Germany's Hidden Crisis by Oliver Nachtwey

Author:Oliver Nachtwey
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC (Publisher Services)

EUROPE-WIDE CONFLICTS OVER DOWNWARD MOBILITY

A look at southern and western Europe makes it clear how calm things are in Germany. The conflicts in our country have largely remained latent, which is no doubt due to the present economic and institutional stability. In southern Europe, there have been several major waves of protest, culminating in a series of mass and general strikes.44 The trigger for these was often the exclusion of trade unions from political negotiations.45 The militancy in these conflicts has also increased. In France, but also in other European countries, there have been several instances of ‘boss-napping’.46

The dynamic of conflict in Europe requires a detailed study of its own, and can only be sketched briefly here. But these conflicts also have to be seen in the context of the breakdown of European social modernity. The liberalization of the labour market that is currently taking place in the countries of southern Europe was introduced in Germany in the wake of Agenda 2010.

The basic lines of social development since the Second World War are similar across most European countries. In northern and western Europe, a new social consensus formed after 1945, and in the countries of southern Europe after the fall of the dictatorships.47 This led to comprehensive welfare states, a marked rise in social expenditure, and successive advances of nationalization to create a mixed economy.48 Social mobility likewise increased.49 However, in the late 1970s, the heyday of the European welfare state came to an end, capitalism entered an era of post-growth, and the pendulum began to swing back. In the two following decades, the attenuation of income inequality slowed and ultimately went into reverse. Wealth inequalities grew from the 1970s onward, while upward mobility stagnated.50 These developments were a result of liberalization and the wholesale unchaining of market forces, in Germany as elsewhere.51

The countries of southern Europe faced financial collapse after the crisis of 2007–08. Various European rescue packages were put together, and the European Central Bank was forced to intervene on several occasions. In the context of these programmes, the countries affected by the crisis were forced to adopt drastic austerity programmes, only receiving new credits on the condition that they committed themselves to a massive reduction in their state debts, which had been inflated by the bank rescue operation.52 The welfare state was trimmed back, and achievements in the health and education sectors reversed.

In 2010, Greece saw the largest protest movements since the fall of the dictatorship in 1974. In Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities, half a million people came out in the streets. In Portugal, Great Britain, France and Italy there were also massive protests.53 Portugal, where trade unions and left-wing parties were still relatively well anchored in society, is also a good example of the change in the agents of conflict. The number of participants in a demonstration organized by left-wing forces was much lower than one initiated by four Facebook activists, at which well over 100,000 mainly young people—out of a population of only 10 million—came into the streets against the spread of precarity.

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