Notions of Deservingness Among the Emerging Middle-Class in East Germany and the Czech Republic.

This paper approaches notions of moral-economic “deservingness” in two cases of emerging middle classes: East Germany and the Czech Republic after 1989. The concept of deservingness has been narrowly applied to the study of poverty, when instead, it should be regarded as a widespread, everyday articulation of issues of economic justice and economic dignity (Leslie McCall, Michele Lamont). Studying emerging post-socialist middle classes allows capturing the temporal grammars of legitimizing wealth, especially so in reference to the relational and moral distance to unemployment and the dangers of “falling from grace” (Katherine Newman) during the turbulent years of the post-socialist transformation. Individuals generate notions of deservingness from their own economic experiences, but also from comparisons with others (W.G. Runciman). This allows to study the specific moral-economic anchoring of strategies of coping with economic challenges, as well as with the fact that those close to oneself might fare better or worse. Beyond Bourdieusian “reproduction”, perspectives of critical realism (Andrew Sayer) and cultural sociology allow to understand instances of “foundation” of notions of deservingness and economic self-worth in relation to others. This perspective also highlights the significance of concrete strong, trusted friendship ties (functioning as moral niches) for middle-class self-conceptions. The project is based on 67 interviews with respondents from two groups with varying likelihoods of status outcomes after 1989. The first group are engineers, with a high chance of social mobility, the second group are care workers (nursing and elderly care), with comparatively low levels of social mobility. The comparison of two national cases allows to consider the impact of different levels of exposure to unemployment on these groups during the 1990s.