Presentation of Steffen Mau at the Herrenhausen Conference 'Re-Thinking Social Inequality' 2014

1. 46
Inequality, Democracy and the Middle
Classes
Steffen Mau
University of Bremen
Re-Thinking Social Inequality
Herrenhausen Conference, Hanover, May 12-14

2.  Lipset (1959): „Some Social Requisites of
Democracy: Economic development and political
legitimacy”  changes in stratification system
(increases in education, from pyramid to diamond
shaped social structure)
 Demand for democracy
 Pro-redistributive bias  Lowering of inequality
Economic
development
Increase of
middle class /
urban working
class
(Lipset 1959, Rueschemeyer
et al. 1992)
Demo-
cratization
Redistribution
Lower
Inequality

3.  Institutionalization of the welfare state:
Power-resource theory, modernization theory
 Democratization fosters welfare state
development
 Beneficial Involvement of the middle classes
(Goodin/LeGrand 1987)
Burkhardt et al. 2012

4. Burkhardt et al. 2012
Middle income range (29 European
countries)

5. The Return of Inequality
 Great U-Turn
 Major studies: “Growing Unequal” (OECD,
2008) and “Divided We Stand” (OECD, 2011)
AT
BE
BG
CY
CZ
DE
DK
EE ES
FI
FR
GR
HU
IE
IS
IT
LT
LU
LV
MT
NL
NO
PL
PT
RO
SE
SI
SK
UK
y = -179,23x + 109,92
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
0,20 0,22 0,24 0,26 0,28 0,30 0,32 0,34 0,36 0,38 0,40
Shareofthemiddleincomegroup(in%)
Gini

6. The Return of Inequality
 Great U-Turn
 Major studies: “Growing Unequal” (OECD, 2008)
and “Divided We Stand” (OECD, 2011)
 Piketty (2014): Capital trumps income
 On average, capital income and inherited wealth
dominates income/wealth from a lifetime's labour
by a wide margin
 Rich leave middle classes behind

7. Why did the elective affinity between
democracy and redistribution weaken?
 Post-democracy-thesis
 Wealth-defense industry of the rich
 Low-voter turnout at the lower end
 The larger the inequality the greater the
electoral dropout of the lower classes
 Indebted states and low political
responsiveness

8. Why did the middle classes accept
growing inequalities?
 Naturalization of inequality
 Collective “elevator effect” and changes in
preferences
 “Unenlightened Self-interest” (Bartels 2006)

9. The Global Middle Classes and the
Quest for Social Policy
 Emerging middle classes?
 Poverty alleviation or welfare state building
 The new middle classes as political actors?
 Market an democracy, self-interest and
political participation