We Have Never Been Middle Class. Hadas Weiss

      Contents

       Acknowledgments: The Middle Class (A Love Story)

      Introduction: We Have Never Been Middle Class

1. What We Talk about when We Talk about the Middle Class

       2. The Discreet Charm of Property

       3. All Too Human

       4. Goodbye, Values; So Long, Politics

       Conclusion

       Notes

       Index

       Acknowledgments: The Middle Class (A Love Story)

      As an anthropologist, I have always been my first informant. The ideas in this book emerge out of challenges I confronted in my adult life, but even more so out of nostalgia for the values I was brought up with. Many people have kept these values alive against countervailing evidence by facilitating and rewarding my work, and I am now in the happy position of being able to acknowledge their contribution.

      For reasons of confidentiality I cannot name the individual subjects of my fieldwork, so I will express my deep collective gratitude to the Israelis and Germans whose generosity in interviews and in allowing me to observe their interactions made my research possible.

      I am incredibly fortunate to have been trained at the University of Chicago’s Department of Anthropology, where every professor I had was an inspiration. Jean Comaroff, John Kelly and Moishe Postone guided my endeavors in dissertation writing and far beyond. Jean’s support over the years, in particular, was vital for my career and peace of mind. Moishe congratulated me on the upcoming publication of this book and it breaks my heart that he passed away before I could gift him a copy. John Comaroff and Susan Gal offered help at crucial points and Anne Chien made everything easier. Thanks also to the friends who have made Chicago my home away from home: Michael Bechtel, Rachel-Shlomit Brezis, Michael Cepek, Jason Dawsey, Abigail Dean, Jennifer Dowler, Amanda Englert, Yaqub Hilal, Lauren Keeler, Tal Liron, Sarah Luna, Elayne Oliphant, Alexis Salas, Noa Vaisman, Eitan Wilf, Rodney Wilson and Tal Yifat.

      At Frankfurt’s Goethe University, Hans Peter Hahn was a great supervisor. I thank him and my friends there: Jennifer Bagley, Vitali Bartash, Federico Buccellati, Gordana Ciric, Tobias Helms, Kristin Kastner, Harry Madhathil, Mario Schmidt and Walburga Zumbroich. At the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, I learned so much from Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen and Joel Robbins. I am grateful to them and to Sorin Gog, Sarah Green, Simo Muir, Nadia Nava, Saara Pallander, Minna Ruckenstein, Filip Sikorsky, José Filipe Silva and Andras Szigeti for brightening up the winters. At Central European University’s Institute for Advanced Study in Budapest, Eva Fodor was the perfect director. I thank her and Duane Corpis, Thomas Paster, Craig Roberts, James Rutherford, Kai Schafft and Julianne Werlin for being the first to express enthusiasm about ideas that would make it into this book. At the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Chris Hann and Don Kalb sat me down to write it and offered encouragement along the way. I thank them and the colleagues who made me happy to come into the office: Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko, Tristam Barrett, Charlotte Bruckermann, Natalia Buier, Dimitra Kofti, Marek Mikuš, Sylvia Terpe and Samuel Williams.

      My Leipzig sojourn breezed by thanks to Moran Aharoni, Nora Gottlieb, Agathe Mora and Jon Schubert. Life in Berlin was more play than work thanks to Guy Gilad, Andreas Markowsky, Katarzyna Puzon, André Thiemann, Alina Vaisfeld, Roberta Zavoretti and Gabriele Zipf. Academic nomadism won me precious friendships with Ivan Ascher, Paul Daniel, Rotem Geva, Ehud Halperin, Matan Kaminer, Patrick Neveling, Dimitris Sotiropoulos and Christian Stegle. Back in Israel, my oldest friends Nira Ben-Aliz, Tzipi Berman, Tsahala Samet and Nitsa Zafrir reminded me of what matters. I thank them all from the bottom of my heart.

      Ivan Ascher, Josh Berson, Charlotte Bruckermann, Mateusz Halawa, Yoav Halperin, Yaqub Hilal, Marek Mikuš, Eckehart Stamer and Mordechai Weiss read part or full drafts of this book and gave me excellent suggestions. For Verso, Sebastian Budgen and Richard Seymour did the same. I am grateful to them and in particular to Amanda Englert, always my most brilliant and painstaking reader.

      I want to acknowledge the journals from which I paraphrased portions of my previously published work: “Homeownership in Israel: The Social Costs of Middle-Class Debt,” Cultural Anthropology 2014, vol. 29(1): 128–49; “Capitalist Normativity: Value and Values,” Anthropological Theory 2015, vol. 15(2): 239–53; “Contesting the Value of Household Property,” Dialectical Anthropology 2016, vol. 40(3): 287–303; “Longevity Risk: A Report on the Banality of Finance Capitalism,” Critical Historical Studies 2018, vol. 5(1): 103–9; and “Lifecycle Planning and Responsibility: Prospection and Retrospection in Germany,” Ethnos 2019.

      My brother, Tal Weiss, and my sister, Lilach Weiss, were always there to cheer me on. My nephews and nieces, Shachar, Aviv, Yuval, Tomer, Michael, Yaara and Avigail, added sweetness and joy. Neither this book nor anything else I have ever accomplished would have been possible without the unconditional love and steadfast support of my parents, Rachel and Mordechai Weiss. Words cannot express the depth of my love and gratitude for my wonderful family.

       Introduction: We Have Never Been Middle Class

      The middle class does not exist. For all the time we spend talking about it, much of what we say is contradictory.