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"SOCIAL JUSTICE" VERSUS "CONTINUITY": GERMAN PARTIES, GERMAN VOTERS, AND THE GERMAN PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION OF SEPTEMBER 2017
Ralph P. Guentzel
Franklin College, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chair of the Department of History, 101, Branigin blvd., Franklin, IN, 46131, USA
The article focuses on the role of the current German economic model and, more specifically, its social repercussions in the 2017 parliamentary election campaign. While this model, which is characterized by a heavy emphasis on exports and the existence of a large low-wage sector, has led to substantial growth and a significant decline in unemployment, it has also translated into declining living standards for large parts of the population, widespread poverty, and a rising gap between a small but extremely affluent upper class and the rest of society. The election campaign pitted against each other a camp of "social justice", which challenged this model, and a camp of "continuity", which defended it. Although the camp of "continuity" emerged victorious in this contest, voter support for the German economic model was brittle. As in-depth surveys of the electorate show, a majority of the electorate were dissatisfied with prevailing conditions. Above all, they criticized the prevalence of "social injustice" and the "unfair" distribution of material wealth in their country. However, the fear of uncertainty prevented many voters to act on their dissatisfaction. Ironically, the camp of "continuity" achieved its victory despite a widespread sense of discontent-edness among the electorate.
Keywords: Germany, party system, electoral process, political behavior, political economy, neo-liberalism, democratic socialism, social democracy, Angela Merkel.
INTRODUCTION
On first sight, the German parliamentary election of September 24, 2017, was a dull affair. Already by the beginning of the election campaign in early August, four outcomes appeared to be virtually guaranteed: first, the Christian Democratic UnionChristian Social Union (Christlich Demokratische Union-Christlich Soziale Union; CDU-CSU) would prolong its winning streak in German parliamentary elections to four in a row; second, Angela Merkel, the CDU-CSU's leader, would extent her twelve-year stint as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) even further; third, the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands; SPD) would reach the finish line at a considerable distance behind the CDU-CSU; and fourth, each of Germany's four smaller parties, the Left Party (Die Linke), the Greens (Allianz 90-Die Grünen), the Free Democratic Party (Freie Demokratische Partei; FDP), and the Alliance for Germany (Allianz für Deutschland; AfD), would easily clear the five-percent threshold required to be represented in the German Federal Diet but trail the Social Democrats by a substantial margin.
© Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, 2017
These four outcomes implied a fifth one: the continuation of the business-friendly policies that had characterized the previous three Merkel-led administrations. Not only had these administrations resisted all calls to significantly expand public social provision and tighten labor-market regulation, but they also had kept taxes on corporations and high-income earners low. As a result, labor had been cheap and profits had soared. Workers had paid the price for these policies as nearly every fourth employee had been forced to work in the low-wage sector and many others had to live with the fear that they, too, might one day have to join the ranks of the working poor.
The three Merkel-led administrations had done little to assuage the problems their business-friendly policies had created. Even the introduction of a statutory minimum wage in 2015, the only one significant measure aimed at improving the lot of the working poor that had been adopted in the entire period between 2005 and 2017, had been distinctly unambitious. Its application was marred by many exceptions and its rate had been set so low that it merely protected employees from sliding into destitution but did not enable them to enjoy a decent standard of living.
From the outset of the 2017 campaign, Merkel and the CDU-CSU had made it clear that, if re-elected, they would stick to their low-regulation and low-tax approach to economic and social policies. In embracing this approach, they were not alone. Three other parties, the FDP, the Greens, and the SPD, also took their cue from supply-side economics. To be sure, the degree to which these three empathized with corporate concerns differed from one party to the next, as the FDP did so wholeheartedly and unconditionally while the Greens and the SPD did so with the caveat that one must also consider environmental considerations and employee concerns. Despite these differences, all three of these parties agreed with the premise that government ought to foster an environment in which private enterprise could thrive.
Only two of the six parties, the AfD and the Left Party, embraced fundamentally different approaches. The AfD was committed to a nationalist agenda and worked toward ending German membership in the Eurozone, limiting immigration, and fostering a new sense of pride in the nation's history. The Left Party promoted a democratic-socialist agenda that aimed at overcoming poverty, drastically reducing the wealth gap, and laying the groundwork for a society in which everybody would be able to lead a self-determined life without fear of economic uncertainty.
