2023-07-12 08:21:00
Middle class – not so long ago that meant the surest promise of salvation in the German social market economy. Even the Socialists had agreed with us, with a giant union that was as tough as it was tame, not to overthrow the production conditions, but to give the workers what previously only the department head, the doctor, the professor was entitled to: a home and a car, studies for the children , some flights in my free time and maybe even a motorcycle in the garage.
Air travel with lots of kerosene, jaunts with lots of gas, comfortably heating the home in a dreary wintry weather and air-conditioning in the sweltering heat of summer – all these little conveniences are already beginning to tumble out of the middle-class shopping basket. And even the frugal striving from renting to home ownership becomes an escape into a trap: on the one hand, when you tighten your belt, you simply don’t get enough building savings money on the high edge – and if you do, then the renovation of heating and uninsulated walls eats everything up again beforehand.
Last growth industry is the envy between the generations. The millennials look with amazement at their uncle or grandfather, who, as a mediocre lecturer at the university, as an inconspicuous civil servant, as a quiet editor for public law or as a not too diligent lawyer or senior church councilor, easily manages to own a home with a garden, a second car and a little house in Tuscany or Mallorca.
#Social #descent #belongs #middle #class #longer