Does the Czech Republic have a middle class?
Depending on where we live in the world, the term "middle class" may have a slightly different meaning but we'd probably agree on that it is something between the top and the bottom of the social ladder. After 40 years of living in a "classless" society, have Czechs succeeded in reviving their middle classes? Sociologist Petr Mateju, who has been studying the topic ever since 1990, looks at the plight of the middle class under communism and its fate later in the years of social and economic transformation.
"The old middle class was basically wiped out from the map of the society during communism. First of all because of the expropriation of most large and small enterprises, especially in the Czech Republic unlike Hungary and Poland. Small private business and entrepreneurship was basically prohibited after 1950 Private farming was forcefully transformed into co-operative. So basically, there was no room for economic capital to work as a tool of life success."
So the former wealthy middle class weakened economically during communism. But the regime snubbed another segment of the middle class, those not necessarily rich in money but in what is termed "cultural" or "human" capital, that is skills and education. Ideologically, the regime preferred manual labour and unskilled workers to intelligentsia.
"The education system was under heavy ideological control, the curriculum was politically controlled. But also the access to education, especially to its higher levels, especially higher education and university education was also politically controlled, so actually the offspring of well-educated people had problems to be admitted to universities. So the continuity of getting a better position because of a higher education was interrupted. The quota system worked against the middle class."
But even if one were lucky and was allowed access to higher education in the communist era, it did not automatically mean that one could act as a real middle class member.
"Educated professionals and even technocrats, that is economists, were obliged to at least formal loyalty to the regime. They were absorbed mentally or politically, so they didn't act as members of the middle class, that is independently. Membership of the communist party, becoming a 'cadre' was actually the most likely part of a career of educated people."
As sociologist Petr Mateju points out a possible survivor strategy of the middle class was to be loyal to the regime in order to be able to develop and use one's skills. So it was not workers but mostly intellectuals, educated people who were actually most likely to become members of the communist party. But despite all those conditions detrimental to the development and reproduction of the middle class, it somehow managed to carry on.
"They kept the values. They tried to pass these values on to their kids. But I think they were the typical people who felt the strongest inconsistency between their objective situation - and we know what happened with the income of these people - and their subjective feeling, because their prestige was still quite high. I would say they were dissidents - not in the political sense of the word - but social dissidents. People who were in a situation of very strong status inconsistency but they survived because of their strong values."
Petr Mateju says the middle class was the most important group which bridged the gap between the past and the present in most post-communist countries after the fall of communism. The middle class was perhaps the one part of the society which welcomed the most the fall of the regime, looking forward to new opportunities and restoration of their values. However, their hopes and expectations soon turned false.
"In 1989 we were the heroes of the middle class. But not because we actually had a strong middle class but because we were so homogenised that almost everyone was in the middle. But this is not true for 1992. Inequality started to grow and many people realised they were not in the middle. And the subjective map of the society changed. In 1993 we got even worse. There is no room for middle class feelings in 1994 and 1997 is even worse."
So what caused the middle class to become so disillusioned? Mr Mateju says the first strong obstacle was the slow re-structuralisation of industry. The transition to knowledge-based economy was very slow and the access to higher education is still limited.
"The political elite did not support the middle class but rather typical post-communist managers of large enterprises who were very often former communist cadres."
So the 1990's saw what has been dubbed an uneasy coalition between political leaders and former socialist technocrats. All that was to the detriment of the middle class. When we compare the real income per household and per capita in 1988 and today, the people in the middle of the social hierarchy are worse off than they were fourteen years ago. It is those at the top and at the bottom whose real income is higher than before the fall of communism. Petr Mateju draws an interesting conclusion.
"It is a little bit crude interpretation of the data but I would say that the answer to the question who paid for the costs of the transformation is - the middle class."
Mostly professionals and regular white-collar workers started to think that something was going wrong. They felt that with their qualifications they should be paid better.
"If there is no consistency between education and income or being self-employed and income, people do not have any reason to identify with the middle class, they lack the consistency of their socio-economic status. So consistency of the socio-economic status becomes a key condition for people to identify with the middle class."
And according to sociologist Petr Mateju all this resulted in changes in the voting behaviour of the middle class.
"The middle class felt betrayed by the centre-right parties and that's why turned left at the time. That was the first swing vote in our country after 1989 and I believe it was mostly because of the swing vote among professionals and middle class. In this year's elections, I think, the middle classes felt betrayed also by socialists and the only solution was not to turn up and not to vote. The turnout dropped from 76 in 1998 to 58 percent in 2002 and I would explain that also by the decision of professionals and liberal-oriented middle class not to vote. So this development resulted in the second defeat of the centre-right wing parties and the unusual success of the communists."
Mr Mateju believes there is no party at the moment which represents the interests of the middle class. To the obvious question why then this group do not become more organised to put more pressure on politicians, Mr Mateju has this answer.
"That kind of organisation is not an easy task. These people don't have time to associate, they have to earn their living. It's not easy. It's just a question of time and I believe that in four years something is going to happen. And now these people who believe they belong to the middle class, they want to increase their life chances, they will somehow push towards establishing either a new political party or just integrating those fragments liberal part of the political spectrum. That's my prediction."
Interestingly, the Czech Republic's accession to the European Union may make matters worse according to sociologist Petr Mateju. He is afraid that competent people will use the opportunities which shall open on the labour markets of the European Union. So instead of some kind of restoration of the middle classes, this country may witness an even bigger brain-drain than in the last few years.
