Soziologe Klaus Dörre über Klassen, Kapitalismus & Demokratie - Jung & Naiv: Folge 793

Summary

The episode is a wide-ranging interview with sociologist Klaus Dörre about capitalism, class, democracy, the climate transition, trade unions, and his own political and academic background. The subtitles are heavily auto-generated and contain garbled words and names, so some details—especially a few proper nouns and figures—are uncertain.

1. People are more than economic “utility maximizers”

Dörre challenges the idea that people make decisions mainly to maximize income or material benefit. In fieldwork around industrial towns in eastern Germany, he and his colleagues encountered people who had returned from better-paid work elsewhere to live near family and in familiar surroundings. He interprets this as a desire for security, belonging, and less alienated social relationships—not simply an economic calculation.

He argues that markets also depend on morality, institutions, and social bonds. Models that treat people as narrowly self-interested can miss important parts of social reality.

2. Authoritarian liberalism and the changing form of capitalism

Dörre uses “authoritarian liberalism” to describe a political approach that seeks broad freedom for business while using a strong, potentially repressive state to manage the consequences. The term, he says, goes back to legal scholar Hermann Heller’s argument about the Papen government.

Dörre applies the concept to more recent politics while distinguishing it from earlier market-led globalization. In his account:

• The neoliberal era emphasized deregulation, expanding markets, and removing barriers to trade.
• Since the global financial crisis, some features of that system have continued or intensified, while political forms have changed.
• Tariffs and “America First”-style policies point toward neomercantilism: protecting national economies rather than simply extending global markets.
• In Germany, Dörre sees campaign appeals to “freeing” businesses from rules—especially rules connected to social and ecological transformation—as examples of authoritarian-liberal tendencies.

He stresses that policies can be both pro-business and coercive. His discussion of Donald Trump, for example, concerns the use of state force against political opposition; he does not describe the United States as already a fully fascist state.

3. The climate transition, industry, and investment uncertainty

Dörre argues that the shift to low-carbon production is not just an environmental issue: it also affects jobs, regional economies, and workers’ sense of security. He criticizes political signals that cast doubt on already-announced transitions, such as green steel or electric vehicles. In his view, uncertainty can discourage long-term investment in charging infrastructure, recycling, and new production methods.

His argument is not that the transition is easy or that electric cars alone solve climate change. Rather:

• Technological change often requires large investments that may pay off only over a long period.
• The state has historically played an important role in supporting major technological shifts.
• Abruptly changing incentives or publicly questioning agreed goals can unsettle investors and suppliers.
• Workers’ doubts about transformation often reflect real fears of job loss and deindustrialization, particularly in eastern Germany.
• Those fears can be exploited by the radical right, which frames climate policy as a conspiracy against national industry.

Dörre also criticizes companies for prioritizing high-margin luxury vehicles and financial services while, in his view, underinvesting in innovation. He points to Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturers as evidence that competitors have developed technological and cost advantages.

4. Trade unions and the weakening of collective bargaining

A major theme is whether unions can still act as effective, conflict-oriented representatives of workers. Dörre worries that unions are increasingly seen as partners in company management rather than as organizations that independently press workers’ interests.

He identifies several pressures:

• Collective-agreement coverage and union presence at workplaces have declined.
• More disputes must be fought company by company, which takes considerable time and organizing capacity.
• Job cuts and insecurity can make workers reluctant to support industrial action.
• Unions may be tempted to prioritize preserving jobs in one country or company, even when this puts workers elsewhere in competition with them.
• A union position that acknowledges climate goals but avoids questioning growth and production patterns may not adequately address the ecological crisis.

At the same time, Dörre notes that strikes can still produce strong participation and that some recent disputes have been unusually intense. He treats the VW conflict as a possible turning point: even highly organized workers accepted a compromise involving substantial job reductions, raising the question of where workers can still exert effective pressure.

He also argues that unions need to win people’s trust and emotional commitment, not only negotiate technically. His fieldwork found that workers’ political responses are varied: frustration and a sense of being ignored can lead in different political directions, including toward support for the AfD.

5. Class, climate, and overlapping inequalities

Dörre rejects the assumption that ecological risks make class conflict less important. Climate change affects everyone, but not equally. He argues that affluent groups’ investment and consumption patterns play a disproportionate role in emissions, while the costs of ecological change can fall especially heavily on people with lower incomes.

He distinguishes, rather than equates, the class conflict and the conflict over nature:

• Ownership and control of investment are important points where the two overlap.
• The costs of the socio-ecological transition must be distributed fairly.
• Lower-income households often have less capacity to absorb transition costs.
• Gender and other forms of inequality are additional conflict axes; class is important but not the only one.

Dörre also emphasizes that workers’ opposition to climate policy may be rooted in concrete job insecurity and historical experience, not simply hostility to environmental protection. He notes that in eastern Germany, “transformation” can evoke memories of post-reunification deindustrialization.

