Baker, Hildebrandt, Dalton (1983) Germany Transformed

Den här boken om förändringar i Tysklands politiska kultur (med fokus på vad som händer ute i samhället snarare än på det politiska livets toppnivå) är nog det tydligaste exempel man kan hitta på idén om medelklassen som "särskilt rörlig". I kapitel sju resonerar de om röstning och klasstruktur i Tyskland från femtiotalet och framåt. De konstaterar att yrke, utbildning och inkomst fungerar allt sämre som prediktorer av partival. Sedan resonerar de om olika förklaringar till detta.

s. 171: "One explanation is suggested by the embourgeoisement theory of working-class voting. The dramatically increasing rate of prosperity associated with the Wirtschaftswunder has been shown to produce an increasing overlap in the incomes and life-styles of people in middle-class and working-class occupations. As already mentioned, the CDU/CSU-led governments encouraged several programs to stimulate this process, including subsidized savings pland and the sale of Volkswagen and other state-owned corporation stock to low-income families. A narrowing of class voting differences may have accompanioned this narrowing of objective class differences, if the affluent sector of the working class has assumed the values of its middle class life-style.
Although this hypothesis seems plausible, there is little support for it in the data. The decline in class voting is not a result of the movement of the working class toward the conservative party. Over time, workers are actually voting somewhat more for the Social Democrats. Moreover, even within the working class voting differences are narrowing because of a general movement toward the SPD by all workers. Rather, the middle-class movement toward the SPD is narrowing the gap between the classes. The process of change appears to be centered within the middle class, not within the working class.
An alternative explanation for the decline in class voting is the changing character of the middle class. The most notable aspect of this development is the rise of the so-called new middle class, consisting primarily of civil servants (Beamte) and salaried white-collar employees (Angestellte). This shift has been said to characterize the postindustrial society: a shift of manpower from industrial and agrarian occupations  into the tertiary sector.This change in occupations stimulates a change in outlook. While experience in the industrial sector leads individuals to emphasize efficient production and material achievement, those in the tertiary sector are less production-oriented and less concerned with material outputs. And it is within the tertiary sector that the new middle class is mostly concentrated.
During the postwar years the German new middle class has doubled in size, while farmers and the old middle class of professionals and self-employed have decreased substantially. The crucial factor making the new middle class so important in the present context is its lack of a previous assigment within the traditional bourgeois-proletarian class structure. The separation of management from capital has created a social stratum that neither owns nor produces capital. Consequently, the new middle class finds itself with a postion in the social structure ans a life-style that places it between the working class and the old middle class. As a result, its loyalties are divided between these other two social strata, and its votes are split between parties of the left and right. Thus, as the size of the group grows, its ambiguous voting behavior regarding social status lines may lessen the overall importance of the class dimension of political cleavage."

Här skiljs det mellan tjänstemän i staten och kontorister (typ). Först avfärdar de tesen om förborgerligande (att arbetarklassen skulle ha fått en mer borgerlig livsstil - i själva verket röstar de (s) i något högre grad nu). De tror mer på skapandet av en ny medelklass, som inte är kapitalägande (Beamten och Angestellten). Förutom att inte äga kapital sägs också de som jobbar i "the tertiary sector" vara mindre materiellt inriktade (varför det nu skulle vara så).

s. 174: "The consequences of the rise of the new middle class are not restricted to that class alone. Political elites vying for the attention and support of the new middle class emphasize issues that are not within the realm of traditional cleavage politics - much as the SPD has done since inaugurating the Godesberg program. This, in turn, lessens the usefulness of traditional cleavage cues for the political orientation of other groups and further accelerates the process of change. Over-time trends toward the SPD within a class may thus reflect the electorate's awareness of changing party programs as the parties develop positions on these new issues. The new middle class, in short, is the vanguard of the transition process, but the transition is not unique to this group."


Den nya medelklassens "vikt" kommer här av att det verkar vara dess beteende som har förändrats. En allt större andel inom den har börjat rösta SPD. Sedan verkar det alltjämt vara oklart om detta handlar om nya människor inom gruppen, eller om det rör sig om människor som varit inom gruppen, röstat CDU, men sedan bytt till SPD. Deras förklaring är alltså inte bara förändrad klasstruktur, utan också att partiprogrammen har anpassats till detta slags människor. Kolla detta igen!

Här finns dock inget direkt om rörlighet.

Sedan gör de en generationsanalys, som visar att klassröstningen har avtagit i de yngre generationerna, de som enbart upplevt förbundsrepubliken, och inte osäkerheten i världskrigen, depressionen och svårigheterna i återuppbyggnaden (s. 179). Dessa yngre generationer av medelklass är långt mer benägna att rösta på SPD än vad deras föräldrar var.