Two-thirds society

The term two-thirds society (also: two -thirds society ) is a political and journalistic catchphrase that has been used in connection with the discussion about the “new poverty” or the new lower class in Germany since the 1980s.

It points to a development in postmodern society in which the proportion of long-term unemployed and permanently underemployed is increasing despite the arithmetical overall prosperity and economic growth of an economy . Around two thirds of the population who benefit from secure employment are compared to a third unemployed without gainful employment who are currently or in the future falling below the poverty line . A new social underclass is thus forming, including a so-called precariat .

It is said that the term was introduced into the discussion by the SPD politician Peter Glotz . Glotz outlined the term in his book: “Die Arbeit der Tempering” from 1984 as follows: “[...] a society that lives with high unemployment, that tolerates new poverty, materially secures the core of the workers, but marginal groups incapable of conflict excludes. "

As early as the mid-1990s, doubts were expressed about the concept of the two-thirds society. In connection with the increasingly discussed globalization , people have since spoken of the “one-fifth society” or the “20-to-80 society”.

For the cultural sociologist Andreas Reckwitz , the late modern society of singularities has been a three-thirds society since the 1970s : the upper third, the new middle class rises through the educational expansion, a new lower class forms the lower third, with the old middle class in between.

See also

• Tittytainment

Web links

• Keyword two-thirds society in the lexicon of the Federal Agency for Civic Education , source: Schubert, Klaus / Martina Klein: Das Politiklexikon. 4th, updated Bonn: Dietz 2006.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Andrea Seibel. Voices that you miss: Peter Glotz . welt.de. March 23, 2010. Retrieved January 9, 2011: "He was the inventor of the term two-thirds society so as not to have to say lower class."
2. ↑ Glotz, Peter: The work of the escalation. About the organization of a left capable of government. Berlin: Siedler 1984, p. 109.
3. ↑ Harald Schumann and Hans-Peter Martin. The globalization trap. The attack on democracy and prosperity . 1996. p. 9 ff., 14: “The two-thirds society that Europeans have been afraid of since the 1980s is no longer describing the future distribution of wealth and social position. The world model of the future follows the formula 20 to 80. The one-fifth society is moving up ... "
4. ↑ Middle class: We are unique . In: ZEIT ONLINE . ( zeit.de [accessed on August 2, 2018]).