New underclass

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New lower class is a controversial political slogan in public opinion that describes the emergence of a population group that has the least money , goods , education and social prestige. What is specifically new about this lower class is seen in the fact that, compared to the proletariat, it is mostly unemployed for several generations.

General

The term “new lower class” originally goes back to Gunnar Myrdal . “New underclass” often overlaps with the term precariat . Both have sociologically different starting points: the “new lower class”, like the “old” lower class (see below), is part of the social class debate , while “precarious” social roles can occur anywhere in the entire social structure (even in the upper class ) B. ruined aristocrats, eternal private lecturers, bankrupt entrepreneurs, artists without commission). One can also assign “new lower class” - despite the use of the “class” term - to the culturalistic class theory .

In his work Generation Reform from 2004, Paul Nolte identifies a cultural division between the “new lower class” and the majority society. Various researchers ( M. Rainer Lepsius , Josef Mooser , Luidgard Trommer-Krug and others) had already discovered the split in lifestyle and inequality research in the 1970s and 80s. In 1980, Jörg Ueltzhöffer and Berthold Flaig summarized this in their model of the social milieus to form the term “workers milieu without tradition”.

As early as the 1960s, the American ethnologist Oscar Lewis spoke of a culture of poverty characterized by the oppression of women, violence against women, a lack of interest in education and a lack of interest in not having wishes come true immediately. However, only a part of the poor belong to this culture.

In his controversial book Neukölln is everywhere , Heinz Buschkowsky takes the view that in addition to the local lower class there is now also a lower class with a migration background and discusses advancement through education as a solution to the problem. Among other things, he discusses language training and an obligation to attend kindergarten and proposes that ALG-2 recipients not receive cash benefits for their children, but instead grant benefits in kind.

People from the lower classes have a life expectancy that is reduced by up to 10 years. Health-endangering working and living conditions as well as individual behavior are predominantly made responsible for this. From the perspective of a doctor, Bernd Kalvelage states in the book Klassenmedizin that the medical care system does not sufficiently take into account the special situation and risk of this population group. It is characterized by a lack of experience of self-efficacy (“a person's confidence based on positive experience that they can mostly manage their affairs successfully”, Bandura 1995). Members of the lower class often fell through or fell short of the healthcare network because, among other things, v. a. Dangers and handicaps (workplace, lack of knowledge and incomprehension of the medical language code, illiteracy, fears) are not taken into account and resources (e.g. better informed, possibly interpreting relatives, to use easy language) are not sought. The “incompliance” that can then be observed (the patient does not do what the doctor prescribes) is often a symptom of disturbed communication between doctor and patient with negative health consequences, a serious quality deficit. This effect is reinforced by an elitist, anti-social attitude, which is implicitly generated during and when choosing to study medicine through a middle-upper class orientation. A change of perspective in medicine is necessary: ​​instead of treatment from above, targeted attention to the neediest, the doctor as a partisan advocate, especially for his patients from the lower classes.

In 2017, Andreas Reckwitz describes a "group that is actually breaking out of the old middle class. One could also speak of the emergence of a new lower class. This is a term that has been around in sociology for a number of years, that is, precarious workers who yes, they are also socially declassed who also feel culturally devalued ".

Debate about the New Lower Class in the USA

According to Wilson (1987), the emergence of the new lower class is due to the loss of jobs for the unskilled and spatial segregation processes . Because the middle class is leaving certain districts, those who remain there lose contact with people and institutions that allow them to participate in the way of life of the majority society. For Wilson, the lower class is a heterogeneous composite group of people who no longer participate in the employment system. Further criteria are the accumulation of disadvantages (welfare state support, infrastructure, lack of education, cultural neglect) and the family reproduction of exclusion. The approach met with criticism because it constructs “a threat to the majority society” and defames the people who belong to the group of the “new lower class”.

Central protagonists of the American debate were Ken Auletta (who published the book The underclass in 1982 ) and Charles Murray (who published Losing Ground in 1984 ). Both claim that there is a proletariat that deliberately sets itself apart from the values ​​of the rest of society and has developed its own value system. According to the authors, this lower class includes drug and alcohol addicts, released prisoners, the mentally ill, the homeless, welfare recipients, truants, illegal immigrants and underage mothers. The underage, colored, single mother in social welfare, the so-called Welfare Queen , became the epitome of the lower class . The lower classes are characterized by shared bad values , which have arisen because the lower classes of the population have been corrupted by excessive government support.

