ABSTRACT
Neuererdiskussion (Plate 14.1) represents a meeting of innovators (Neuerer), a title that existed from the end of the 1940s to reward workers who suggested improvements in production. If, following an inspection by engineers, the proposal was accepted, the worker would receive a financial reward for their help. The painting thus presents a picture of socialist democracy, in which employees can be involved in the organization and running of the company. We thus see a meeting between, on the right, the workers—the social base of the new regime 1 —and on the left, the engineers, who became increasingly privileged during the 1960s, to the point of becoming one of the most important socialist elites. 2 The painting positions itself in the tension between the ideal and reality, the equal distribution of skills and words at the heart of the world of work, which retains an irremediably hierarchical structure between workers and engineers, and which continues to distribute social positions unequally, between those at the bottom and those at the top.
