Post-Socialist Transformation and Value Changes of the Middle Class in Serbia

Abstract

In this article, value changes of the middle class in Serbia in the period of post-socialist transformation are analysed on the basis of two surveys done in 1989 and 2003. The authors stress the fact that the establishment of a new capitalist order creates substantially changed conditions for the formation of the middle class, so that the structure and composition of the group has been significantly changed. Concepts of consistency of value orientations and normative-value dissonance are introduced in order to examine the data in a systematic way. Two pairs of mutually conflicting value orientations are analysed: political liberalism versus authoritarian collectivism in the political sub-system, and market liberalism versus redistributive statism in the economic sub-system. In this way the dominant values of two fundamentally different institutional-normative orders, socialism and capitalism are confronted. An increase in liberal orientation in the sphere of political regulation has been perceived with all strata of the middle class, but developments in the sphere of economic relations were contrary, so that an increase in the liberal orientation was insufficient to make it dominant. In addition, it turned out that some elements of the redistributive orientation gain strength precisely among the members of the middle class.