The European New Middle Class

Based on literature and on field research of tribal communities in public drinking places of a modern Western European capital (Helsinki), this book analyzes the new middle class mentality, which is one of the main components of the cultural condition of contemporary Western European countries. Middle class anti-oedipians have turned the great project of individualism in Western welfare states into a principle of tribal individuality, a concern about personal dignity and sovereignty. They are authoritarian while also for the most part political conservatives.