LOSING STATUS & SOCIAL CHANGE

It seems likely that the Baggers are suffering from a form of status anxiety and that has been behind some social change movements in the past, not always for the better. In America, Richard Hofstadter wrote that middle-class people began to worry about their social status beginning in 1880 or so and that was one of the drivers behind the Progressive Movement. In Germany, Karl Dietrich Bracher wrote that the middle-class during the 20s also experienced status anxiety and that led in part to the rise of Hitler.