German elections: no matter who wins, war, crisis and austerity remain!

For three years, Germany’s ruling ‘traffic light’ coalition of Greens, Social Democrats (SPD) and Liberals (FDP) was under repair. Now it has finally been taken off the grid: the costs are too high, and the benefits are non-existent. The capitalist class threw it in the electoral recycling bin. Soon we will have to welcome a new selection of well-known crooks into office. The spectacle of so-called democracy continues uninterrupted, though it is hardly flawless and certainly not convincing.

[Originally published in German as the editorial of Der Kommunist #8, and on derkommunist.de on 11 December 2024]

Government of crisis

The ‘traffic light’ coalition was stricken by crises from its outset. This was the result of the crisis of capitalism: economic decline, political polarisation and the loss of confidence of the masses in the established parties.

On 6 November, after failing to pass a budget, the government collapsed. But contrary to the media's claims, this was not a question of the parties or their ideologies. It was an expression of the profound contradictions of German capitalism itself, as well as of its position in the world.

A week earlier, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had organised a so-called economic summit with leading representatives of German capital. Among those invited were the Federation of German Industries (BDI) – the leading bosses’ union in Germany – as well as some trade union leaders. They discussed the situation without reaching any conclusions. That is to say, the government was unable to satisfy the demands of capital.

Capital demands austerity

Former finance minister Christian Lindner (FDP) was not invited. Instead, he organised his own summit with equally esteemed representatives of capital, such as the president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA). Lindner presented an economic paper, which he sent to his coalition partners a few days later, with the capitalists’ approval.

In this paper, the FDP called above all for corporate deregulation. That means tax cuts; suspension of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the Supply Chain Act, the Remuneration Transparency Act and the Employee Data Protection Act; abolition of reporting and documentation requirements; extension of weekly and lifetime working hours; undermining workplace safety regulations; reducing unemployment benefits; cutting social spending, and much more.

Lindner presented an economic paper, which he sent to his coalition partners a few days later, with the capitalists’ approval / Image: World Economic Forum, Flickr

A few weeks after the coalition collapsed, Lindner reiterated his programme: “A dash of Milei and Musk would do our country good”. The cover of a recent edition of Handelsblatt, a mouthpiece of the capitalists, was printed with an image of a chainsaw in the FDP's colours with the headline “Longing for shock therapy”. The FDP is receiving support from the head of Germany’s Institute for Economic Research, Clemens Fuest, known for his saying “Guns and butter, that's paradise”. The chairman of Deutsche Bank is also calling for ‘structural reforms’.

Economic crisis

The German economy has been stuck in a deep, spiralling crisis since 2018. Since 2019, GDP has grown by only 0.3 percent. This stagnation has already lasted for five years. In 2025, at best, things will continue in the same vein: the BDI-affiliated Institute for Economic Research (IW) predicts growth of 0.1 percent.

The unemployment rate continues to rise as industrial production has fallen by a fifth since its peak in November 2017. More and more companies are filing for bankruptcy, threatening to relocate production abroad, shutting down operations, laying off their employees or starting to cut wages.

This wave of deindustrialisation is inexorably eating its way through the entire German economy. According to the IW, €210 billion in investments in machinery, vehicles, technical equipment and buildings have been lost since 2020. The capitalist class does not want to invest. It is responsible for the stagnation of labour productivity, and thus economic growth.

Subsidies for the economy and the military

In September, the BDI presented a programme with which the capitalist class wants to “get the German economy back in shape”. It is called Paths for the Transformation of Industrial Germany. This is intended to act as an ‘Agenda 2030’ – inspired by the pro-business economic reforms carried out in the 2000s under the guise of ‘Agenda 2010’ – as has long been demanded by all capitalists and planned by the right-wing CDU for the coming government.

The ruling class is counting on further rearmament and militarisation / Image: Bundeswehr-Fotos, Wikimedia Commons

In addition to enormous deregulation, as called for by the FDP’s paper, capital is demanding an ‘investment programme’ of €1.4 trillion. This money is to be raised by 2030, with at least €450 billion coming from the state. At the same time, the ruling class is counting on further rearmament and militarisation. This is not included in the €1.4 trillion. That is why a wide range of capitalists are calling for further ‘special funds’ – that is, special loans to be taken out – for the German military.

The stated aim of previous budgets is to reach NATO’s two-percent target for military expenditure by 2028 at the latest. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) is in favour of three percent, whereas Economic ‘experts’ have even called for an annual defence budget of four percent of GDP. Measured against the current GDP, that would be €180 billion annually – almost 40 percent of the current budget. That is the size of the current welfare budget.

Attacks at all levels

This is why the ruling class now wants a government that can go on the offensive. CDU leader Friedrich Merz is supposed to restore the conditions for capital to make profits – at the expense of ‘well-being’. His task will be to make the working class foot the bill for the current crisis.

If the state is to spend €450 billion on the economy and several hundred billion on the military and the war in Ukraine over the next five years – while at the same time only marginally easing the constitutional limit on state debt, and reducing taxes and regulations on businesses – then this can only be done through the introduction of extreme austerity policies. This means that the health service, infrastructure, education and welfare will be slashed to an even greater extent.