The electorate's overwhelming support for the CDU-CSU, the SPD, the FDP, and the Greens indicated that there was limited demand for a fundamental redirection of the country's economic and social policies either in a nationalist or democratic-socialist sense. Pundits linked the apparent absence of a widespread desire for change to the state of the German economy. For several years, growth had been robust and by 2017, unemployment figures had reached record lows. Few developed countries could match Germany's economic record and politicians in other European countries, such as Emanuel Macron, the recently-elected French President, looked at the German economic success story with envy. It seemed as if the state of the Germany economy almost dictated that Merkel be reelected and her economic and social policies be continued.
Appearances can be deceiving, however. As this article will argue, beneath the surface of the electorate's contentedness with their country's economic situation
lingered a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction with what many voters regarded as "social injustice" and an "unfair" distribution of material wealth. As this article will argue further, it was the fear that things might get worse rather than contentedness with prevailing conditions that prevented many voters to act on their dissatisfaction.
This article will proceed in four steps: first, it will scrutinize the economic and social context in which the election took place; second, it will provide an overview of the German party system; third, it will identify key proposals of each of the six parties in the fields of social policy, labor-market policy, and tax policy; and fourth, it will analyze the attitudes of the electorate and discuss the meaning of the election outcome.
1. THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONTEXT
The German parliamentary election unfolded in a context of vigorous economic growth, the beginnings of which dated back to the end of the global economic crisis of 2008. The boom was driven primarily by exports of manufactured items such as automobiles, machinery, machine tools, and pharmaceuticals, with German trade surpluses reaching or exceeding 7.5 % of the GDP in 2014, 2015, and 2016. While the export-oriented sectors served as the locomotive of growth, in its wake virtually all other sectors also prospered. Firm profitability was high (OECD..., 2017, p. 163164) and the DAX, Germany's major stock index that reflects the values of companies such as Deutsche Bank, Lufthansa, Metro, Siemens, and Volkswagen, went from one record to the next. In the eight months preceding the election, it had climbed by 6.4 % (Markets, 2017).
The boom also generated large numbers of new employment opportunities. Between 2010 and 2017, the German economy had added more than 3,5 million jobs. From June 2016 to June 2017, alone, the number of people who were gainfully employed increased by more than 650,000, or 1.5 % of the labor force (Bischoff, Müller). The proliferation of new jobs went hand in hand with a decline in unemployment rates. By July 2017, the number of job seekers had dropped to about 2.5 million, the lowest figure on record since the unification of the two Germanies in 1990 (Specht, Hildebrandt, 2017).
Comparisons with other European countries and the United States further testify to the ebullience of the German economy. On the eve of the election, the German unemployment rate stood at 3.7 % and was somewhat lower than the British and U. S. ones, both of which stood at 4.4 %, and considerably lower than the French and Italian ones, which stood at 9.8 % and 11.3 %, respectively. In early September 2017, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) forecast that between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2017, the German economy would grow by 2.1 %. According to the EIU, the corresponding figures were 1.5% for Britain, 1.6 % for France, 1.3 % for Italy, and 2.1 % for the U.S. The EIU further predicted that between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2017, the German trade surplus would once again surpass 7.5 % of the GDP (Economic Data, 2017).
Yet, all was not well with the German economy. Long-term unemployment remained endemic. Of the 2.5 million unemployed, some 900,000 had been out of work for more than year. Many of the long-term unemployed lacked basic skills and had little hope
of ever finding a decent job (Specht, 2017, p. 4-5). Since the long-term unemployed received only meager benefits from public social programs, they tended to be poorly integrated into the rest of society and their children's prospects of leading a better life tended to be dim. A permanent under-class, a twenty-first century version of the Lumpenproletariat, appeared to be in the making.
