ABSTRACT
The rise of bourgeois culture and its humanist values of education, its specific work ethic together with its moral principles of respectability, diligence and thrift occurred in the nineteenth century. Popular culture focuses on different values and virtues, commonly described as post-materialistic, individualistic and sometimes even hedonistic. This chapter explains the change of values and its effects on the social structure of German society. It reviews the main trends contributing to the spread of social inequality in Germany after the collapse of the National Socialists' regime. The chapter provides the theoretical patterns constructed by the German sociology in order to comprehend the structure of the German society. It examines the change in both, the German bourgeoisie and the bourgeois culture. The chapter discusses the question whether the change of values and the consequent changes of the social structure have to be assessed as a decline or as a transformation of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois culture.
