Affluence garbage

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The word prosperity garbage as a contemptuous term for people who are unwilling or unable to work, was voted German bad word of the year in 1997. It goes back to the saying of the then Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nestlé , Helmut Maucher :

Our unemployed are paid relatively well. And we know that with prosperity - and that's a harsh word - a certain 'wealth garbage' arises: people who drink, take drugs, have signed off. There is always work for people who really want to work. "

Different meanings

The term “affluent waste” can, however, also be used in a different context and thus has a completely different meaning:

  1. As a term for the overproduction as well as the production of unnecessary and short-lived objects in a consumer society , or
  2. as a criticism of careless consumption and throwing away in a so-called throwaway society .

Individual evidence

  1. Entry as Unwort of the year 1997 on www.unwortdesjahres.net , accessed on March 13, 2014
  2. Quoted from the interview with Helmut Maucher 1996 on Zeit Online , accessed on March 13, 2014