-causing conditions, the appeal to change these conditions must appear to be unrealizable".
Individual evidence
- ↑ Herbert Marcuse : The one-dimensional man. Studies on the ideology of the advanced industrial society . 3. Edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1998, p. 267.
- ^ A b Leonie Wagner: Youth Movements and Social Work. In: Leonie Wagner (ed.): Social work and social movements. VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-531-15678-1 , p. 137.
- ↑ Dietmar Süß: Buddy and comrades. Workers, businesses and social democracy in the Bavarian coal and steel industry 1945 to 1976. Oldenbourg, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56597-4 , p. 418.
- ^ A b Susanne Karstedt , Social marginal groups and sociological theory . In: Manfred Brusten and Jürgen Hohmeier (Eds.), Stigmatization 1. On the production of marginalized groups . Luchterhand, Neuwied / Darmstadt 1975, ISBN 978-3-472-58026-3 , pp. 169–196 online version , there under student movement and fringe group work .
- ↑ Rosemarie Bohle: Home advantage. From the circle of friends for family children's homes to the association of socio-educational small groups. 50 years of educational assistance in the Federal Republic of Germany. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2010, ISBN 978-3-89958-814-9 , p. 68.
- ^ Albrecht von Bülow: Home education in the Federal Republic of Germany. On the change in the concepts of inpatient education. Profil, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-89019-195-9 , p. 24.
- ^ Martin Schmid: Drug Aid in Germany. Origin and development 1970–2000. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003, p. 137.
- ↑ a b Thomas Trapper: Educational Aid. From discipline to marketing? Lines of development of the aids for education in the social antinomies at the end of the 20th century. Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 2002, ISBN 3-7815-1202-9 , p. 110.