Great Expectations
Germany’s Petite Bourgeoisie
For the past few years, Germany’s petty bourgeoisie or middle class has been losing confidence in society, politics, and capitalism.
They are increasingly at odds with the democratic parties they have trusted so far and which they have elected regularly in various constellations in past decades.
This applies to what a recent study identifies as two different sub-groups within Germany’s middle class:
Traditionalists:
The first group is the “nostalgic-bourgeois milieu”. These are those who hang on to a conservative and traditional worldview. Members of this group strive for a high degree of economic security and social harmony. Traditionalists have a desire for secure socio-economic conditions. They tend to stick to traditional rules while longing for the so-called “good old days”—even though this may be no more than a romantic hallucination.
Modernizers:
The second group is composed of those in the “adaptive-pragmatic milieu” of the German middle class. They are younger and have a more modern outlook. Modernizers tend to be furnished with a relatively high level of education. This section of Germany’s middle class tends to be innovative, performance-oriented, and displays a willingness to adopt to ever-changing socio-economic conditions.
Interestingly, only one in four—just 26% of people—in the nostalgic bourgeois milieu and only one in two or about 50% in the adaptive-pragmatic milieu are optimistic about the future. Worse, there has been a 20% overall decline in confidence in the future since 2022.
This decline in being confident about the future among Germany’s middle class is twice as high as in Germany’s average population. More than other Germans, this section of the German population—the middle class—fears what the future will bring.
Germany’s democratic parties are losing support in both sub-milieus of Germany’s center—the traditionalists and the modernizers. This impacts on the current governing coalition or what is called the “traffic-light-coalition”.
Currently in government, the traffic-light-coalition consists of three political parties representing the three colors of a traffic light:
the social-democratic SPD (red);
the neoliberal FDP (yellow); and,
the environmentalist The Greens (green).
Surprisingly, the decline of support for Germany’s governing coalition did not lead to an upswing for the democratic opposition, the conservative CDU. Because German conservatives are stagnating in public polling, the CDU fails to benefit from the overall decline in support for the government.
Germany’s conservative CDU only gained a meagre 7% from the traditionalist cohort of the middle class. And from the pragmatic group, it got even less support—just 3%. In other words, the decline of support for Germany’s governing “traffic-light-coalition” did not result in an advantage for Germany’s conservatives.
Beyond all that, the overall decline in support for the government and in its democratic institutions, and even an erosion of support for its democratic opposition is in line with a global trend, a worldwide decline in democracy.
At the same time, almost three quarters—a whopping 73%—of all Germans are convinced that it is better for the government to borrow money today in order to invest in the future, and the middle class agrees with this. This is a rather robust rejection of fiscal tightening and austerity.
More than two-thirds of people in the middle class also see it that way. Both—the average German and members of the middle class—support more investment in schools, infrastructure, and climate protection.
State support, in turn, would strengthen the confidence of the center, i.e. the middle class and would strengthen the overall support for democracy.
The middle class has long been a stabilizing element of West Germany’s post-Nazi society. However, this seems to be changing. Once ready to embrace democratic and economic change, today’s middle class seems to be more unsettled and worried.
Among other things, they are unsettled by the frequent crises of capitalism. The recently noticed shift from confidence to trepidation has only been increasing.
While it has been getting a lot of public attention in Germany’s media recently, the decline in confidence has been a longer-term development that has very clearly emerged over the last twenty years.
The once overtly self-confident petty bourgeoisie of the mid-2000s was characterized by an acceptance of a somewhat fictional belief in the “normality” of economic growth.
In short, the petty bourgeoisie fell for the neoliberal promise of eternal growth—a factual impossibility given that earth’s resources are not unlimited.
Once hooked on the glittery promises of neoliberal capitalism pushed by media capitalism, an awareness has increasingly begun to sink in that other—non-economic—values are rising in the consciousness of many people inside as well as outside of the middle class.
These values might be called “post-material values”. They are, for example, ecology, emancipation, interculturality, and so on. This shift in values—linked to an increased awareness of the false promises of neoliberalism—put pressure on the fabricated “certainties” of Germany’s middle class.
Since about 2015, these pressures have slowly led to a new development within Germany’s middle class. It has resulted in an ever more marked differentiation of the middle class into a traditional and nostalgic petit-bourgeois section and an adaptive, modernistic, and pragmatic section.
Despite the split, there are also elements that unite them. One thing is that both technically remain part of the working class because members in both groups are forced to sell their labor to make a living. Both parts also remain united in their quest for social harmony, predictability, job security, and economic prosperity.
Meanwhile, the traditional-nostalgic petty bourgeoisie part feels under pressure due to the constant demand for change caused by, for example, digitization, an ever more diverse society, and how to deal with global warming.
