Von der Integration zur sozialen Destabilisierung: Das Sozialmodell der Bundesrepublik und seine Krise

Abstract

After World War II, West German society developed a new model of integration, called „employee society” by the Social Democratic Chancellor Willy Brandt. Economically, this model was possible because small-scale pre-industrial property structures decreased sharply while industrial and office labor became more qualified and better paid. Politically, the model was based on institutional regulation of class interests through collective bargaining and a modernized welfare state. In addition, society underwent important changes where cultural capital and personal autonomy increased (the „knowledge society” and „individualization”). Although the vertical class structure was not abolished, the family trees of labor became more differentiated.
The long period of economic stagnation since 1973 caused the return of mass unemployment and poverty (both around 10 percent), the preservation of discrimination (by gender, ethnicity, age, and milieu), and an enormous increase in discontinuous and precarious life situations in the vast middle ground of skilled blue and white collar employees. Rather than taking these grievances seriously, the political class continues piecemeal neoliberal policies of social destabilization. As a consequence, the majority of the population feels deep distrust against politicians. The conservatives lost power in 1998, but since then the new red-green coalition has lost much of its support because it continued neoliberal policies. However, most critics become non-voters; the potential for right wing populism is at most 25 percent.