But poverty was not limited to those out of a job. The boom had been underwritten by wage restraint and an expansion of poorly-paid jobs. Almost one quarter of the paid labor force worked in poorly-paid jobs, thus making the German low-wage sector one of the largest in Europe (Bischoff, Müller). The existence of this large low-wage sector adversely affected the overall wage level. Even after eight years of economic growth, wage increases remained modest (OECD, 2017, p. 163-164). In fact, by the mid-2010s, the inflation-adjusted income of the lowest-paid 40 % of the German labor force was less than it had been 20 years earlier (The livin' is easy, 2017, p. 22).
The poverty rate remained substantial: in 2016, nearly 16 % of the population lived beneath the official poverty line (Bischoff, Müller). At the same time, the gap between the poor and the rich became wider and wider. According to some estimates, between 1993 and 2014, the richest 10 % of the population increased their portion of the country's total net assets from 45 % to 52 % while the bottom half of the population saw its share in the country's total net assets decline from 4.1 % to 1 % (Knobbe et al., 2017, p. 16). Other estimates indicate that in 2014, the richest 1 % of the population owned about 30 % of the total wealth in the country while the richest 10 % of the population called about 60 % of the total wealth in the country their own (Credit Suisse Research Institute, 2014, p. 125-126).
In summary, the economy was growing, overall prosperity was increasing, and profits were soaring but many people had difficulty making ends meet. While large numbers of workers worked long hours for little money, at the upper end of the totem pole, a small elite gained enormous wealth merely by letting their investments do their work for them. Neither work nor wealth seemed to be distributed fairly.
2. THE GERMAN PARTY SYSTEM
The positions that the six parties adopted on the issues of poverty and the gap between rich and poor depended greatly on the specific political philosophy or political philosophies to which each of these parties owed its intellectual allegiance. Three such philosophies were in play: democratic socialism, social democracy, and neo-liberalism. They can be defined as follows:
Democratic socialism is a political philosophy that aims at the creation of (1) a society in which all citizens (a) have equal access to the material resources and services needed to lead rewarding lives and (b) enjoy equal participation rights in collective political and economic decision-making processes and (2) an economic order in which economic activity (a) primarily serves the common good and (b) is based on the socialization either of the legal title to or of the right to decide over the use of the major means of production and distribution (McLaverty, 2005; Radice, 2009, p. 28-32, 39-40).
Social democracy is a political philosophy that aims at the creation of (1) a society in which all citizens (a) have access to the material resources and services needed to develop their talents and forge careers in a competitive market place and (b) enjoy equal participation rights in collective political decision-making processes and (2) an economic order in which economic activity (a) primarily serves profit considerations but takes the common good into consideration and (b) is based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution as well as a degree of government regulation to prevent owners from abusing their economic power in their relationship with their employees (Meyer, 2011; Rothstein, Steinmo, 2013).
Neo-liberalism is a political philosophy that aims at the creation of (1) a society in which all citizens (a) are free to compete with one another in a competitive market place and (b) enjoy participation rights in collective political decision-making processes and (2) an economic order in which economic activity (a) solely serves profit considerations and (b) is based on the private ownership of and control over the means of production and distribution (Harvey, 2005, p. 2-3; Biebricher, 2012).
The six parties can be grouped into four categories: the "left", which owes its intellectual allegiance to democratic socialism and includes the Left Party; the "centerleft," which takes its cue from a combination of social democracy and neo-liberalism and includes the SPD and the Greens; the "center-right", which embraces a mixture of neo-liberalism and pragmatism and includes the CDU-CSU; and the "right", which draws on radical neo-liberalism in the case of the FDP and nationalist neo-liberalism in the case of the AfD.
Table 1. The Left-Right Divide and the Political Philosophies of the German Political Parties
The Left The Center-Left The Center-Right The Right
Democratic Socialism Social Democracy and Neo-Liberalism Neo-Liberalism and Pragmatism Radical Neo-Liberalism Nationalist Neo-Liberalism
Left Party SPD Greens CDU-CSU FDP AfD
3. THE PARTIES AND THEIR ELECTION PLATFORMS
3.1. The Left Party
Dedicated to overcoming capitalism, the Left Party aims to create "a society in which no child must grow up poor [and] in which all men and women can live a self-determined life in peace, dignity and social security and can democratically shape social relations (Die Linke, 2012, p. 4)". According to the Left Party, such a society would rest on three pillars: extensive public social provision (Die Linke, 2012, p. 42-45), deliberative and participatory democracy (Die Linke, 2012, p. 45-49), and an economic order characterized by a large public sector and an institutional framework that provides for the participation of all stakeholders in economic decision-making from the plant-level up (Die Linke, 2012, p. 29-33). To turn this vision into reality, the party wants to begin
by creating "a broad social alliance" that includes members of the lower and middle classes. This alliance would bring about a fundamental transformation of the existing economic and social institutions in a step-by-step fashion with each step marking a significant extension of public social provision, democratic participation, and public control of and stakeholder democracy in the economy (Die Linke, 2012, p. 72-73).
