Hans Bayer: Review of Wolfgang Linke’s Die Stellung der Angestellten in der modernen Gesellschaft (1964)

Hans Bayer’s journal book review offers a favorable but qualified assessment of Linke’s study of salaried employees in modern society. He praises its clear organization and synthesis of relevant literature, presenting its value chiefly as an overview. The central sociological claim concerns the grounds for recognizing salaried employees as a distinct group:

Die Angestellenschaft sei durch charakteristische Anforderungsarten, durch den Abstand zur körperlichen Arbeit und durch den sozial- und arbeitsrechtlichen Unterschied als eine eigene Gruppe anzusehen.

English translation: Salaried employees should be regarded as a distinct group on account of characteristic types of job requirements, their distance from physical labor, and the distinction in social and labor law.

The formulation combines occupational requirements, distance from manual labor, and legal differentiation. Group identity thus rests on several intersecting criteria rather than a single economic characteristic. Bayer reports Linke’s conclusion without developing a separate theoretical defense or supplying empirical examples; the review’s contribution is its concise identification of the study’s organizing argument.

Bayer also qualifies the study’s currency: completed in 1960, it could not take account of some important subsequent literature. Its origin as a submission for a social diploma at the Administrative and Economic Academy in the Bochum industrial district further situates its academic purpose. These observations delimit the study’s scope without displacing Bayer’s positive judgment of its usefulness as a structured survey.