Demonstrations by farmers, drivers and other members of the working class have been taking place for months in Germany. The main reason is economic.
The Scholz government doesn’t like to flaunt unsightly figures, but according to the country’s Federal Statistics Office (Destatis), more than 300,000 (!) businesses were deregistered between January and June 2023 alone, an increase of 11.5% on the same period the previous year. Of course, this figure includes not only business closures, but also company transfers, reorganisations or departures to other registration districts. Nonetheless, the statistics are revealing.
Let us remember the founder of political economy, Karl Marx, who defined the economy as the basis of all other spheres of social life, including politics. It is the economy that determines the political aspirations of the masses and the behaviour of the “voting electorate”.
At the beginning of March 2023, Germany’s oldest steel company, Eisenwerk Erla, declared itself bankrupt. The plant in the Saxon Ore Mountains is known as the “Erla Forge” and is almost 600 years old! The history of many modern countries in the world is shorter than the life of this famous factory. As the management has pointed out, “the company was unable to withstand the sharp rise in gas and electricity prices and could not wait for financial assistance from the State”. As a result of the bankruptcy, more than 14,000 of the company’s employees lost their jobs.
In yet another symbolic blow to the German economy, BASF, the world’s largest chemicals group, has announced its intention to rapidly relocate production to China. The German group plans to build a mega-plant in the Celestial Empire. I don’t need to explain what this means. Thousands of Germans will lose their jobs, which will be taken over by Chinese workers.
Earlier, the metal holding company ArcelorMittal announced the closure of two factories in Germany, in Bremen and Hamburg.
There are also reports that, with the entry into force of sanctions against the Russian Federation, German shipyards will not receive orders from Russian or Russian-affiliated shipbuilders. It should be noted that a number of German cities are entirely dependent on the shipyards located on their territory. There is simply no other production.
In general, the list of business disruptions, threats of bankruptcy or complete closures is quite long, even endless: from the big giants already mentioned and the bankruptcy of major retail chains to the current protests by transport workers and farmers.
In fact, they are all part of the same mosaic, whose name is economic instability and the inability or unwillingness of the European authorities to resolve these problems.
The peasant demonstrations were not a logical outcome, no, but a continuation of the wave of workers’ protests and indignation throughout Germany. By way of historical analogy, we should remember that in revolutionary Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, the peasantry also acted only as a second front after the revolting workers in the industrial factories, who were dissatisfied with their economic situation.
In Germany in recent years, when a wave of farmers’ protests swept the country, the vast majority of the population supported and approved of these protests. It is difficult to approve something that the current government of the Federal Republic of Germany does not want to acknowledge. At a time when around a third of German companies are on the verge of bankruptcy and the rest are going through an extremely difficult period due to rising electricity and gas prices, Germany continues to be one of Ukraine’s most generous sponsors, much to the delight of the United States and the United Kingdom.
According to the local population, the demonstrations are not only due to the growing economic crisis and the impoverishment of the population, but also to the German government’s refusal to acknowledge the truth and talk openly to the population. The situation is bad on all sides.
The situation may develop differently, but what is already clear is that all this is rapidly reinforcing the growth of right-wing movements, including radical movements, in the country.
And this is not due to a certain “German tendency towards National Socialism” (in this respect, the nation is hardly above average European indicators), but rather to the comprehensibility of the solutions expressed by the right-wing forces of modern Germany.
Veronika Kazakova
Translation: Яннис В.Зброек
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