Poverty as Manufactured Vulnerability - Povertism, Classism, and Functional Right-Wing Radicalism in the German Welfare State

Abstract

The present work develops a conceptual framework for the analysis of poverty-related forms of discrimination and violence in contemporary welfare regimes, with a particular focus on the German Hartz IV system, the subsequent Bürgergeld system, and the new basic income support scheme (2026). The point of departure is the observation that established concepts such as classism insufficiently capture central mechanisms of administrative dehumanization, epistemic dispossession, and the targeted production of vulnerability.On the basis of the longitudinal empirical corpus of work: Speed, T. (2025). SPEED’S WORK – An Autistic Intervention in the Concept of Work in the Age of AI and Robotics. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17826640 ISBN: 3819249281 (de) and ISBN: 3819277358 (en),the term povertism (poverty-based racism) is introduced as an independent analytical category. Povertism does not denote a mere stigmatization of already poor population groups, but rather a structural practice of the active production of poverty as a prerequisite for control, sanctioning, and social devaluation.In addition, a functional concept of right-wing radicalism is developed that is not tied to party-political self-ascriptions or extremist symbolism, but to human-rights-relevant criteria such as the systematic hierarchization of human dignity, the withdrawal of epistemic and existential rights, and the institutional legitimation of suffering. From a historical perspective, continuities with social-racist and eugenic patterns of thought are traced, without positing an identity-establishing equation with National Socialist crimes.The work explicitly understands itself as a conceptual clarification against the accusation of exaggeration and contributes to the theoretical grounding of critical research on welfare statehood, administrative violence, and the political economy of manufactured vulnerability.This paper functions as an interface text within a larger operator-based research corpus. Core concepts are applied here, not re-derived. The underlying research operates in a non-linear, rhythmically recursive epistemic mode grounded in an autistic form of structural perception; the present text provides an interface translation for academic contexts.