What are the origins and causes of the current political crisis and the rise of right-wing populism in Germany and around the globe? How has neoliberal policy fueled this breakdown? Oliver Nachtwey and Ajay Singh Chaudhary discuss the collapse of the post-war social order in Germany and beyond.

Upward social mobility represented a core promise of life under the “old” West German welfare state, in which millions of skilled workers upgraded their Volkswagens to Audis, bought their first homes, and sent their children to university. Not so in today’s Federal Republic, where the gears of the so-called “elevator society” have long since ground to a halt. In the absence of the social mobility of yesterday, widespread social exhaustion and anxiety have emerged across mainstream society. Oliver Nachtwey analyses the reasons for this social rupture in postwar German society and investigates the conflict potential emerging as a result. He concludes that although the country has managed to muddle through thus far, simmering tensions beneath the surface nevertheless threaten to undermine the German system’s stability in the years to come.

Oliver Nachtwey is Associate Professor of Social Structure Analysis at the University of Basel, and a fellow at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. His research interests include labour and industrial sociology, political sociology, the comparative study of capitalism, and social movements.

Moderated by Ajay Singh Chaudhary, the executive director of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and a core faculty member specializing in social and political theory. He has written for the The Guardian, n+1, Los Angeles Review of Books, Quartz, Social Text, Dialectical Anthropology, The Hedgehog Review, Filmmaker Magazine, and 3quarksdaily.

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