Congratulations, Cacique. The judges' decision was unanimous, as usual.
Posted on 09/18/2002 10:39:48 PM PDT by MadIvan
Germany, which was once considered the most important country in Europe, is sliding slowly but ineluctably towards irrelevance. Economically, Germany has for years been the sick man of Europe, although most people around the world have only just woken up to this reality, and Germans themselves still do not understand it.
Given the history of the past hundred years, the waning of Germany’s political significance will be treated with even greater disbelief than its descent into long-term economic stagnation. Yet political irrelevance and economic stagnation are fates which the German people seem to welcome with open arms.
This is the almost unavoidable conclusion from any analysis of the polls for next Sunday’s election, which seems set to leave Germany with the weakest government in Western Europe, and the one that will be least capable of dealing with a period marked by dramatic economic and political change. The various scenarios for the make-up of the next German government are discussed on page 18 and connoisseurs of electioneering may still be enjoying themselves right up to Monday evening, speculating about the coalitions that may or not ensue. For the purposes of my argument two simple observations suffice.
Firstly, a clearcut victory for the opposition conservative parties — the outcome which seemed almost certain until late last month — now looks unlikely. The second near-certainty, is that whatever government is formed next week, it will be a coalition for preserving Germany’s status quo. The German voters, in contrast to their neighbours across the rest of Western Europe, seem broadly happy with the direction of their country and with their incumbent leaders; they certainly seem unwilling to accept the risks and disruptions of any significant economic or political reforms.
At first sight, this may appear surprising. After all, Germany’s economic performance and its global influence have deteriorated dramatically during Gerhard Schröder’s time, especially in comparison with France and the rest of Europe. In fact, economic indicators such as job creation and per capita national income suggest that continental Europe, excluding Germany, has done almost as well as America (and rather better than Britain) since 1998. It has been Germany’s economy that brought down the average performance for the whole of Europe.
And Germany’s lagging performance has not just been a matter of economics. Its influence in the EU has waned, its relations with Washington have deteriorated and even its much-admired public services are no longer what they used to be.Many Germans are uneasy about crime, worried about their pensions, dissatisfied with their health service and embarrassed about their overcrowded universities.
While drivers in the rest of Europe may still envy Germany’s free motorways, it has fallen behind France and even Italy and Spain in the construction of high-speed railways. And last year, Germany’s social self-confidence suffered a particularly nasty blow when the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment, the most comprehensive comparison of high school education around the world, placed Germany 21st out of the 31 countries studied, well behind Britain, France, America and Spain.
Moreover, there is no great mystery about the causes of Germany’s relative decline. Germany’s wages and social charges are much higher than anywhere else in Europe, or indeed in America or Japan. By imposing these sky-high labour costs on the eastern Länder, Germany has condemned itself to a permanent condition of regional imbalance and mass unemployment. Germany also has a very unfavourable industrial structure for the 21st century, with a much higher reliance on manufacturing than any other advanced economy and an underdeveloped service sector.
To make matters worse, the development of new businesses, especially in the service sector, is stunted by onerous bureaucracy, a culture of anti-competitive subsidies and regulations and highly unionised labour markets, which exist to protect incumbent companies and employees, against the interests of new businesses and the unemployed.
And to cap it all, Germany has suffered more than any other country from the one-size-fits-all monetary policy and the deflationary bias of the European Central Bank and the eurozone’s “Stability Pact”.
Against this background, it is hardly surprising that the German economy has been underperforming, that social conditions have been deteriorating under the weight of regional imbalances and intractable unemployment, and that German politicians and voters have become increasingly inward-looking, to the detriment of the country’s international standing.
Why, then are the German voters apparently so content with the status quo, refusing to join in the swing against incumbent parties in the rest of Europe?
The obvious explanations — that Edmund Stoiber, the opposition leader, is a poor performer on the hustings and that his woolly “social-Christian” policies didn’t offer a serious alternative in any case — are unconvincing. After all, the main reason why German conservatives avoided any controversial policies, especially on economic issues such as taxes, public spending and employment, was that any hints of radicalism were seen as electoral poison.
