The Alternative für Deutschland Problem
Germany’s February Election
By John Foster
The run-up to the German election defines malaise.
One in five voters is prepared to vote for the fascist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a party with few identifiable policies except xenophobia.
Elsewhere, mainstream German parties are wedded to policies that haven’t motivated voters in more than a decade and are too timid to try anything else.
The Social Democrats (SPD) epitomise this inertia. Decades ago, the one-time progressive party rebranded itself as a party of the extreme centre.
In the face of rising inequality and weakening economic growth, the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland’s solutions amount to minor adjustments to the tax code.
The party’s election manifesto promises economic growth and social justice for workers and families. Without significant reforms in the structure of German capital, the first is unlikely.
German industry is sclerotic after years of occupying the commanding heights of the European Union. But for all its vaunted reputation, Germany’s industrial base accounts for less than 30% of its GDP.
The rest is accounted for by services, whose growth has also slowed, and the FIRE sector (finance, insurance, and real estate), which is essentially rentier capitalism.
A large proportion of Germany’s “new” sources of wealth stem from increasing financial marketisation of elements of the housing supply and national infrastructure which have so far escaped this process.
There are several problems with this. While the SPD’s electoral platform retains a certain amount of boilerplate which alludes to the party’s leftist roots, the SPD’s concept of economic management bears only the most vestigial traces of anything “social democratic”.
Instead, the SPD has become a party of technocracy whose electoral platform, if never expressed in so many words, is that it will operate the economy responsibly.
To be fair, substantively similar ideas could be found in the party program of the Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands (CDU), the other half of Germany’s rapidly declining cartel system.
The primary difference between the SPD and the CDU is their rhetorical flourishes, which frame essentially similar ideas.
While the Social Democrats include throwouts to their proletarian past, the CDU offers curbs on immigration and a renewed focus on Leitkultur (‘leading culture’) for members tempted to cast protest votes for far-right parties.
The Christian Democrats have done a better job of centre positioning. From its very formation, the party defined radical centrism, so its pretence to it now should surprise no one.
The SPD’s long history has been shaped by its attempt to remove its working-class baggage from the boat. From the beginning, the CDU was much more comfortable in the middle of the road.
To their credit, the CDU leadership has remained disinclined to tie up with AfD. However, if the late February election results go to form, the CDU/CSU and AfD could form a two-party coalition.
One can hardly blame the CDU for not wanting to be locked in a room alone with Alternative für Deutschland. Their public pronouncements are so out of plumb with mainstream political discourse that one shudders to think what sort of thing must get mooted behind closed doors.
Of course, there’s also the fact that, recently, AfD has been coquetting with Elon Musk.
It’s one thing to make a few appropriate (if indistinct) gestures in the direction of the far right in the hopes of convincing some of its more pliable denizens to come back to the centrist fold.
It is quite another to offer oneself as a potential mouthpiece or factotum for a guy who is one Angora cat away from James Bond villainy.
The most likely result of the upcoming election (once again assuming the pollsters are getting things right) is a “Koalition der Republik” (i.e. black, red, and gold).
The policies of such a government are likely to be about as innovative as an Oasis reunion, but it holds out the prospect of forestalling the destructive bampot being served up by Alternative für Deutschland.
The usual minor players have been pushed to the sidelines in this election.
In 2022 and 2023, the Greens appeared poised to replace the SPD as the cartel’s junior party. However, their fortunes have diminished, particularly among younger voters who are gravitating towards fascism.
The Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP) has punched above weight in the last few years. The fact that they were able to torpedo the last coalition government demonstrates that as well as anything else. The question of what tangible profits they will likely realise from this reorganization remains open.
Current polling data suggests that the FDP will lose ground. Losing anything less than a third of their current support would constitute a remarkable success at this point.
Still, it is highly likely that they will get enough votes to be a minor third in a new coalition, especially since their presence would be distinctly more congenial with the CDU than that of the Greens.
Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) is at a pivotal moment. This is not to say that they have the slightest chance of being anywhere near the table in terms of coalition politics.
BSW might actually poll better than the FDP, but they are roughly as popular as oral surgery among the leadership of every other party in the German political establishment.
The real question for BSW is whether it will continue its policy of “growth by infinitesimal increment” or fall back into the netherworld currently occupied by Die Linke.
What the major German parties share is a commitment to policies that won’t fix the problems of wealth concentration and slow growth (accompanied by a very unwelcome hint of inflation), which are the predominant features of the country’s current economy.
The commitment of the SPD, the CDU/CSU and the FDP to keeping the same train on the same tracks will slow their electoral decline but not stop it.
The attractions of AfD are twofold.
The party seems ready to do something radical but is unlikely to effect any positive change, which is not on their menu anyway.
Alternative für Deutschland’s demonisation of foreigners makes their bad ideas seem like the kind of thing that’s so crazy it just might work.
The current situation in Germany, which mirrors the crises in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, shows that neoliberalism has damaged democracy.
Despite all the evidence, neoliberalism fails to account for the transformation of modern capitalism away from the atavistic ideas of the free market it continues to champion.
It is the genius of the AfD to have managed to take advantage of this situation and rebuild it in a conspiracy-driven, authoritarian fashion.
The lack of growth is due to the flood of immigrants and diversity rather than what Joan Robinson once euphemistically termed “imperfect competition”.
What is certain is that the snake oil proffered by Alternative für Deutschland and its cognate parties will not fix anything because it doesn’t address economic problems.
Populists may decry wokeness, but the only thing they know how to do is practice identity politics. The AfD’s only concern is with power and doing away with those who don’t deserve it.
What is less certain is what the political landscape will look like once that becomes clear. Remigration, AKA ethnic cleansing, is just the tip of the iceberg.
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Photograph courtesy of Joel Schalit. All rights reserved.