Approaches in the social sciences

Sociological starting point

The sociology defines a layer u. a. according to income and social status of social groups that have the following in common:

  • a significant quantity,
  • an ongoing social situation
  • Passing on to their offspring (“social inheritance”) - but social advancement and descent from it are not excluded.

In this context, the “lower class” comprised small farmers , servants , workers , simple employees , seamen, servants and the like. a. together - often also divided into "lower" and "upper lower class". (→ Proletariat and working class ) Occasionally the “socially despised ” ( Harriett B. Moore ) or the “ lumpenproletariat ” were placed under the lower class .

The ongoing German discourse (e.g. Paul Nolte and Heinz Bude ) has also taken up questions from the USA.

Interpretative polling

According to the study “Society in the Reform Process” by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation based on data from TNS Infratest  - actually about SPD voter potential - eight percent of those eligible to vote in Germany belong to the so-called “suspended precariat ”. Frank Karl from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation emphasized that the term “new lower class” was missing in the study. The term 'new lower class' as a synonym for 'suspended precariat' was first used by Bild am Sonntag .

The criminologist Christian Pfeiffer named many young people in particular as disproportionately underprivileged. He told the Berliner Tagesspiegel that 10 to 15 percent of those under the age of 18 belonged to the category because they had little education and saw no opportunities for advancement. Pfeiffer made the current school system in Germany jointly responsible for the misery . Pfeiffer sees media neglect as a further reason for a lack of educational advancement opportunities. Children from educationally disadvantaged families are more likely to have their own television, PC and game consoles than children from educationally related families. However, this would lead to failure at school, according to Pfeiffer in his study The PISA Losers - Victims of Media Consumption .

As Napp-Peters also reports, on the one hand, some parents of the lower class have hardly any career aspirations or training plans for their children:

"In the process, powerlessness and hopelessness are transferred directly to the children as the parents 'attitudes and - as we were able to determine when we asked about the children's success in school and career aspirations - this resigned attitude is also expressed indirectly in the parents' low expectations of their children's performance and motivation. Less than 20% of deprived parents compared to around 65% of all parents of school children want their children to graduate from secondary school. […] Only 10% compared to 45% have regular contact with their children's teachers, and deprived parents did not mention career aspirations or vocational training plans for their children. "

- Anneke Napp-Peters : Social pedagogical family aid in the Federal Republic of Germany - Poverty as exclusion: "They have nothing - they don't bring anything"

On the other hand, surveys such as the most recent parent survey by the Dortmund Institute for School Development Research and the long-term study by the Arbeiterwohlfahrt come to the result:

“ Parents' educational aspirations have risen sharply over the past 20 years. This is shown not least by the surveys by the Institute for School Development Research (IFS, 2004). In the meantime, 45% of all primary school parents surveyed across Germany would like their child to complete their school career with the Abitur; only 8% can imagine a secondary school leaving certificate for their child. The educational aspirations of parents from less educated classes have risen particularly sharply. "

- Fehrenbach / Zöller / Roos / Schöler : Parents' educational aspiration and parental satisfaction with school performance at the end of third grade

Further empirical studies through parent surveys came to similar conclusions.

Demographics of the political debate

Even before individual statements as to whether the “wrong” have children in Germany, Christoph Butterwegge and Eva Barlösius spoke of a “ biologization ” and “ demographization ” of the social, which would lead to a “locational nationalism” associated with social Darwinian thinking.

Wilhelm Heitmeyer , referring to his own studies of group-related enmity, emphasizes that people are increasingly being evaluated according to their economic usefulness. This leads in particular to a devaluation of the unemployed :

“We can prove that the middle class has been terrified since Hartz IV was introduced. This leads to the fact that fellow human beings are valued primarily according to their usefulness and thus also devalued. Authoritarian capitalism has managed to impose its exploitation criteria without resistance from society as a whole. "

Albrecht von Lucke describes this devaluation of the lower class as “propaganda of inequality” and explicitly mentions Thilo Sarrazin and Peter Sloterdijk .

