Gabor Steingart
Piper Verlag 2004
301 pages, Euro
13.00
ISBN 3-492-04615-0 (pbk)
In: Journal of Contemporary European Studies,
No2/2005
This is an important book, not
because it reveals anything academically new or exciting about its topic – the
crisis of Germany’s economy and her political and welfare systems – but
because, unlike most other publications on these issues, this book addresses
itself to a mass readership and has significant potentials in terms of shaping
public discourse on societal modernisation along the lines of the neo-realist,
neo-pragmatist and neo-populist perspective which has already become something
like a new cultural hegemony. Gabor Steingart, a journalist who normally writes
for the Spiegel news magazine, skilfully presents his framing and
explanation of the ‘German defect’ (p.135ff) and his related political
recommendations as a factual, issue-centred, non-partisan and non-ideological
analysis, and is in exactly this seemingly post-political pose highly
ideological. His book is a prime example of the shallowness and populism of much
of the current modernisation debate that in the name of a superficial realism
completely fails to recognise what has been achieved in over three decades of
public discourse since the new social movements initiated the debate about the
questions what kind of society we might want to live in, and what kind of
society might be socially, politically, economically and ecologically
sustainable.
In the first half of the book
Steingart offers a somewhat wordy and at times rather pompous discussion of
‘the rise and fall of nations’ that seems strangely anachronistic in the era
of globalisation. Furthermore he develops a dangerously simplistic and populist
model of the national economy in which he contrasts the productive, wealth
creating, economically active ‘nucleus’ of society with the unproductive,
wealth consuming, economically parasitic ‘crust’. In the second half of the
book Steingart undertakes a historical reconstruction of the ‘German defect’
looking at the evolution of political institutions and the welfare system during
each of the four main political eras of the Federal Republic (Adenauer,
Brandt/Schmidt, Kohl, Schröder) and concluding that Germany is today
essentially beyond reformability. Key elements of the ‘revolution’ (p.272)
that he demands instead are outlined in the final sections. They include inter
alia constitutional reform in order to radically reduce the number of
potential veto players and veto points and thus facilitate strong and efficient
political leadership; replacement of the Bundesrat by an American-style
Senate; introduction of a first-past-the-post electoral system instead of
proportional representation; a new system of taxation; and the decoupling of a
radically reduced welfare system from the labour market. The book’s evident
strength is its simple and plausible narrative about the weakness of the German
model. Its major faults are the lack of complexity in its analysis, the failure
to appreciate the political achievements associated with Modell Deutschland,
and the carelessness with which major social and political accomplishments are
simply declared ‘defects’ and suggested for sacrifice at the altar of a
completely unreflected goal and notion of Zukunftsfähigkeit
(future-fitness).
According to Steingart, the
‘German defect’ is an ill-designed constitutional order that reflects, more
than anything, the interest of the WW2 allies to keep Germany politically small
and powerless. The ‘anti-Führer-state’ is deliberately and by design
‘inefficient, slow and unwilling to reform’ (p.153). Explicitly positioning
himself against the view that the German Grundgesetz paved the way
towards a progressive political culture and provided the basis for a desirable
post-national identity and constitutional patriotism, he describes the German
constitution as a ‘failure’ (p.167) which ‘despises the idea of
efficiency’ (p.163) and is detrimental to democracy in that it obstructs
genuine accountability (p.169). The German welfare model, in turn, has
supposedly never been based on a sound economic footing, but has been born out
of the ideological competition between the two halves of divided Germany and
has, ever since Adenauer, been the arena of ‘spineless opportunists’ (p.176)
who have been trying to ‘buy votes with public money’ (p.175). Within this
ill-designed institutional framework, the ‘German defect’ gradually
developed into a political culture: Germany’s deeply engrained attachment to
the values of participation, consensus, inclusion, and redistribution. The
German political system and culture are thus portrayed as artificial and
externally imposed, and the demanded ‘revolution’ as a project of national
emancipation and the final stage of the long-winded process of German
post-fascist ‘normalisation’: Finally Germany will once again be allowed to
become fully efficient; and finally the country will be able to enjoy natural
levels of social inequality and political exclusion.
