ABSTRACT
This chapter explains that economic restructuring has forced the structural downward mobility of a large section of the working class into a "new lower class". It also explains that a substantial portion of this new lower class is comprised by an "underclass". The chapter argues that the shape of such new lower class formation is dependent on the varying institutional frameworks of regulation that have accompanied restructuring. It discusses the different tendencies developing in Anglo-American neo-liberalism as compared to the corporatism of the Germanspeaking world. The chapter also discusses neo-liberal societies. But the implications of corporatist variants of restructuration present a vastly different scenario. It suggests the existence of a reverse and darker side of Germany's seemingly fortunate flexible rigidities; one that tends to lead to the institutional exclusion of ethnic minorities and women from crucial positions in labour markets and civil society in general.
