Hurray, we can pay
Hurray, we may pay is a non-fiction book by the German business journalist and publicist Ulrike Herrmann , which was published in 2010. Herrmann is of the opinion that the middle class in Germany is subject to a "self-deception" that is politically promoted by lobbyists and the media with regard to its role in society, in which it conceits itself as part of the privileged and socially isolated elite in alliance with the "upper class" considered.
content
At the same time, the middle class sees itself as the paymaster for the “ lower class ”, which has been defamed as “ social parasites ” by propaganda , but into which an ever-increasing part of the middle class threatens to slip.
“The middle class has the feeling that the state is only there to support the lazy lower class and doesn't even see that the middle class actually benefits very much from this state, for example when it comes to the school system. And then the middle class is ready, for example, to go to private schools, even though that is actually much more expensive for them than if they were to finance it through taxes. "
The middle class is losing ground as incomes lag, the burden of taxes and social benefits grows, and safe and profitable full-time jobs continue to decline. Instead of expressing criticism, however, the middle class makes itself the handlers of the rich and the nobility, which is regaining their prominence, by blindly adopting the neoliberal credo of the upper class and their demand for deregulation , tax cuts , wage restraint for international competitiveness and liberalization of the labor market and feels " rich " with less and less income , as long as a distance to Hartz IV is still noticeable: "The German middle class does not notice its own loss because it can delimit itself downwards."
“The rich count themselves poor, while the poor are counted rich. This reverses the perception of what is actually plunder. It is no longer the entrepreneurs who exploit their employees - instead, the poor allegedly exploit the middle class. "
Herrmann closes her account with a warning against the breakup of society through the revocation of the consensus underlying the constitution of a justly distributed prosperity and the social ties of property . It calls for a new New Deal on, in which the state through higher taxation of the wealth of assets , inheritances and income a hitherto taboo successful redistribution will bring.
“Since the» middle «still has the majority of the electorate, the impetus can only come from the middle class. She should understand: It's time for a New Deal in Germany. "
Reviews
Andrea Dernbach puts the focus of her review at the time on the fact that reading the book makes her, as a middle-class member, angry with herself. The Germans appeared as "a lot of neurotic people who, as psychologists would say, over-identified themselves with the aggressor, the elite, and have a more than clouded view of reality." The chapter on education provides the strongest arguments for a "New Deal".
In his positive review, Rudolf Walther from the Berliner Zeitung mainly describes the links to government policy. Under the red-green government, “tentative contradictions” against the profits of the capital owners were denounced as “ class struggle slogans ”. Wolfgang Clement had brought a brochure with a Bild newspaper title on the market: “Priority for the decent. Against abuse, rip-offs and self-service in the welfare state ”. The government agitation against the unemployed and the gifts for the rich reached their climax in the liturgy of the Schröder-Fischer-Hartz religion: " Promote and demand ".
Ernst Rommeney from Deutschlandradio Kultur criticizes the fact that the wealthy upper class is also referred to as the elite itself. “It may feel that way, but money and power alone do not meet that claim. Monks from ancient times, but also artists, researchers or politicians - not everyone, but some - I definitely belong to the elite, although they are rarely rich or even aristocratic. And so the middle class shares culture, education and career opportunities with the upper class, but not - and this is what the author is aiming for - financial success. ”The concept of the book contains a contradiction: the middle class as it explains it in its self-image , is just not in a position to reform society, otherwise Herrmann's diagnosis would be wrong. The author, too, “must admit that I would not like higher taxes on income, inheritances and property because I fear that they would have the opposite effect, namely to stir up general annoyance about society instead of promoting public spirit.” Not about the rich, Instead, the middle class has to worry about the poor, because social inequality threatens the prosperity of all in the long term.
literature
- Hurray, we can pay. The self-deception of the middle class . Westend Publishing House. Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-938060-45-2 ; 5th edition 2012. Paperback edition by Piper, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-492-26485-3 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Andrea Dernbach: Non-fiction book: The expensive fear of the lower class . In: The time . April 12, 2010, ISSN 0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed on September 11, 2016]).
- ↑ The taz business editor Ulrike Herrmann analyzes the “self-deception of the middle class”: If you don't belong to us, it's your own fault. Retrieved September 11, 2016 .
- ↑ - Wrong identification with the rich. Retrieved September 11, 2016 .