Download full text
(1.753Mb)
Citation Suggestion
Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-310711
Exports for your reference manager
Social inequality, mobility, and the illegitimate inheritance of status: recruitment and career patterns of GDR business elites
Soziale Ungleichheit, Mobilität und illegitime Statusvererbung: die Rekrutierungs- und Karrieremuster von DDR-Wirtschaftseliten
[journal article]
Abstract "Functional elites of the GDR, the so-called cadres, formed a rather large and inhomogeneous stratum of the socialist society. Empirical evidence based on quantitative analyses of large prosopographical and biographical datasets unveils paradoxical patterns of social inequality underlying the proces... view more
"Functional elites of the GDR, the so-called cadres, formed a rather large and inhomogeneous stratum of the socialist society. Empirical evidence based on quantitative analyses of large prosopographical and biographical datasets unveils paradoxical patterns of social inequality underlying the processes of recruitment and career mobility of cadres. Hereditary aspects had a greater impact on the allocation of social status than expected and thwarted the socialist project. Not only did a New Class or 'socialist intelligentsia' emerge, increasing social closure also reverberated a distinguishably 'bourgeois' tradition. In the 1980s, workers and cooperative farmers belonged to the most disadvantaged social strata in the 'Workers' and Peasants' State'. While this could be observed for different sectors of the GDR society, economy in particular gave an instructive example. Factories and large industrial combines (Kombinate) were led by businessmen who often did not even have a documented worker's origin. Instead, and in the first place, they boasted required aspects of high cultural capital, such as academic and special vocational training, and were politically reliable with regard to SED state party alignment and honorary functions. Thus, even the descendents of 'capitalist' entrepreneurs, persons with a National Socialist family background or persons with a personal NS past had fairly good prospects to embark on careers in the GDR economy. The paper briefly discusses statistical analyses of data on higher executive personnel such as director generals (CEOs), branch directors, and heads of department." (author's abstract)... view less
Keywords
economic elite; education; manager; coming to terms with the past; loyalty; German Democratic Republic (GDR); GDR research; historical analysis; reproduction; elite research; class society; social inequality; legitimacy; mobility; social background; cadre; elite; status allocation; family; recruitment; career
Classification
General History
Methods and Techniques of Data Collection and Data Analysis, Statistical Methods, Computer Methods
Method
empirical; historical; quantitative empirical
Document language
English
Publication Year
2010
Page/Pages
p. 117-133
Journal
Historical Social Research, 35 (2010) 3
DOI
https://doi.org/10.12759/hsr.35.2010.3.117-133
ISSN
0172-6404
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed