LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE - June 1998
WILL THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATS DO ANY BETTER THAN THE RIGHT IN GERMANY?
Elections offer brief respite from crisis
The Christian Democrats are in danger of losing the election on 27
September and Chancellor Helmut Kohl, in power since 1982, may have to step
down. Opinion polls at the end of May gave Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder
a clear lead. The old Chancellor is a past master in the art of snatching
victory from the jaws of defeat. Will he do it again? In any case, Germans
are not exactly thrilled by the alternative on offer. The trouble is that
the Social Democrat candidate has not put the real choice between different
kinds of society at the heart of his campaign.
by MATHIAS GREFFRATH *
Societies do not collapse, they split and crack. German society is changing
imperceptibly now, as it has in the past. Joggers - those symbols of social
success - trip over tramps in the well-tended parks. Police discreetly move
beggars on from the smarter shopping areas. Accordions play outside the
grand Jugendstil houses in West Berlin. There are now six million
unemployed but German society is still too well off to realise the full
extent of the crisis.
Very few people now think the German model is the best blueprint for the
future (1). Even television news programmes compare the rocketing share
prices quoted on the stock exchange with the unemployment figures.
Sixty-three per cent of the public are apparently convinced that the only
way to get rich is by coming into money or obtaining it by fraudulent means
and that the government just wants to make the rich richer. Only 27% think
hard work and plain living are the secret of success. However, 76% agree
that they have no material worries (2).
But although it is still prosperous, top of the world league for exports,
all ready to join the euro club thanks to a 3.5% rise in productivity in
1997, Germany is nevertheless in a state of moral and political stagnation.
"Everyone complains but everyone is afraid of change", according to Michael
Müller, SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) spokesman on the
environment.
But to speak of stability would be to underestimate the significance of the
election results in Saxony-Anhalt at the end of April. Thirteen per cent of
the electorate voted for the DVU (German People's Union), although all they
knew about this ultra right-wing party was that its posters called for a
"protest vote". CDU (Christian Democratic Union) spokesmen claim this is
the result of forty years of communism. Not so, say the Social Democrats,
the cause lies in Chancellor Kohl's broken promises. Meanwhile the former
communists of the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) simply put it down to
unbridled capitalism and West German arrogance. All these views have a
grain of truth in them.
There is a general fear of the "brown plague". It is a frightening
phenomenon, especially in a country where the Chancellor avoids the issue
of desecrated Jewish cemeteries and Turkish homes set on fire. But the
shadow of the swastika and the spectre of the skinhead prevent us from
taking a good look at the new mob that is gathering in the traditional
strongholds of the extreme right: the DVU, the NPD (National Democratic
Party of Germany) and the Republican Party.
The real danger is not a national socialist revival, but the rise of a
national capitalist movement that is against immigrants and a multicultural
society and hot on crime. The typical DVU supporter is young, male, working
class, threatened by unemployment or a drop in his standard of living,
strongly suggesting that West Germany is destined to go the same way as the
East. Excluded from the new fast-lane capitalism, these young people are
afraid of ending up on the scrapheap like their contemporaries in the
former GDR (German Democratic Republic).
One fifth of those who could be working, the unemployed, young people with
no prospects, people without secure jobs, people forced into early
retirement, all now depend on unemployment benefit or social security. Add
to these the skilled workers and those in employment whose standard of
living is threatened, people who once formed the natural constituency of
the SPD and now have no party allegiance. There has been no trouble so far,
but the 13% vote in Magdeburg is a straw in the wind. All these people who
are now surplus to requirements may yet revolt.
The German government's response will not change matters. The great
coalition programme, 600,000 new state-subsidised temporary jobs, will not
reverse the trend. In any case, the contracts expire in the autumn. The
worst aspect of the situation is that the ruling parties are beginning to
sound just like the extreme right. So, on the eve of the ballot in
Saxony-Anhalt, Finance Minister Theo Waigel announced that his party was
committed to the fight against crime and the campaign against bogus asylum
seekers. Not to be outdone, Chancellor Kohl warned foreigners not to abuse
German hospitality. And last year, Gerhard Schröder, the Social Democrat
candidate to succeed Helmut Kohl as Chancellor, insidiously coupled
"criminals" with "foreigners". If the political leaders continue to
encourage xenophobia and if the economic situation does not improve, there
is a real danger that racism may reach crisis proportions.
By playing on the fears of those most hard hit by modernisation, the
leaders on right and left alike hope to avoid having to tell their people
that, yes, the future is not rosy, yes, there are unprecedented challenges
to be faced and sacrifices will have to be made, but there is an answer if
everyone stands shoulder to shoulder. Last year, SPD leader Oskar
Lafontaine called for the electorate to be offered a genuine choice between
"two fundamentally different programmes for the future", between a strategy
aimed at securing Germany's position at the cost of excluding a third of
the population and an alliance between Social Democrats and the Greens to
defend the future of German society against the almighty power of
capitalism and the destructive culture of consumerism. But the political
leaders are afraid to grasp the nettle and the country will be offered no
such choice when it goes to the polls on 27 September.
Privately, everyone is echoing the left's old criticism of capitalism: the
system, as it now is, cannot last much longer. But there is an election on
and this is no time to air such views in public. So Mr Schröder says he
will do better than Dr Kohl and, of course, he won't do anything to rock
the boat. Like the earlier Christian Democrat leader, Chancellor Ludwig
Erhard, he paints a glowing picture of a new economic miracle based on
"modernity" and "social responsibility".
In the meantime, the German model everyone is promising to revive is
falling apart. It was based on:
-the redistribution of wealth generated by exports relying on the high
quality of products, the low wages of the post-war period and an
under-valued mark;
-a constitution that required the state to establish equal living
conditions, agreements between employers and unions guaranteeing employees
regular wage increases and a measure of participation in management.
The Federal Republic was built on that consensus. It must also be
acknowledged in retrospect that competition with the GDR was a powerful
incentive. It welded society together, bringing prosperity, a high level of
public spending and a socially-oriented form of capitalism, with relative
equality and a trade union policy that did not leave low wages lagging
behind.
That model, which had ensured industrial peace by avoiding strikes and
maintained a high level of consumption, with strong domestic demand from a
stable middle class, has gradually disintegrated during the Kohl years.
Thus, the division of the proceeds of increased productivity as between
capital and labour has gone completely haywire. In the past five years
alone, net profits and income from investments have risen by 46.8% and
private fortunes by 46.9%, while the net increase in wages has been only
3%. Productivity is up by a massive 10% but real wages have fallen by 8.3%
(3).
This trend is becoming more and more marked since unification has allowed
collective agreements to be dismantled. The right to continued payment of
wages during illness and the systems protecting employees against dismissal
have been scaled down. Only 50% of employees now have contracts
guaranteeing permanent, regular, full-time work subject to social security
contributions.
The wealthy middle classes are abandoning the idea of a civil society and
resorting to highly dubious financial manoeuvres to avoid charges imposed
in the general interest of the community. Their contribution to income tax
revenue has dropped from DM 40 billion (4) to less than DM 5 billion in the
space of four years. This places an increasing strain on the industrial
sector, as dwindling social security contributions have to support a
increasing numbers of the excluded. This downward spiral is exacerbated by
the official policy of globalisation, justifying swingeing cuts in social
security and public expenditure. We are looking at the end of wage-earning
society.
The press is obsessed with neoliberal theory and has more or less abandoned
politics for economics. So the Commission on the Future, a think-tank set
up by the conservative Minister-Presidents of Bavaria and Saxony, has
produced an apocalyptic vision of the disintegration of the world of work.
Production will become increasingly technical, simple tasks will be
transferred to countries where wages are low, and the working class will
consequently consist of:
-a highly skilled, highly paid and fiercely competitive elite, who can sell
their services anywhere in the world, acting in a sense as the agents of
modernisation;
-blue-collar workers, employees and service providers, who are essential to
keep the economy going but who will not in most cases have a traditional
contract for the work they do. Their working hours will depend on the needs
of the job and, to add insult to injury, they will have no fixed rates of
pay;
-a hard core of "losers", women and young people with little or no
training, who will simply be superfluous in a high-performance economy.
This hardening of class divisions follows naturally from the deterministic
view that there is the "creation of value" is no longer based on work as a
"production factor" but on two other factors, capital and know-how.
Apart from the findings of this liberal-conservative group, a good many of
the studies produced by the SPD and the trade unions are also permeated
with economic Darwinism. Far from questioning the primacy accorded to
economics, the Social Democrats' remedies are practically indistinguishable
from those of their opponents. There is no attempt to challenge the
capitalist concept of maximising performance, merely a willingness to
justify and preside over increasing inequality. Thus, the Commission on the
Future suggests that the people with relatively little training could be
employed by the new elite as nannies or masseurs or to do housework; the
SPD theorists propose to subsidise wages in industry and commerce to
encourage firms to employ more people; the sociologists specialising in
community affairs suggest creating a "third sector" that would pay people a
pittance to keep parks and woodlands tidy, mind children and tend the sick;
and, last but not least, the ecologists sublimate the new poverty,
presenting it as a free choice.
Instead of reorganising the economy, all they do is suppress the
psychological and social effects of rationalisation. Jobs are created not
to meet real needs - since productivity levels are so high in the West -
but for security reasons. Young people out of work and living on hand-outs
from the state represent a threat to public order.
Thinking in economic terms is all the rage. "Inequality is a fact of life",
according to crystal gazers close to Minister-President of Saxony Kurt
Biedenkopf, and: "You don't work, you don't get paid". A few years ago,
such sentiments would have aroused general indignation. Now they pass
almost unnoticed.
Fear is gaining and the public pronouncements of the new masters are
increasingly outrageous. Like the aristocracy of old, they are exempt from
taxes but that does not mean they provide jobs. The President of the
Central Bank of Lower Saxony has told staff to "stop thinking about what
your employer ought to do for you and start thinking about what you need to
do to keep your job". The Chairman of the Association of Catholic
Businessmen has suggested that the bishops should avoid mentioning equality
and the Welfare State because it encourages envy, "which is a sin". The
businessman caught parking illegally upbraids the traffic warden: "I am a
businessman. I create jobs. I can't afford to spend half an hour looking
for a place to park."
But fate has been, as it were, put on hold until 27 September 1998. Dr Kohl
will talk up the new expansion that is to bring ample future rewards for
past sacrifices. The active element of industry will support this line by
announcing a whole series of successes. The pretender to the CDU throne,
Wolfgang Schäuble, has been told to keep quiet - he had wanted to prepare
Germany for its conquest of the world market by cutting taxes, improving
performance and introducing educational reforms. Mr Schröder, for his part,
will address the "new centre" and will try to revive the Federal Republic
of former days, albeit in a new guise. And nobody will tackle the wealthy.
"We're ready to go", proclaim the SPD election posters, under a picture of
a giant gear lever that could belong to a BMW sports car. "Schröder" is in
top gear, while "Kohl" is in reverse. The aspiring Chancellor's message,
aimed at everyone with a stake in the economy, is: "Highly skilled and
motivated employees, careful and committed managers and employers, artisans
and self-employed men and women drawn from the middle classes ... and trade
unions conscious of their responsibilities." Once elected, Mr Schröder
would like to get everyone to pull together. And he may well succeed
because nobody now has any confidence in the CDU.
The SPD wants to modernise capitalism and confound its critics. But we
shall have to wait until after the election to see whether the party still
has the power to carry the whole of society with it or whether it will
concentrate on the "new workers" and forget the 800,000 still employed in
old-style trades such as mechanical engineering, where conditions are
deteriorating.
The proposals for social and ecological modernisation put forward in March
by left wing elements of the SPD were sharply criticised by party
officials, but their time may yet come. A possible way forward for social
democracy is offered by Walter Riester, currently vice-chairman of the
powerful metal workers' union, IG Metall, and in line for the post of
minister of labour in a Schröder government. He would like to "modernise
working conditions" and bring in new labour legislation that would take due
account of the pressures on industry as a result of globalisation and would
also respect the workers' need for security. He proposes to introduce a
minimum income and pension to apply across the board. And he has won
support among party intellectuals for his plans to renew urban development,
modernise the industrial infrastructure, encourage social work and sponsor
state schemes for ecological innovation.
These plans will depend for their execution on a consensus among the
representatives of capital and on the post Oskar Lafontaine is offered in
the new government, since he is known to be more sympathetic than Mr
Schröder to state intervention and European control of capital. They will
also depend on the relative strength of the Greens in the event of a
coalition with the SPD.
But the future of Mr Riester's programme depends above all on the trade
unions' ability to carry their point that, quite apart from any claims they
may have in respect of wages and jobs, they want to share in the industrial
society of the future. So they could campaign for a redistribution of work
that would maintain the number of skilled workers. Klaus Zwickel, the
chairman of IG Metall, has already put demands of this kind to the future
government. But he and two other union leaders, Herbert Mai of the Public
Services and Transport Workers' Union and Detlev Hensche representing the
media, are alone in calling for a radical reduction in working hours. Trade
unions members and officials are all too ready to repeat the ancient
prayer: Lord, may we keep all that we have won and may the coming boom
bring back the good old days.
Only a timid few welcome the cultural revolution that will follow the
inexorable decline in work. But we shall have to revise all our ideas about
work and leisure, invent ways of living that have nothing to do with
consumption, organise social security schemes that do not depend on paid
work. Women, the unemployed and the young have not yet the political power
to do more than claim a bare subsistence. They cannot force a debate on the
future form of society. No one - especially not at election time - dares to
challenge the middle class majority, which is defending its standard of
living and would rather see a growing number of people excluded than agree
to share work, wages and opportunities.
Germany is still prosperous enough for its system to survive. But nobody
can deny that fewer and fewer people who are in work are now paying for
more and more people who are out of work. Lucidly and cynically, a whole
era is being consigned to oblivion. The German model has not found the
secret of perpetual motion. The rest is politics.
* Journalist, Berlin
Translated by Barbara Wilson
(1) See "Le modèle allemand bat de l'aile", Le Monde diplomatique, December
1996.
(2) Die Woche, Hamburg, 24 April 1998.
(3) Tagespiegel, Berlin, 23 March 1998.
(4) DM1.78 = $1
Regards,
Tom Walker
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