In the United States we have seen the dismantling of the safety net for American workers over the past decade. The pension system is in shambles; jobs are “off-shored”; a growing number of employed Americans have no health insurances; and now rules concerning overtime pay have been “reformed”. These changes were necessary, we were told, to keep the US competitive in the global marketplace.
Now Germany is heading down the same path with the Hartz IV reforms, also in the name of global competition. Albrecht Müller, whose letter to Gerhard Schröder we noted recently, has now come out with a book whcih attacks the notion that pressure from “globalization” means that Germany has to dismantle the basis of the Sozialstaat – or social welfare state. In his book, Müller argues forcefully and convincingly that the reforms – he call them ‘neo-liberal reforms’ – have gradually been introduced over the past two decades, but have not led to any increase in productivity or competitive advantage of the German economy. Rather, they have made German society ‘less just’ by widening the gap between the haves and have-nots.
Die gängige Reformpolitik leidet nicht nur unter einem Defizit an Gerechtigkeit. Genauso schlimm ist ihre Unwirksamkeit. In Deutschland wird seit gut zwanzig Jahren auf neoliberale Weise reformiert. Ohne nachhaltigen Erfolg. Die wirtschaftliche Lage wurde immer kritischer. Dass die neoliberale Bewegung dennoch die Herrschaft über das Denken erreicht und behalten hat, ist eine strategische Meisterleistung. Wer verstehen will, warum bei uns parteiübergreifend Reformen gefordert und gemacht werden, die nichts bringen, muss diese Strategien durchschauen lernen. Darum analysiere ich auch die Methoden und Hintergründe dieser gekonnten Meinungsprägung.
Read Müller’s preface to his book here. Müller is a well-repected macro-ecnonomist and former advisor to Helmut Schmidt, so it will be interesting to see if the SPD issues a specific rebuttal to the book. In any event, it is sure to spark debate.