The apparent failure of the economically liberal Free Democrats to make the electoral breakthrough they had been expecting seems to confirm the same point. If the polls are to be believed, then on Sunday the Germans will knowingly and deliberately vote against any serious challenge to the “social-market” economic model which they see as the basis of the country’s postwar economic prosperity and which has created a consensus for 40 years among the political, business and labour elites.
The words “prosperity” and “consensus” in the sentence above may offer the real explanations for Germany’s indifference in the face of its recent setbacks. The fact is that Germany remains a very prosperous country, at least in the western Länder. Life is fairly comfortable even for the 9 per cent of the labour force who are unemployed and the many more who are denied the chance to work because they are prematurely retired or female.
Moreover, the postwar traditions of political consensus, symbolised by the tripartite social harmony between government, business and labour, are enormously valued in a country that has suffered within living memory from the most hideous form of adversarial politics known to man.
It is quite reasonable, therefore, if most German voters feel untroubled by the country’s slow relative decline. Why should they risk radical “experiments” that might threaten their comfortable lives? And why should politicians focus on disquieting long-term trends instead of the comfortable present, given that Germany’s population is rapidly ageing, while the problems of unemployment and low economic growth rates mainly afflict the young?
In fact, the more one reflects on Germany’s condition today, the more it is reminiscent of another great defeated nation, which looked like becoming a superpower after its triumphant economic reconstruction, but instead slid slowly into economic paralysis and geopolitical insignificance during the past decade. I refer, of course, to Japan.
The similarities between Germany today and Japan ten years ago have recently begun to attract attention in financial markets, where there is growing discussion about the economic consequences of a decade of stagnation in Germany. But nobody has considered the possible political implications.
In particular, there has been no thinking at all about what might happen to Europe if Germany sinks gradually into Japanese-style paralysis and self-absorption.
Will Germany’s attachment to the status quo make economic and political reform impossible for the rest of Europe? Or will Europe learn to live without German leadership? Will France, Britain, Italy and Spain be ready to make the big decisions which are needed to renew Europe, leaving a complacent, ageing Germany to shuffle along reluctantly in the rear?
These questions may determine whether Europe prospers and advances in the 21st century or whether it will accept a comfortable, but ineluctable, decline.
Regards,
Congratulations, Cacique. The judges' decision was unanimous, as usual.
Second, as for not fighting a war, I have two words for you that describe Germany right now:
Weimar Republic.
God watch over Europe and the world if Germany continues to go south...
Thanks for taking a break from the France-bashing, Ive.
Who's going to cop it, tomorrow? Italy?
Care to read the article before you get wound up again?
Ivan
They control just about every aspect of commerce and the taxes are sky high. Of course, the people demand free everything and don't seem to realize that the reason for high taxes is to pay for all their free benefits.
Businesses have no reason at all to operate in Germany.
'Wound up'? I couldn't be more relaxed, amigo. Matter of fact, it's time for bed. I might say a little prayer; that one day, you'll realise that condemning a whole nation for the sins of its leadership only serves to demoralise the few working for change from within. Goodnight.
Weimar Republic.
God watch over Europe and the world if Germany continues to go south...
DING! We have a winner!
What do you guys THINK happens when the stagnation continues, the ones still with jobs can't support the dole rats and things actually get tough? Same as always (Germany or elsewhere), some lunatic arises who promises a new prosperity and a return to glory...
And all you have to do is wear the spiffy uniform, turn in any of your neighbors who are the foe'd'etat du jour, and march on Moscow when ordered to do so...
Tell your friend in Germany that yes, the Wall needed to come down, but then they needed to march all the East Germans around in the Sinai wilderness for forty years before they let them back into Germany.
That was how God instructed Moses to deal with those delivered from the Egypt before he led them to the Promised Land.
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