Social cuts and rearmament

Economic and social consequences of the war policy in Germany

by Sevim Dagdelen,* Germany

(26 September 2023) (Edit.) Under the motto "Win the peace and the future, not the war", the Cologne Peace Forum invited to a discussion event on 1 September 2023.

The occasion was the World Day of Peace. In front of a packed hall, the member of the Bundestag Sevim Dagdelen ("Die Linke") gave an impressive speech. She clearly spoke out against the Russia sanctions and an escalation of war through further arms deliveries. She strongly advocated a diplomatic solution to the war.

When she pointed out in her speech the serious economic and social consequences of the current government's war and rearmament policy, she received standing ovations. In the discussion that followed, trade union members present denounced the fact that, for example, an excellent children's hospital in Cologne is to be closed for financial reasons. The urban infrastructure is in a state of disrepair in many places. The war and the sanctions against Russia had developed into a fight against the population and the German welfare state.

Switzerland is also affected by the economic and social disintegration of Germany and other EU countries, because its economy also depends on export opportunities to the EU. By adopting the Western sanctions policy, Switzerland is affected by high energy costs and the withdrawal of funds from the financial and industrial economy. At the same time, national sovereignty, integral neutrality, as well as economic and social prosperity are endangered.

In the following, "Swiss Standpoint" documents the author's 10 theses, which she also formulated as a contribution to the current budget debate in the German Bundestag.

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One. Germany is at war, in decline and in a state of emergency. Yet there is hardly any public debate about the dramatic upheavals in our country. With 85.5 billion euros according to NATO criteria for the military, the Federal Government has drawn up a budget for 2024 that goes beyond all historical dimensions since the Federal Republic came into existence. It is the highest German military expenditure since 1945, making Germany the highest-spending military power in Europe, ahead of Russia.

Two. Those who believe that this historically high military expenditure will not lead to cuts in the social sector would do better to look at the federal government’s budget proposal for 2024, which is being discussed in the Bundestag this week. Here the principle “social cuts and rearmament are only two sides of the same coin” is obvious, as the following budget cuts show. Mothers’ convalescence organisation: minus 93 percent, family holiday centres: minus 93 percent, youth education and youth meeting centres: minus 77 percent, free youth welfare: minus 19 percent, housing allowance: minus 16 percent, BAföG (Federal Education Assistance): minus 24 percent. The draft budget shows that we are dealing with a social war against our own population.

Three. This social war against our own population also includes a policy that further destroys Germany’s infrastructure and massively endangers Germany as an industrialised country. Many people often only think of the railways here, which is certainly the case. The situation has become so grotesque that railway lines must be temporarily closed due to a lack of personnel. Another, no less serious example is the hospitals. The economic situation of the hospitals is dramatic. There is a threat of a cutback in health care and the closure of many more hospitals, without any countermeasures being taken by the federal government. The result will be a completely ruined health system that resembles British conditions.

At the end of July 2023, there were 7.6 million people on waiting lists for routine surgery in the UK, more than at any time since 2007, when records began. 383,000 people had been waiting for surgery for over a year. This neoliberal policy calculates the death of millions of people who cannot afford an operation at a private clinic abroad. In any case, the federal government with its economic war is responsible for the unprecedented decline in Germany. Those who also call for further tightening of sanctions here, or lament, like parts of the leadership of the Left Party, that these are only “half-heartedly implemented”, should no longer use the word “welfare state”

Four. Linked to the German government’s armament efforts is an unprecedented involvement in the proxy war in Ukraine. Finance Minister Christian Lindner has promised Kiev five billion euros in “upgrading aid”, in other words: armament aid. This is also reflected in the budget for 2024. While the basic child allowance of 2.4 billion euros will leave many children poor, anything goes when it comes to armament. Armament aid for Ukraine will become a permanent item. The federal government is thus turning Germany into a military state in the centre of Europe. The traffic light coalition spends almost 20 percent on military purposes. An outrageous dimension.

Five. After the USA and Great Britain, Germany is the state that participates most in the proxy war against Russia. Here, the call for the delivery of ever more and ever heavier weapons is getting louder and louder, which also affects leading figures in the Left Party. It started with a few helmets; after the “Leopard” battle tank, it is now already about “Taurus” cruise missiles – medium-range weapons that can hit cities in Russia and are nuclear-tipped. Apparently in the hope that the balancing act of being able to participate in the war through arms deliveries, military training of Ukrainian soldiers and intelligence assistance in target acquisition will succeed, without having to suffer direct consequences. This could prove to be deceptive.