Thilo Sarrazin said in an interview:

“There is also the problem that forty percent of all births take place in the lower class. (...) So that the level in the schools continuously decreases instead of increasing. […] We have 40 percent lower class births in Berlin, and they fill schools and classes, including many children of single parents. We have to completely change our family policy: away from transfer payments, especially among the lower classes. "

- Thilo Sarrazin

The political scientist Hajo Funke accused Sarrazin of racism and social Darwinism. Cem Özdemir also described Sarrazin's worldview as social Darwinist. The Zeit journalist Christian Staas feels reminded by Sarrazin's remarks of racial biology writings and claims that Sarrazin is pleading for a eugenic project.

Peter Sloterdijk defended Sarrazin's theses in the “Manifesto” Awakening of the Achievers - Remarks Diagnostic of the Time and called for Gunnar Heinsohn to be read.

In November 2009, Gunnar Heinsohn called for a reduction in “lower-class births” and criticized the unemployed receiving parental allowance. In March 2010, he advised limiting social assistance to five years, referring to the positive effects in his opinion of a change in American social assistance policy during Bill Clinton's tenure . In particular, this could reduce the number of children in the lower class who are “not capable of training”. The Bremen Chamber of Labor strongly criticized him for this and accused him of social Darwinism. Friedhelm Grützner, domestic and legal policy spokesman for the Bremen Left , also made this accusation . He claims that Heinsohn's thoughts revolve around the continued existence of the German people and the quality of their gene pool. As a consequence, Heinsohn's argument leads to state-regulated birth control through forced sterilization and forced abortion .

The elite researcher Michael Hartmann states a "radicalization of the elites that has never been seen before in the history of the Federal Republic " , who have increasingly lost "contact with other realities of life" .

The new lower class in public opinion

The new lower class appears in the media as criminal, dirty, dangerous, anti-social, neglected and chaotic. They used words like the word "social welfare nobility", which goes back to the scientific director of the Institute for Urban Studies, Rolf-Peter-Löhr - he defined:

“In the problem areas you can feel what kind of culture of dependence the welfare state has created. There some people are already living in the third generation on social welfare - there is social welfare nobility - they no longer know what it is like: get up in the morning, shave, dress sensibly and drive to work. "

-

Magazines such as Der Stern , Die Zeit , Geo and Der Spiegel portrayed the new lower class in individual fates as neglected, violent and with many children - but without relying on sociological analyzes or statistics. Social researcher Fabian Kessl sees the "new lower class" as a construct of the mass media and describes the reporting as "media dramatization".

Other characteristics attributed to the new lower class by the mass media are irresponsible sexuality and a lack of middle class values . This alleged deficiency is partly seen as a reason for belonging to the lower class:

“Teenagers who become pregnant belong to the 'underclass' […] [as well as] school failures, people who factor in welfare services, those who show an extreme focus on the present but are not willing to take on duties, pursue educational aspirations or work. The allocation to the 'underclass' is based on what one could call a 'social profile'. "

- Karl August Chasse : Lower classes in Germany. Materials for a Critical Debate

Indiscipline and inability to adapt are also mentioned. In Stern, for example, the chairman of a rowing club is quoted as saying “I am increasingly convinced that today's lower class can no longer row”. The magazine then comes to the analysis:

“ The surprising diagnosis of the club chairman explains more about the division in society than some sociological study. Nobody is allowed to step out of line when rowing. If only one in the eight disrupts the rhythm of the community, all eight fall into the water. When rowing, everyone has to submit to one hundred percent. […] Discipline, reliability, consistency, a sense of duty - the much vilified secondary virtues do not only decide whether someone is a good athlete. [...] Often they divide who lives on which side of the great rift, who is up and who is down. Those who can row do not belong to the lower class. "

- quoted in Karl August Chasse : Lower classes in Germany. Materials for a Critical Debate

In addition, the “new proletariat” is differentiated from the “old worker”. So writes Der Spiegel :

