The Salaried Masses by Siegfried Kracauer

The Salaried Masses Reviews

• 
  Matthew

  A rich inquiry into the 'salariat' in early 20th century Germany, and particularly why they politically composed themselves in a certain way. The political conclusions of this study are certainly interesting and useful. However Kracauer's writing style (or at least the translation of) can be hard to get into, and the chapters do feel to jump around from topic to topic without any specific flow.
• 
  Weihui

  really wise, thoughtful little book on white-collar worker mentality... still relevant today, though historically interesting, and applicable to a wide range of cultures - so much so that it makes one wonder how much industrialization has generalized cultural internationally.
  
  stylistically a bit dry at times, but definitely worth the read and reread.
• 
  Joseph Hirsch

  A dialectical incursion into the false Consciousness of the precariously non-Marxist revanchist capitalistic fascist paternalist
  
  This short blast of Feuilleton pieces from Siegfried Kracauer made for excruciating reading. Part of this is due to how palpable the author's resentments are (not a good mind-state to be in when doing this kind of social research). Confirmation bias is too kind a word for the set of assumptions, baggage and ideology Kracauer brings to the task. This was first noted by the scholar Eric D. Weitz, who seemed puzzled by how...for lack of a better word...mean Herr Kracauer appears when begrudging these salariat their meager pleasures, especially the female workers. I usually don't invoke the voguish bugbears of the left, but the tone is scornful especially when dealing with younger women, so much so that it noticeably mars those rare occasions when a genuine insight emerges from the nearly-impenetrable wall of obscurantist jargon in which Kracauer hides the few insights he actually provides.
  
  About that jargon: Kracauer was not a full member of the Frankfurt School, though for obvious reasons he shares some traits with cohorts Benjamin, Adorno, et. al. that give me PTSD memories of my time in grad school. This intellectual ipsation is designed to give the work a density/seriousness that, once translated into plain English, is exposed as the fashionable nonsense Alan Sorkin used to parody so well. Sometimes concepts are so complex that they require dense language, and sometimes dense language is invoked in order to shield the wielder of words from being found out as a charlatan.
  
  Kracauer was mostly a charlatan, but due to the political machinations of academia and the proliferation of "studies" degrees, especially the interdisciplinary racket, "The Salaried Masses" and several other Kracauer works are likely to remain in print for awhile longer. Unfortunately. If you would like to get a feel for the Weimar milieu as chronicled by a feuilletonist who doesn't treat people like Jane Goodall encountering apes, I recommend some Joseph Roth as a starting place, and (if you like slumming with a man who is brilliant but knows the gutter), you could do a lot worse than Alfred Doblin. You couldn't do much worse than Kracauer, unless you're grading grad students. Hans Fallada's "Little Man, What Now?" is fiction but can teach you more about the sufferings of the salaried class in Berlin better than a hundred courses on the same subject.
  
• 
  mush

  Augenöffnende Analyse der Angestellten im Rahmen des Kapitalismus (Proletarisierung der Angestellten)
  - Fehlen des Klassenbewusstseins
  - Auslese, Mode (Konsum) und Wirtschaft arbeiten im Auslese- und Angestelltenprogramm zusammen
  - Rationalisierung des Betriebs, Mobilisierung, Monotonie der Arbeit als Freimachung des Alltags (Maschine als angebliches Instrument der Freiheit)
  - Je planvoller der Betrieb, desto weniger haben Angestellten miteinander zutun, erreichen der höchsten Instanz unmöglich (kafkaesque)
  - Werbung für Beförderungschancen, aber eigentlich geringe Chancen, Einzelfälle
  - Hohen Tiere eines Unternehmens haben sich in den meisten Fällen nicht hochgearbeitet, sondern kommen von außen; selten durch Leistung, sondern durch Geburt
  - Altern: Vermarktung von Jung-sein, um auf dem Arbeitsmarkt überleben zu können
  - Betriebsräte als mittlere Instanz
  - Betriebe bieten Spaßmöglichkeiten, Feste und gemeinsame Aktivitäten an, um Gemeinschaftsgefühl zu stärken (Wirkung: Positiv auf Arbeit im Unternehmen)
  - Angestellte untereinander wollen sich voneinander abgrenzen, erst recht von Arbeitern, obwohl sie im Prinzip gleiches Schicksal erleiden (Abgrenzung, wie bei Bourdieu)
  - Kollektivismus scheinbar als Quelle ihrer Kraft, denken das Gemeinschaftswesen ist sinngebend,
  Eigentlich begründet das Kollektiv Erkenntnis. Problem: Kollektiv als solches (eigentlich leer) wird zum Inhalt selbst erhoben. Stattdessen sollt Erkenntnis erhoben werden, die zu Kollektiv führt
  - Deleuze - Postkriptum über die Kontrollgesellschaft
• 
  Joana

  "O tipo de relações hierárquicas entre os empregados é inseparável da mentalidade dos empresários. Se a atitude destes for a do «aqui eu posso, quero e mando», a dos chefes de secção será a mesma do tiranete. Numa empresa toda ela organizada segundo o modelo militar, as eventuais queixas deverão seguir estritamente a via hierárquica. Tudo desliza sobre rodas, pensarão os chefes, desde que os empregados se rebaixem ou não pensem senão na sua carreira; era exactamente assim que os detentores do poder viam as coisas na Alemanha imperial. No entanto, há patrões mais sensatos, que em nome do próprio interesse aceitam compromissos e sabem como arranjar válvulas de escape que permitam atenuar o descontentamento."
• 
  Justin

  Kracauer's survey of Weimar Germany's petit bourgeois is part theory and part sociological study, but is quite enjoyable reading. The best bits deal with industries of distraction and consumption, which the "spiritually homeless" salaried classes flock to in this difficult period in Germany's history. The intersections between the ideas here and those of Walter Benjamin, John Berger, and Guy Debord make this essential reading for historical materialist and social theorist types.
• 
  Carmen

  Life in white collared office jobs hasn't changed so much from the Weimar Republic era...
• 
  Tara Parsons

  I read this book in front of the Times Square Madame Tussauds... a bit too apt.
  
  (read for 20th century art course)
• 
  Michael Clevenger

  Reads like a clunky synthesis of Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle and David Graeber's (RIP) Bullshit Jobs.
  
  Granted, written 30/90 years prior, respectively. Of course, lots of connections to the end of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi party. I think if you apply the synthesis of Debord and Graeber to the conditions of 1920s-30s Germany, you have a solid grasp of Kracauer's arguments.
• 
  dv

  Pubblicato nel 1930, non solo è testo estremamente attuale ancora oggi (un po' come dire che le problematiche dell'organizzazione aziendale non son cambiate poi molto...) ma rappresenta anche la prova della versatilità di Kracauer, ingegnere, architetto, sociologo, studioso di cinema. Un testo importante da parte di un pensatore europeo fondamentale.
• 
  Rosie Dempsey

  Important subject matter, significant in economic and social thought, but that doesn't make it any more interesting to me.
• 
  Eric

  This is a short study of the budding German salatariat in the years before the Second World War — part new story, part ethnography and part treatise on the changing nature of work in a troubled era. Kracauer — who'd later go on to be known for his studies of film and fascist aesthetics — was clearly inspired by a journalistic sense of unease about this new strata of society, so unmoored by the past and struggling to carve out a place in a difficult modern terrain where they were too proud to be working class, but not quite accepted as bourgeois. The result is a fascinating look at the customs and attitudes of the younger generation struggling to keep their head above water, who would ultimately become the "good Germans" lending the Nazi regime legitimacy in the years ahead. A haunting read in 2017.