As could be expected from a party devoted to providing all members of society with a decent standard of living, the Left Party put poverty and the wealth gap at the center of its election campaign. In the field of social policies, the party proposed to boost unemployment insurance benefits; replace the existing public social program for the long-term unemployed with a new one that would feature less restrictive eligibility criteria and more generous benefits; lower the retirement age from 67 to 65 years; and increase benefits from the public old-age insurance plan. Currently, the wage replacement rate of the public pension system is pegged at 48 %, a figure the Left Party considered to be too low to keep low-income earners out of poverty once they had retired. To solve this problem, the party proposed to raise the wage replacement rate to 53 % and to introduce a pension floor of €1,050 per month (Die Linke, 2017, p. 13-28).
In the field of labor-market policies, the party advocated a substantial increase of the minimum wage rate and an end to legal stipulations that make it possible for companies to opt out of sectoral or regional collective bargaining agreements between unions and employer associations (Sell, 2017, p. 19-22). With respect to tax policies, the party went on record in favor of a substantial increase of the top income tax rate and of inheritance taxes on large fortunes and the introduction of a substantial wealth tax on assets surpassing the value of € 2 billion (Die Linke, 2017, p. 37-39).
3.2. The SPD
Following its famous 1959 Bad Godesberg party convention, the SPD had for a long time championed social democracy. During the 1980s and 1990s, however, the party had become trapped in a dilemma that would eventually cause it to abandon some of its social-democratic principles. On the one hand, it wanted to ensure that all citizens enjoy access to life-long education, quality health services, and a modicum of material security and that all workers benefit from decent working conditions. On the other hand, it wanted to promote economic growth and development by creating a legal and policy environment that was attractive to investors. The first aim implied a reduction of ordinary people's dependency on wages and a weakening of the power of the capital owners. In the context of global capital mobility, the second aim implied an increase in ordinary people's dependency on wages and strengthening the power of capital owners.
In the early 2000s, after considerable dithering, the SPD opted for the liberty of the capital owner instead of that of the wage earner. Under the leadership of then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, it embraced such core concepts of neo-liberalism as the de-regulation of the labor market and the creation of a low-wage sector. The Schroder-led government drastically cut unemployment insurance benefits and halved the maximum duration of unemployment insurance payouts. It also created a new program for long-term unemployed who were given a very basic living allowance
under the condition that they actively sought and, if offered, accepted work that they might otherwise not have considered. The Schröder administration complemented these measures with changes to the rules governing employer-employee contracts that made it easier for capital owners to fire employees and to hire workers on a parttime or temporary basis. The cuts in public social provision and the rule changes in labor contracts resulted in the emergence of large low-wage sector. After Schröder's departure in 2005, the SPD became less enthusiastic about neo-liberalism but stopped short of disavowing its governmental record during the early 2000s (Schmidt, 2012; Nachtwey, 2013).
In the 2017 election campaign, the SPD once again stressed its social-democratic roots. Martin Schulz, the party's candidate for the office of the Chancellor, adopted the pose of the defender of "social justice" and the party's election platform advocated several measures to combat poverty and to reduce the wealth gap. More specifically, the SPD proposed to loosen the eligibility criteria for unemployment benefits; create a special program to provide benefits for jobless workers who were learning new skills^ and raise the pension benefit floor. The Social Democrats also wanted to facilitate the extension of sectoral or regional collective bargaining agreements between unions and employer associations to all enterprises in the sector or region in question (Sell, 2017, p. 19, 22) and to increase top income tax and inheritance tax rates (SPD, 2017, p. 52-53).