“The proletariat of today has more money than the worker of past generations and if he has developed a certain skill in tapping the welfare state, he has a household income that can keep up with that of patrolmen, warehouse workers and taxi drivers. It is not material poverty that sets him apart. The symptoms of mental neglect are conspicuous [...] He has no education, but he also does not strive towards it. In contrast to the proletariat of the early industrial age, who organized themselves in workers 'associations, which were also often workers' education associations, it seems as if the modern member of the lower class has written off himself. Even for its children, it does not go to great lengths to push open the door to the future. Your language education is as bad as your ability to concentrate. Illiteracy grows at the same rate as the chances of integrating the declassed decrease. The Americans speak of ' white trash ' with their own directness . "

- quoted in Karl August Chasse : Lower classes in Germany. Materials for a Critical Debate

Karl August Chasse criticized the media discourse for the fact that the media used individual scientists in a seemingly serious manner only as a keyword (according to Rolf-Peter Löhr's “Sozialhilfeadel”). However, scientific connections would be misrepresented. A Stern article refers to the sociologist Andreas Mielck, who found a connection between social class and state of health. However, the fact that Mielck developed a theory of discrimination against the lower class that could explain his findings in a significantly different way is suppressed.

See also

literature

  • Claudio Altenhain / Anja Danilina / Erik Hildebrandt / Stefan Kausch / Annekathrin Müller / Tobias Roscher (eds.): From »New Lower Class « and Prekariat , Transcript, Bielefeld 2008
  • Heinz Bude , The excluded. The end of the dream of a just society , Munich 2008
  • Karl August Chasse, lower classes in Germany. Materials for a critical debate , Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2010
  • Fabian Kessl: “The real misery? On the speech of the 'new lower class' ”, in: contradictions - magazine for socialist politics in the education, health and social sectors , issue 98, December 2005
  • Fabian Kessl / Christian Reutlinger / Holger Ziegler (eds.): “ Education for poverty? Social work and the 'new lower class' ”. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-15389-6
  • Alex Klein / Sandra Landhäußer / Holger Ziegler: "The Salient Injuries of Class: On the Critique of the Culturalization of Structural Inequality", in: contradictions - journal for socialist politics in the education, health and social sector , issue 98, December 2005
  • Paul Nolte : Generation Reform. Beyond the blocked republic , Bonn 2004
  • PROKLA 160: Kulturkampf, Volume 40, No. 3, September 2010
  • Bernd Kalvelage, class medicine. Plea for a social reformation of the healing arts, Springer 2014

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Myrdal, Gunnar (1963). Challenge to Affluence. New York, NY: Random House. P. 10
  2. ^ Paul Nolte: Generation Reform. Beyond the blocked republic , Bonn 2004
  3. ^ Lewis, Oscar (1996 (1966)). "The Culture of Poverty". In G. Gmelch and W. Zenner, eds. Urban life. Waveland Press.
  4. ↑ Neukölln is everywhere . Ullstein Buchverlage, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-550-08011-1
  5. ↑ Andreas Reckwitz: "The Society of Singularities" - "Digitization leads to the general public being eroded". Retrieved on May 29, 2019 (German).
  6. ^ Karl August Chasse, Lower Classes in Germany. Materials for a critical debate , Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2010, p. 163/164
  7. ↑ Fabian Kessl: The real misery? On the talk of the “new lower class” , in: contradictions. Volume 25, issue 98, 2005
  8. ^ So Karl August Chasse, Lower Classes in Germany. Materials for a critical debate , Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 161/162
  9. ↑ http://www.taz.de/1/archiv/archiv/?dig=2006/10/18/a0124
  10. ↑ Christian Pfeiffer u. a., The PISA Losers - Victims of Media Consumption , KFN Hannover. Also available online here ( Memento of the original dated June 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 147 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kfn.de
  11. ↑ Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth: Socio-educational family support in the Federal Republic of Germany - poverty as exclusion: “They have nothing - they don't bring anything” was also available online on February 11, 2008 ( Memento des original from March 23, 2008 in Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bmfsfj.de
  12. ↑ Carmen Fehrenbach / Isabelle Zöller / Jeanette Roos / Hermann Schöler, Pedagogical University, Heidelberg 2005: Parents' educational aspirations and parental satisfaction with school performance at the end of the third grade - ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: Der Archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ph-heidelberg.de
  13. ↑ See Wolfgang Mack / Erich Raab / Hermann Rademacker, Schule, Bezirk, Lebenswelt - an empirical study , DJI series, Leske + Budrich, Opladen, p. 133.
  14. ↑ FDP politician Daniel Bahr on family policy ("In Germany, the wrong people get the children"; on www.das-netzbuch.de)
  15. ↑ Christoph Butterwegge: Biologization and ethnicization of the social in the demographic discourse of the Federal Republic, in: José Brunner (Hrsg.): Demographie - Demokratie - Geschichte. Germany and Israel (Tel Aviver Yearbook for German History XXXV), Göttingen 2007, pp. 330–350, at Google books
  16. ↑ Butterwege believes that the “preservation of German genetic material” is the real motive for “biologization”. There is also a national component in the German discourse on demography. It reminds him of eugenic debates in the Weimar Republic shortly before 1933. See Björn Schwentker: Extinction canceled. Germany discovered demography - and with it the demographic catastrophe. Many researchers do not see any cause for alarm , DIE ZEIT from June 9, 2008
  17. ^ Eva Barlösius, Daniela Schiek: Demographization of the social. Analyzes and debates on the demographic future of Germany , Wiesbaden 2007, at Google books
  18. ↑ Christoph Butterwegge: Neoliberalism and locational nationalism - a threat to democracy?
  19. ^ Markus Grill: Capitalism. 'Angry apathy' , interview with Wilhelm Heitmeyer, SPIEGEL No. 14, April 3, 2010
  20. ↑ Albrecht von Lucke: Propaganda of inequality. Sarrazin, Sloterdijk and the “new bourgeois coalition” , published in: Blätter für German and international politics , Dec. 2009, pp. 55–63, on a website of the Blätter für German and international politics
  21. ↑ http://www.sozialarbeit.fh-dortmund.de/berger/aktuelles/200910/pol%20will/fr%20sarazin%20im%20wortlaut.pdf  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was created automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.sozialarbeit.fh-dortmund.de  
  22. ↑ "In my opinion, Sarrazin's statements are both social Darwinist and racist. [...] He also denies the ethnic German lower class that they can develop socially. This contradicts the political line of the SPD. But above all it is an abysmal, Social Darwinist contempt of Germans, Arabs and Turks at the same time. ” “ That is downright grotesque ”The political scientist Funke on Sarrazin's non-exclusion from the SPD die tageszeitung, March 17, 2010.
  23. ↑ Berlin's SPD settles accounts with Sarrazin , Tagesspiegel, October 11, 2009.
  24. ↑ Christian Staas: Chic wasteland city , in: Online, October 28 of 2009.
  25. ↑ Peter Sloterdijk: Awakening of the top performers - time diagnostic remarks , in Cicero , November 2009.
  26. ↑ Gunnar Heinsohn: Elterngeld - reproductive premium for the lower class. In: The world . November 3, 2009, accessed September 12, 2014 .
  27. ↑ Gunnar Heinsohn: Limit social assistance to five years. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . March 16, 2010, accessed November 30, 2014 .
  28. ^ Open letter from the Bremen Chamber of Labor from March 19, 2010 .
  29. ↑ Friedhelm Grützner: “Gunnar Heinsohn and the“ Aufartung ”of the German people” , Nachdenkseiten , March 25, 2010.
  30. ↑ Michael Hartmann: Germany's elites have radicalized , Zeit online, April 6, 2010.
  31. ↑ [1]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Fabian Kessl: social space as a case . [in: Thole, Werner / Galuske, Michael (ed.): Vom Fall zum Management , Wiesbaden 2006]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed January 13, 2008@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.uni-bielefeld.de  @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.uni-bielefeld.de  
  32. ↑ Fabian Kessl: The real misery? Talking about the new lower class . In: contradictions . 25.Jg, Heft 98, 2005 ( Memento of the original from November 9th, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed January 13, 2008 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-bielefeld.de
  33. ^ Karl August Chasse: Lower classes in Germany. Materials for a critical debate , Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2010, p. 31
  34. ↑ p. 34
  35. ↑ Chasse - p. 29.
  36. ↑ Cahsse - p. 21
  37. ↑ Chasse - p. 24f.