CLASS REVIVAL.

Every few years, a national polling institute asks Germans what they want most from their society. Each time, a majority--or close to it--answers Gleichheit, or equality. Germans' vision of equality--spreading the country's wealth, eliminating capitalist-class barriers, creating a prosperous and socially open meritocracy--has become the very foundation of their modern welfare state. Ironically, Gleichheit appears to be turning on itself. The very institutions meant to bring about equality are now doing precisely the opposite--creating new inequalities, killing opportunity and erecting fresh barriers to social advancement. Institutionalized mass unemployment, a direct result of the phasing out of low-wage jobs in the name of Gleichheit, has created families where two or three generations live off government handouts. And the country's failure to provide sufficient education and employment opportunities for its huge immigrant population has created potentially the most explosive underclass of all.