1. The Middle-Class Norm and Responsible Consumption in China’s Risk Society

We live, as some theorists put it, in a 'risk society'. Risks are diverse and new forms are constantly arising. There is an 'over-production' of risk. We face the brittle uncertainties of individual self-management, as Beck sees it, alone and 'fragmented across (life) phases, space and time' (1997, p. 26). This is a bleak and elemental social world. This paper takes a rather different view of risk, as having both collective and divisive dynamics and effects. It offers not so much an alternative view as one that is re-socialised. Focusing on middle class families and the 'risks' of school choice some key features of the 'prudentialist' risk management regime extant in the UK are examined. That is, those 'definite social exertions' that middle class families must make on their own part or face the very real prospect of generational decline are considered. Risks are perceived to arise from the engagements between the family and the education marketplace, and are embedded in the paradox wherein society becomes structurally more meritocratic but processually less so, as the middle class work harder to maintain their advantages in the new conditions of choice and competition in education. The paper is peppered with extracts from interviews with middle-class parents. These serve for illustration and discussion.

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Das Verbraucherinsolvenzverfahren: Integration zeigt alte und neue Muster sozialer Ungleichheit in der Risikogesellschaft / The consumer insolvency process: integration highlights old and new patterns of social inequality in risk society

Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie ◽

10.1515/zfrs-2010-0105 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Götz Lechner

Keyword(s):

Middle Class ◽

Social Inequality ◽

Cultural Change ◽

Process Integration ◽

Risk Society ◽

Class Structure ◽

Private Households ◽

Scientific Analysis ◽

Societal Problem ◽

The Status

SummaryWith the implementation of the German Insolvency Statute in 1999, private households were given the legal right to file for bankruptcy. Prior to this, financially destitute households were trapped on the edge of socioeconomic marginality for life. Most published reports about insolvency in Germany have regarded overindebtedness as the particular problem of the underclass and caused by a persistent lack of resources. With the cultural change of the 1980s, the scientific analysis of social inequality in Germany emphasized the existence of horizontal social inequality “beyond classes” (Beck) due to the process of individualization.Given that “unemployment”, “divorce/separation” and “loss of direction” are cited as the main reasons for overindebtedness, the German Insolvency Statute would appear to provide a solution for a societal problem that extends beyond class boundaries, particularly if the underclass were adequately represented in the number of successful bankruptcy claims. However, the well-known phenomenon of differential “access to the law” arises here. Middle-class children, who previously failed to complete higher education or even maintain the status of their fathers are highly overrepresented in bankruptcy cases. In providing a cure for middle-class problems, the private bankruptcy process demonstrates the persistence of class structure in today’s Germany.

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Postmodern Japan Middle Class Related Mythology and Nostalgia

Slovak Journal of Political Sciences ◽

10.2478/sjps-2013-0004 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Maya Keliyan

Keyword(s):

Middle Class ◽

Nuclear Power ◽

Social Inequalities ◽

Poor Country ◽

Plant Safety ◽

Class Society ◽

Responsible Consumption ◽

Two Generations ◽

The Media ◽

Nuclear Crisis

Abstract The paper explores the transformations of middle class mythology in contemporary Japan, studying phenomena, connected to the objective and subjective middle class identification. After 1970s, when the share of people self-identified with the middle class reached 90% Japanese identity has been shaped around the sense of “all nation belonging to the middle class”. The economic prosperity after World War Two and the fact that within two generations Japan turned from a poor country into a rich society, provide the foundations of the myth of “a middle class society”, zealously maintained by political parties and the media. Since the end of the 1990s, the issue of growing economic inequality is becoming a topic of intense discussion. During this period Japanese society underwent recessions and crises followed by periods of revival; as a result Japan changed its direction from the lavish lifestyle of the 1980s to growing sense of deepening social inequalities. These transformations brought about the popularity of a new myth, this time about melting and even vanishing middle class, and nostalgic reminiscences of “happy late 1970s and 1980s” when supposedly Japanese people used to live in better society. The March 11, 2011 natural disasters and the ensuing nuclear crisis in Japan have destroyed another myth - that of prime importance of consumers` comfort, and of nuclear power plant safety. The ecologically and environmentally responsible consumption and lifestyle are an important resource for achieving vitally important task of revitalizing our-day Japan

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