6. Generational conflict, pensions, and a good life

Dörre cautions against treating current social tensions primarily as a conflict between “Boomers” and younger generations. Wealth and income are unevenly distributed within every generation, he says, and many members of the Boomer generation experienced unemployment and precarious work before reaching secure employment.

He argues that pension debates should consider both productivity and the different realities of work. Extending working life may be manageable for some professionals, but can be damaging for people doing repetitive or physically demanding jobs who may not reach retirement in good health.

Instead of asking only how much people earn or how long they can work, Dörre proposes asking what people need for a good life. He supports an inclusive ecological welfare state that reliably provides basic needs such as food, education, health care, and mobility. He argues that health and other essential services should be treated as public goods rather than distributed according to ability to pay.

7. Democracy requires economic democracy

Dörre argues that political democracy is incomplete when workers and the public have little say over investment, business models, or production decisions. The German Basic Law, he notes, contains provisions concerning the social obligations of property and socialization, even though it does not establish a particular economic system.

He proposes that public money given to private companies should bring public returns and influence—for example, through forms of public ownership or participation by workers and society. His broader point is that the state should not simply subsidize private firms without asking what the public receives in return.

For Dörre, control over production also matters because it separates production from conscience: when decisions are made by a small minority, the wider population may be disconnected from the social and ecological consequences of what is produced.

8. Capitalism, the radical right, and the danger of authoritarian change

Dörre describes capitalism and democracy as having a historically uneasy relationship. In his account, organized labor and socialist movements helped force the development of welfare-state protections and democratic concessions. As unions weaken and class interests become less politically organized, those pressures diminish.

He draws on the idea of Bonapartist democracy to describe situations in which disorganized groups delegate their interests to a leader or “party of order” promising security and benefits. He sees parallels in the appeal of Trump, Meloni, and the AfD, while cautioning that the present should not simply be equated with historical fascism.

His concern is that fascist forces can grow within formally democratic systems, particularly through attacks on scientific reason and promises of national renewal. He argues that broad democratic alliances are needed to prevent their advance, and that policies that reinforce the radical right’s framing may ultimately strengthen it.

Dörre also warns that revolutionary change is possible but not necessarily progressive. Drawing on Antonio Gramsci, he describes a passive revolution as major change that preserves capitalism’s core structure. He argues for developing a concrete, democratic, ecological alternative—a “utopia” that offers a direction beyond simply criticizing the present system.

9. Dörre’s background and intellectual development

Dörre recounts growing up in a small northern Hessian village in a working-class family. His father worked his way into secure public-sector employment; his mother worked in a bakery and later as a cleaner. His parents placed strong emphasis on education, but the household was socially and culturally conservative. His long hair, music, and political activity became sources of conflict, though he says he could still rely on his father in important situations.

As a student in the 1970s, Dörre was involved in left-wing student politics and studied in Marburg. He describes being drawn to socialist politics but wary of revolutionary rhetoric that seemed disconnected from working people. He also reflects critically on earlier political judgments, including his support for the expulsion of singer Wolf Biermann from East Germany.

He eventually moved into sociology through academic opportunities and research on youth, work, and precarious employment. His research helped him recognize how temporary work and insecure conditions can discipline a wider workforce, even when only a minority of employees are directly affected.

10. Social connection in a digital and individualized society

In the audience-question segment, Dörre connects loneliness and weaker social ties to increasingly individualized lifestyles and online attention economies. Digital communication can help people connect, but he argues that it cannot fully replace face-to-face trust and collective experience.

He sees belonging, mutual recognition, and meaningful participation as important human needs. This also has political consequences: unions and movements need relationships and shared experiences, not only online communication or formal organizational structures.

Research approach discussed

Dörre describes research that combines workplace and community-level investigation:

• Conducting fieldwork in industrial towns and regions, including places in eastern Germany.
• Interviewing workers, works-council representatives, and union participants about job security and industrial change.
• Studying how attitudes vary with proximity to production and the risks of workplace transformation.
• Using surveys to examine views on issues such as electric-vehicle purchases.
• Comparing company-level experiences with broader changes in union strength, collective bargaining, and political attitudes.

Speakers and sources featured

Speakers

• Klaus Dörre — sociologist and principal guest.
• Interviewer/host of Jung & Naiv — asks the questions; the transcript does not clearly identify the host by name.
• Audience-question segment — questions are introduced through Hans; the audience members are not individually identified.

Cited thinkers, researchers, and works discussed

These people are referenced in the conversation; they do not appear as interview speakers: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Antonio Gramsci, Hermann Heller, Carl Schmitt, Max Weber, Ulrich Beck, Hartmut Rosa, Stefan Lessenich, Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu, Stuart Hall, Robert Castel, Ferdinand Tönnies, Günther Anders, André Gorz, Jason Moore, Thomas Piketty, Lucas Chancel, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Emmanuel Wallerstein, Christopher Clark, and historian Robert Paxton. The subtitles also refer to Kate Pickett and to additional authors whose names are too garbled to identify confidently.