New Research Perspectives on Wealth
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“To date, very privileged social strata have been underrepresented in sociological research,” explains Professor Nicole Burzan. Having already studied status reproduction in the middle class in a project funded by the German Research Foundation, she and Professor Berthold Vogel are now turning their attention to wealthy families in the follow-up project “Wealth as a Social Relationship. Intergenerational Perspectives on the Familial (Re-)Production of Wealth” funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.
The focus here is not on the economic situation of individuals but on the social web of family members among themselves. “Among other things, we are looking at the relationships between the generations. An interesting aspect in this context, for example, is how family businesses regulate succession,” says Professor Burzan. The two researchers will conduct qualitative interviews with families and examine, among other things, how the family created its wealth and how this wealth is or should be further safeguarded. “Through our project, we want to gain an insight – beyond the usual clichés – into the influence of wealth on the attitudes and power concepts of individuals,” says Professor Burzan.
Professor Christian Neuhäuser from the Institute of Philosophy and Political Science at TU Dortmund University is participating in the project “The Deserving Rich – A Multi-Disciplinary Analysis of the (Re-)Production of (German) Wealth”, alongside Professor Stefan Gosepath, Professor Philipp Lepenies and Martyna Linartas from Freie Universität Berlin. Together, they are examining how wealth is created and passed on, using Germany as an example. “Germany lends itself here because – like in many other OECD countries – a large proportion of wealth is not earned but inherited,” says Professor Neuhäuser and goes on to explain: “The topic is particularly relevant because extreme wealth inequalities constitute a threat for liberal democracies.”
Within the project, the researchers will analyze which justifications for wealth there are in general and for its inheritance in particular, and which narratives and paradigms have shaped the inheritance tax system over the past hundred years.
About the Volkswagen Foundation’s funding initiative
With its funding initiative “Perspectives on Wealth”, the Volkswagen Foundation aims to initiate a shift in perspective from poverty research to facets of wealth, as this phenomenon is a central element in understanding social transformation processes. The two above-mentioned research projects with the participation of TU Dortmund University were successful in the “National Cooperation Projects” funding line.