ABSTRACT
One of the basic contradictions inherent to capitalism is the question of social polarization. While capitalism has promised since the end of feudalism and the emergence of bourgeois society the possibility of individual social upwards mobility based on meritocratic principles, a recently exponentially growing global social inequality has been observed that excludes de facto large population groups. It is probably only recently in periods of social crisis, like after World War II, or during political system-confrontation like in the Cold War, that political programs reducing social polarization emerged. Nevertheless, in capitalist semantics, key concepts like progress, development, liberty, democracy, etc., which emerged in the “Sattelzeit”, a time of transformation from feudalism to bourgeois society in the context of the French Revolution, still predominate. Even in postmodern theory, deconstructivism predominates a track of this future-optimistic thinking, if we speak of post-development, post-democracy and, of course, post-modernity. The prefix “post” indicates that our thinking is still directed toward an uncertain beyond.
