IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecanth/v12y2025i1ne12345.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Workers to capitalists: Repositioning Berlin's middle class

Author

Listed:
  • Hadas Weiss

Abstract

In the late 1920s, Siegfried Kracauer studied the then new middle class in Berlin, asking why they were not more disruptive of the structures that bore down on them. I ask the same about insecure professionals in contemporary Berlin, using Kracauer's book Die Angestellten as foil. Kracauer demonstrated that, in the 1920s, they still perceived themselves as workers, albeit white‐collar and salaried workers. Berlin's professionals today perceive themselves and most everyone else as autonomous individuals possessing human capital that can appreciate or depreciate as the result of their actions. Work is but one of the sites in which a classless, self‐formed identity can be cultivated and calibrated in all aspects of life. I show how this perception plays out in professionals' attitudes toward their work lives and after‐work activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Hadas Weiss, 2025. "Workers to capitalists: Repositioning Berlin's middle class," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), January.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:12:y:2025:i:1:n:e12345
    DOI: 10.1002/sea2.12345
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12345
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sea2.12345?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecanth:v:12:y:2025:i:1:n:e12345. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=2330-4847 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.