Germany is currently in the throes of a debate about its purported "Unterschicht" ("underclass"), which politicians and the chattering classes appear to have recently discovered.

It is a touchy subject for a country which otherwise likes to consider itself fairly classless and which has on occasion enjoyed a certain superior Schadenfreude regarding perceived inequalities in American society, thinking such poverty couldn't happen here.

Discovering the precariat

The debate was sparked by a sociological study from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, a foundation close to the left-leaning Social Democratic party (SPD) who currently form a coalition government with the right-of-centre Christian Democrats.

The study identified nine social groups within Germany, based on factors such as ambition and attitudes to life. It categorised the most demoralised as the now-infamous "alienated precariat" (the coinage "precariat" being a mixture of "precarious" and "proletariat"). The members of this unenviable group are described as living in poverty with little chance of improving their situation.

Value-laden

SPD leader Kurt Beck got the controversy in motion by introducing the value-laden word "underclass" into the arena. In a newspaper article, he said that Germany has an "underclass problem" because "far too many people" have "come to terms" with their poverty. Beck said these people lacked ambition to improve their circumstances.

The debate has sparked a series of impassioned newspaper editorials and articles about social exclusion and the welfare state, calling for more education or blaming the problem on a new "upper class". There seems little consensus about what should be done to solve the problem. Meanwhile SPD politician Franz Müntefering has denied that Germany has a class system and said that the term "underclass" stigmatises "those who are weaker."

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