Indeed, Steingart’s demanded
revolution is nothing less than a counter-revolution against the cultural
revolution since the late 1960s. Its revisionist project is to correct the
‘error of the century’ (p.173ff) that was Germany’s inclusive and
redistributive welfare policy, and to terminate the ‘witching hour’
(p.195ff) of the emancipatory and participatory social movements. In the name of
efficiency and future-fitness Steingart wants to roll back the participatory
revolution. But what – apart from ‘fast government’ (p.261 and 268) –
are his objectives? Swift action always seems desirable, yet speed is no
intrinsic value! In this book, however, there is no discussion at all about the
direction into which Germany should be moving fast. Steingart completely forgets
that at the beginning of the 21st century not only Germany but most
advanced modern societies have arrived at a crucial junction where the
unsustainability of their established arrangements has become blatantly obvious
and the societal discussion about the vision and direction of societal
development has become virulent. At this historical junction Steingart has
nothing more to offer than a completely empty and short sighted metaphysics of
innovation, efficiency and jobs. This metaphysics becomes the replacement for
any discussion of the key issue: efficient implementation of what? Leadership
and fast progress towards what?
Steingart completely overlooks
that seemingly successful countries such as Britain have despite all their
post-democratic authoritarianism, innovativeness and near-full employment
abysmally failed to achieve anything like future-fitness or even to generate a
vision for societal development, and that after decades of flexibilisation and
welfare cuts, they are still confronted with essentially the same demands as the
German electorate currently is. At a point of time when in the name of
sustainability, there is a wide debate about the internalisation of hitherto
externalised (socialised) costs into the economic system, Steingart suggests
that the cost of social provision, inclusion and peace should be externalised
and ‘thus stop to be part of business’s calculation of costs’ (p.275). In
line with the proponents of market liberalism, he demands a social climate
‘that does not shun risks, but loves them, that perceives innovations as a
challenge not a threat’ (p.68). This would be a climate and political culture
that is radically opposed to the precaution-oriented and deliberative
preferences of the risk society. But instead of exploring how a political
culture of reflexivity and risk avoidance may be stopped from culminating in
democratic sclerosis and societal stagnation, Steingart simply insists that
‘any job is better than none’ and that ‘politics consciously has to pursue
the principle jobs first’ (p.268). In Germany’s current situation,
this may seem intuitively plausible – which is the temptation and danger of
this simplistic, populist neo-realism. But Steingart’s approach fails to
address any of the underlying questions and therefore qualifies neither as
pragmatist nor realist: what it promotes is simply a politics of denial. What
Steingart suggests is not progress towards future-fitness but the restauration
of a historically outdated perspective that defines progress, wealth and
productivity in an amazingly reductionist, indeed completely one-dimensional
way.
Of course, as is common practice in the neo-realist discourse, the political reforms he is demanding are presented as giving citizens more power, choice and control. But this power is not participation in the process of political consensus formation and decision making, but only the power to vote for or against a political leadership which, as the British example neatly demonstrates, has indeed, contrary to all official rhetoric, become less transparent and accountable than ever before. And of course, Steingart claims that following the implementation of his revolution, ‘nobody will have less in their purse than before’ (p.276) because ‘direct payment to the employee of his former contributions for pensions, long term care and health will increase net wages significantly’ (p.276). This is plain populist nonsense, and Steingart knows this well! After all the introduction of a low wage sector, the radical reduction of welfare benefits, and the removal of comprehensive rights are his main objectives. This is an intriguing and cleverly written piece of journalism, but it is to be hoped that Steingart’s readers will remember earlier reassurances that afterwards nobody will be worse off than before. The undeniable and substantial problems of Germany will most certainly not be resolved by abdicating political power to supposedly more efficient political elites or to allegedly inescapable imperatives of the globalised economy.
Ingolfur Blühdorn