In turn, the managers of the banks and corporations will cut wages, destroy jobs and make people work longer hours, under the pretext that they have to raise the remaining €950 billion. As demonstrated by Volkswagen’s recent factory closures, profits must remain untouched. The president of the BDI says that “we can no longer afford this society with its current level of well-being”.

These attacks are being sold to the masses as a necessity to bring about ‘growth’ at some point. However, this is completely out of the question, as the development of the economic crisis over the last seven years has shown. Such a programme will comprehensively lower the living standards of at least 90 percent of society over the next few years. This will affect the entire working class: from babies to pensioners, from cashiers and nursery school teachers to computer scientists and engineers.

The bankruptcy of capitalism

Deindustrialisation means barbarism. It brings countless personal crises and prepares deep social upheavals. Families will have to count every euro every day to decide between heating or eating. More than two million children are already considered to be at risk of poverty.

If you look at other European countries where the process of deindustrialisation is much further advanced, you can see what the consequences are. In France, Spain, Portugal and Greece, youth unemployment rates exceed 20 percent. Precarious employment and rising rents are forcing more and more young adults to live with their parents.

Of those who are lucky enough to have a job, 37 percent of people feel burnt out because of work stress. 73 percent think about changing jobs at least once a month.

Deindustrialisation also brings conflict and personal crises, and causes despair and frustration. 24 percent of adults in Germany suffer from depression.

The results of a ‘study on authoritarianism’ in Germany aren’t therefore surprising: over 46 percent believe that real democracy can only exist without capitalism. Over 62 percent say that only the rich benefit from globalisation. 67 percent say that the financial markets are to blame for the growing inequality. At the same time, the current Shell Youth Study shows that 81 percent of young people are afraid of war in Europe, 67 percent fear poverty and 64 percent fear environmental destruction.

Class struggle and polarisation

This decline of German capitalism will increasingly produce social explosions and movements with greater and greater intensity. They are brewing beneath the surface of society. For several years, the bourgeois media has been discussing the possibility and danger of a kind of German ‘yellow vest movement’ similar to the movement in France in 2018.

For several years, the bourgeois media has been discussing the possibility and danger of a kind of German ‘yellow vest movement’ / Image: Olivier Ortelpa, Wikimedia Commons

At that time, the Financial Times published an editorial in which it warned that if things went on like this, the pitchforks would come out for the rich.

And they were not wrong. In fact, this is something very crucial. Polarisation and swings in public opinion are an expression of the masses' search for solutions to their problems. But none of the parties – not even self-proclaimed ‘alternatives’ such as Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Sahra Wagenknecht’s party (BSW) – will be able to solve any of these problems.

And that is why it is very likely that in the coming years we will see repeated outbursts of popular anger on the streets, against the bourgeois parties, the state institutions, the banks and the rich.

But we should also expect other movements, such as women's movements, which already exist in Spain, Poland and Ireland; or movements such as ‘Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen and Co.’, where over a million people in Berlin voted in favour of expropriating big real estate companies; or pensioners' movements such as those in Spain; and other social struggles against austerity policy.

But there will also be increased pressure for industrial action for higher wages, against mass layoffs, against plant closures, deregulation and attacks on labour rights. In 2023, there were more individual conflicts between capital and labour than ever before. This development will continue, because the trade union leaderships will increasingly come under pressure to act from the working class.

The upcoming federal election

The next government will be elected on 23 February and it will reap the class war. It does not matter whether Merz, Scholz, Habeck, Weidel, Wagenknecht or Lindner becomes chancellor, and it does not matter which parties form a coalition. Their policies will serve the interests of the rich, because if you do not want to abolish capitalism, you have to bow to its constraints. In a crisis, this means that the working class and youth are left to foot the bill.

All of these politicians are promising to lead the country into a new period of prosperity with their ‘reason’, ‘decency’ and ‘vision for the future’. Those who have not already realised that all the candidates are liars and cheats will soon do so. This election leaves the working class no choice. None of the parties have anything to offer the workers and youth. Not even the traditional parties of the working class, the SPD and the Left Party.

The SPD is complicit in the war in Ukraine. It is a central financier and arms supplier for Zelensky, and it is largely responsible for the rearmament and militarisation of Germany. It supports Israel's genocide in Gaza and the escalation of the war in the Middle East.

The Left Party, on the other hand, is in its death throes. Politically drained, it is relying solely on personality politics. Dietmar Bartsch, Bodo Ramelow and Gregor Gysi are supposedly going to save the party from being voted out of parliament so that, as they say, parliament has a ‘left force’. This is nothing but a ‘left’ fig leaf for the dictatorship of the rich.

The working class and youth need a party that truly represents their interests. But this will not fall from the sky. We have to build it ourselves. If you want to change things, then join the Revolutionary Communist Party and fight together with us for an end to crises, wars and austerity! We say: books not bombs! Healthcare not warfare! Socialism not barbarism!