The traditionalists seem to follow the motto: “If something has to change, then only so that everything remains as it is.” The middle class is challenged by:
the lack of innovation,
the lagging behind in digitization,
the ever-increasing level of bureaucracy,
the escalating exposure to global competition that challenges its quasi-religious credence that “competition is good”, and
the shortage of skilled workers that impacts Germany’s labor market and businesses.
All this is making life difficult, if not precarious, for the middle class. Unlike the traditionalists, the modernizing and adaptive-pragmatic part of the middle class remains more optimistic about the future.
Their ambitions towards modernization are, however, challenged by an aging post-war infrastructure in urgent need of repair. More worryingly, their belief in eternal growth is being challenged by a flattening economic growth. The deceitful promises of capitalism are slowly catching up with Germany’s petty bourgeoisie.
Optimism about the future of capitalism and eternal economic growth has decreased by a gigantic 20% within just two years and it has done so in both parts of the shrinking middle class.
This is striking but not at all surprising. Much worse than these findings is that the declining optimism has been accompanied by a growing openness to right-wing populist propaganda.
Still worse, far-right propaganda is constantly seeping through into both of the parts.
Paradoxically, the current overall satisfaction with life in general in the middle classes has remained rather high. This is counteracted by the fact that many people in the middle class see their immediate future as deeply clouded. This also impacts on politics.
When taken together, Germany’s democratic parties used to receive a whopping 75% of the electoral vote. Until a few years ago, the neofascist AfD was far behind with only 10% to 12%. The pragmatic center of Germany’s middle class used to remain firmly in the hands of Germany’s democratic parties.
This changed in 2023 and 2024. On the famous Sunday-Question about federal elections: “Who would you vote for if next Sunday where election day?”, support for the three-party traffic light coalition had almost halved by the end of February 2024. But by late April 2024, the coalition had regained some ground.
One of the more recent polls showed: conservative CDU 30%; social-democratic SPD 15%; environmental The Greens 13%; neoliberal FDP 5%; socialist Die Linke 4%; BSW 7%; and the neofascist AfD 18%. In other words, Germany’s traffic-light coalition would receive 58% in mid-April 2024—still a governing majority.
Nevertheless, the fact that the neo-Nazi AfD remains at 18% is worrying—and that is despite massive rallies against the AfD for the past few months. The impact of the roughly 1700 anti-far-right rallies with between 3.7 and 4.9 million people on the public polling of the AfD does not seem to have been that great.
Both political parties, the AfD and BSW, seem to have taken over the mood of large sections of the nostalgic middle class. If combined, they would have 25% of voter support, with 18% coming from the neofascist AfD and 7% coming from the BSW. This used to be the political space traditionally occupied by the conservative CDU.
The CDU’s strategy of imitating the AfD’s racist dogwhistle politics does not seem to be paying off. Things have been made even worse through their strategy of confrontation. Instead of conversation that leads to compromise, confrontation blocks any fruitful talk about the central issues of German domestic, economic and social policy.
Because of this strategy, the conservatives have, so far, failed to achieve their goal of moving the CDU back into the 40-plus percentage region of voter support which they once had under Kohl and Merkel.
The conservatives have not been able to benefit from the erosion of support for the traffic light coalition. The CDU’s strategy does not seem to be able to break the 30% glass ceiling barrier.
Also, overall, the democratic parties of the traffic-light-coalition do not currently appear to be able to show a sufficient problem-solving ability—at least as presented in the media, which leans mostly neoliberal and further to the right than the general population.
In the end, the mood inside Germany’s middle class remains miserable. The traditionalists, especially, are looking less and less optimistically into the future. Their loss of confidence shapes the social mood, and this is transferred to the wider milieu of the entire middle class.
At the same time, middle class support for Germany’s democratic center is waning, although still managing to remain above the 50% threshold.
Unfortunately, there is a resurgence of polarization and social conflicts in Germany. This, together with the developments outlined above, has led to a strengthening of right-wing populism that increasingly shapes polls and has the potential to impact election results.
The shift to the right might come to the forefront in the upcoming European parliament election and, later in the year, in three state elections in the former East-Germany. The neofascist AfD leads in the polls in Saxony with 31.3%; in Thuringia with 30%; and in Brandenburg with 26.2%.
Unlike the staunchly neoliberal economic policy of the AfD—one of Germany’s most reputable economic research institutes called it “vote AfD and lose”—Germany’s middle class, just like the vast majority of all people in Germany, do not want neoliberalism nor do they want austerity.
They want the exact opposite, namely more investment in the important areas of life, a better functioning infrastructure, better schools and hospitals.
State investment—not austerity, neoliberalism, and the free market—will, so Germany’s middle class believes, foster a better life and that, in turn, will nurture the resilience of democracy.
Overall, Germany’s middle class has remained—more or less—resistant to the lure of right-wing populism. Yet the AfD has made some inroads into Germany’s middle class, mostly into the nostalgic traditionalist sector. Fortunately, these inroads are nowhere close to the inroads Hitler’s Nazi made in 1933.