Abstract
Abstract. The euro crisis has threatened the balance of social structures, through the impoverishment of the middle class, in almost all countries of the Old Continent. This trend has not only posed a threat to social cohesion, but it also threats the very nature of the so-called Western-style Democracy. The reason for this is that there is a class that has always been a "cushion" that absorbs both the vibrations of competition and the confrontation of the social elite with the socially weak, offering the latter the ability to overcome their misery. In most capitalist economies, the middle class label is based on an economic definition that is largely based on a lifestyle that is based on a certain economic robustness and endurance. With the deepening of the crisis, however, the diversity of the middle class not only has it been jeopardized, but rather, it has gradually been replaced by a new demographic category called the prekariat. This new category consists of a group of people once in the middle class and currently marginalized. All of this leads to generalized uncertainty and totally unstable political attitudes, with intense mobility at the extremes. The rapid rise of right and left-wing populism is an aspect of the threatened subjugation of the middle class strata. The consequences for societies when their layered center is lost are obvious and significant.
Keywords. Middle class, Prekariat, Decommissioning of middle class, Elevator effect.
JEL. D60, H53, H75.
References
Binder, J. (2018). Die Zukunftsangst der Mittelschicht - Über die Folgen eines veränderten Arbeitsmarkts. Accessed on 22.05.2018. [Retrieved from].
Bude , H. (2014). Gesellschaft der Angst . Hamburger Edition .
Darvas, Z. (2018). European income inequality begins to fall once again. Accessed on 25.05.2018. [Retrieved from].
Fukuyama, F. (2012). The Future of History. Can Liberal Democracy Survive the Decline of the Middle Class?. Accessed on 20.05.2018. [Retrieved from].
Fukuyama, F. (2017). The angry middle class feeds populism (greek). Accessed on 18.01.2018. [Retrieved from].
Jacques, M. (2015). The death of neoliberalism and the crisis in western politics. Accessed on 16.01.208. [Retrieved from].
Keeley, B. (2015). Income Inequality: The Gap between Rich and Poor, OECD Insights, OECD Publishing, Paris. doi. 10.1787/9789264246010-en
Kochhar, R. (2015). A Global Middle Class Is More Promise than Reality: From 2001 to 2011, Nearly 700 Million Step Out of Poverty, but Most Only Barely. Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, July.
Kowall, N., & Lindner, F. (2017). Right Wing Populism And The Social Question. Accessed on 17/01/2018. [Retrieved from].
Kuznets, S. (1955). Economic growth and income inequality. American Economic Review, 45(1), 1-28.
Lühman, M. (2011). Wohlstandskluft und Spardiktat. Demokratie braucht Umverteilung! (German) Accessed: 18.01.2018. [Retrieved from].
Metz, H. (2008). Geschichte der sozialen Sicherheit. Kohlhammer Stuttgart.
Newman, Κ., & Tan-Chen, V. (2007). The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America, Beacon Press, Boston.
Ntelis, M. 2017. Economic Disparity in Greece of Crisis and Ways of Response (IN Greek) Accessed on 26.05.2018. [Retrieved from].
OECD, (2017). The Issues Note. The only way is up? Social mobility and equal opportunities. Joint OECD-Eurofound Conference. Accessed on 26.05.2018. [Retrieved from].
Offe, C. (2014). Participatory inequality in the austerity state: a supply side approach. Working Paper 1/2014 der DFG-KollegforscherInnengruppe Postwachstumsgesellschaften Jena.
Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the 21st Century. Cambridge, London Harvard University Press.
Savage, M., & Devine, F. (2013). A new model of social class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British class survey experiment. Sociology, 47(2) 219–250.
Searcey, D, Gebeloff, R.2015. Middle Class Shrinks Further as More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up. Accessed on 26.05.2018. [Retrieved from].
Smith, N. (2015). The inconspicuous income limits of the middle class (in Greek). Accessed on 25.05.2018. [Retrieved from].
Standing, G. (2013). Guy Standing: Defining the prekariat. A class in the making. Accessed on 28.05.2018. [Retrieved from].
Standig, G. (2015). The Prekariat and Class Struggle, RCCS Annual Review, doi. 10.4000/rccsar.585
Taylor, J. (2014). Die Mittelschicht kennt keine Demokratie. Accessed on 26.05.2018. [Retrieved from].
Theodoropoulos, T. (2013). The charm of instability. Accessed on 26.05.2018. [Retrieved from].
Tsiros, T. (2017). How the middle class lost 13 billion euros from 2011 (in Greek). Accessed on 25.05.2018. [Retrieved from].
Vacas‑Soriano, C., & Fernández-Macías, E. (2017). Europe’s shrinking middle class. Accessed on 26.05.2018. [Retrieved from].
Vaughan-Whitehead, D., Vazquez-Alvarez, R., & Maitre, N. (2016). Is the world of work behind middle class reshuffling?, In D. Vaughan-Whitehead, R. Vazquez-Alvarez & N. Maitre (Eds), Europe's Disappearing Middle Class?: Evidence from the World of Work.
Wehler, H-U. (2013). Die neue Umverteilung. Soziale Ungleichheit in Deutschland, C.H. Beck.