Six. However, Germany is in a state of emergency not only because of the gigantic arms expenditure, but also because of the sanctions against Russia and their consequences. The German government had launched the economic war together with the EU, following the lead of the USA, in the hope, according to Green Party Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, of ruining Russia. As so often in life, things turned out differently than expected. Regarding the German government, one could also say: “harm set, harm get”.

To the surprise of the Foreign Minister, it is Germany that suffers an economic slump, not Russia. While the Russian economy is growing by 2.5 percent this year because it has found other markets for its energy supplies and is delivering more LNG gas to Europe than ever before, the prices for energy and food are soaring in Germany. The German government has found substitutes for Russian gas, but the prices for US fracked gas are much higher and put the existence of the German industry in question. Consideration is now being given to permanently subsidising industrial electricity for large corporations in energy-intensive industries from tax revenues. But is that really a viable economic concept if the oven remains cold for medium-sized bakeries?

Seven. During the war, Germany’s democratic sovereignty has fallen by the wayside. In the economic and proxy war, the traffic light coalition has generally seen itself as a transmission belt for Washington’s decisions – to the point that the German government even let itself be pushed into the front row by the USA when it came to tank deliveries. This brings to a head a development in which the Federal Republic, on the one hand, as a US troop base, acts like an unsinkable US aircraft carrier and in which US investment funds have been able to assume a determining function in the German economy.

The federal government acts here like the political representative of a comprador bourgeoisie in 1970s Latin America, as a vicarious agent of the interests of US corporations. This goes so far that the traffic light coalition is about to jeopardise the important economic relations with China – at the risk of dealing a death blow to the German car industry, which employs over 800,000 people.

Eight. The German government has tied Germany’s global political fate to the declining hegemon, the USA, for better or worse. The problem with this is that to prevent its own imminent decline, the hegemon is prepared to let even its closest allies be run over. One need only recall the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines. Despite all efforts, including those of the German leading media, to develop a counter-narrative pointing to unknown Ukrainians as the perpetrators, the research of the US investment reporter Seymour Hersh continues to be in the air, pointing to a direct commission by US President Joe Biden – with a subsequent initiation of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz into the terror plot. In any case, the German government seems to be highly fearful of possible revelations that could point in the direction of Washington.

There is no other explanation for the fact that only a handful of investigators in Germany are involved in solving the biggest terrorist attack in Europe’s recent history. If fewer investigators are tasked with clearing up the terrorist attacks on Germany’s and Europe’s energy infrastructure than are involved in punishing a department store theft, they cannot have any real interest in gaining knowledge. Here, “investigations” seem to be conducted merely to never have to name the real perpetrators and those behind them.

The war in Ukraine shows: Those who want to defend their democratic sovereignty in the West today can only do so by means of unconditional neutrality. For even NATO, which the Commission and the Council of the EU make themselves subservient to, only serves as a transmission belt for the geopolitical interests of US corporations. Only if we say: “No war is our war, not even this one”, will we create the diplomatic leeway to press for negotiations and remove Germany as a party to the war.

Nine. The French socialist Jean Jaurès pointed out that capitalism carries war within it like the cloud carries rain. At the same time, one must state that this war is also linked to a brutal class struggle in Germany, with those at the top winning and those at the bottom losing. Just two figures on this: While workers in Germany are suffering four percent losses in real wages – the highest losses since the end of the Second World War – the profits of the Dax corporations are exploding at 170 billion euros. This war as an economic and proxy war causes a gigantic redistribution from the bottom to the top, with the federal government as lookout. The traffic light coalition has not even been able to wrest a real tax on excess profits. It is to blame for the impoverishment of large sections of the population in Germany.

Ten. In view of Germany’s decline and the threat of direct war participation, it is high time to stand up to the warmongers. We need to take a clear stand against arms exports and economic warfare, against the asocial plundering of the vast majority of the population. Unimpressed by the loud chorus of the bellicists, we must press for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine without any preconditions. The peace initiative of the BRICS countries, which will soon represent 47 percent of the world’s population and 37 percent of the world’s economic output, could be a model here. There is still time. But time is also running against Berlin.

* Sevim Dagdelen was born in Duisburg in 1975. From 1998 to 2001 she studied law at the Philipps University in Marburg, from 2001 to 2002 she spent an academic year at the law faculty of the University of Adelaide in South Australia and from 2002 to 2006 she was at the University of Cologne. Since 2005, Ms Dagdelen has been a member of the German Bundestag for “Die Linke” and on the Foreign Affairs Committee as well as a deputy member of the Defence Committee. She is also a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PV), a substitute member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and a member of the Informationsstelle Militarisierung (IMI e.V.).

Source: https://www.sevimdagdelen.de/sozialabbau-und-aufruestung-2/, 6 September 2023

(Publication with kind permission of the author)

(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)