It is questionable, however, whether these proposals were as social-democratic as the SPD made them out to be. The changes envisaged were too modest to challenge the neo-liberal character of German's economic and social institutions. The party's tax proposals, for example, foresaw only a minor increase in the case of the top income tax rate, failed to provide any specifics in the case of inheritance taxes, and remained conspicuously silent on the issue of a wealth tax on great fortunes. Unlike the Left Party, the SPD seemed to see no need to tax billionaires' villas in Tuscany and yachts in the Caribbean. The implementation of these proposals would have done little to reduce the gap between rich and poor.
3.3. The Greens
For a long time, the Greens had constituted a party unlike all others. Having been founded in 1980 by mostly young and well-educated activists dedicated to environmental protection, gender equality, and other post-materialist causes, until the mid-1990s, the party had stood for youthful rebelliousness and non-conventional forms of behavior. However, as the party's leaders aged, the party's rank-and-file reached mid-career level in jobs such as doctors, social workers, and teachers, the Greens increasingly resembled the other parties. Over time, the party's program also changed, as environmentalist, feminist, and multiculturalist precepts were complemented first by social-democratic and then neo-liberal ones (Jachnow, 2013; Milder, Jarausch, 2015).
In keeping with tradition, the Greens' election campaign focused primarily on environmental issues, highlighting such proposals as a shift in energy sources from coal to photovoltaic cells and windmills and the phasing-out of petroleum-driven cars. While poverty and the wealth gap played only a minor role in the Greens' campaign, the
party platform did put forward several proposals that addressed these issues. Chief among them were an increase in the benefits provided to long-term unemployed; the introduction of a higher pension benefit floor; and the removal of legal hurdles that prevented the application of sectoral or regional collective agreements to the entire sector or region in question (Sell, 2017, p. 19, 21-22).
Regarding tax policies, the Greens called for a modest increase of the top income tax rate and the introduction of a wealth tax on the rich. Neither of these demands were particularly radical, if compared to the proposals the party had put forward in its 2013 election platform. Four years earlier, the Greens had envisioned an increase of the top income tax rate from 45 % to 48 % to be applicable to yearly earnings of € 80,000 and above. Now, they merely demanded an unspecific increase in the income tax rate on yearly earnings of €100,000 or more (Kruher, Meves, 2016, p. 38).
3.4. The CDU-CSU
Technically, the CDU-CSU consists of two parties, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which operates in 15 of the 16 German states, and the Christian Social Union (CSU), which operates solely in the state of Bavaria. Unlike the SPD and the Greens, the CDU-CSU has maintained a remarkably stable orientation ever since its creation in the aftermath of the Second World War. At the heart of this orientation lie (1) the belief in the need to create and maintain a legal and policy environment conducive to the achievement of high profit rates and (2) a desire to cater to the mood of the electorate even if doing so requires moderate restrictions on entrepreneurs' freedom of action. This two-pronged approach has led the CDU-CSU to champion low taxes on corporate profits and high incomes and a low degree of regulation of economic activity while simultaneously supporting public social programs such as medical, old-age, and unemployment insurance provided they are funded primarily by pay-roll taxes and do not aim to redistribute wealth. As a result, the CDU-CSU has been able to forge an image of itself as a pro-business party that also serves the needs of the middle class (Clemens, 2007; Clemens, 2013; Green, 2013).
The CDU-CSU's campaign focused on presenting Angela Merkel as an experienced, reliable, and, above all, successful leader whose continued presence at the helm would guarantee further growth and prosperity. The CDU-CSU election platform, which was much shorter than those of all other parties except for the AfD, offered little beyond the promise of continuity and stability. It did not include any new initiatives in the fields of public social provision or labor-market regulation. Wanting to stay clear of a controversial topic that might aid its opponents in mobilizing their sympathizers, the CDU-CSU even refrained from putting forward any proposals on the public retirement plan. Instead, it committed itself to creating a public commission charged with developing a set of recommendations on the future of the German pension system by 2019 (CDU-CSU, 2017, p. 43). Taking a similarly conservative approach to tax policies, Merkel's team promised neither to raise existing taxes nor to create new ones (CDU-CSU, 2017, p. 32-34).
ЛОЯИТЭКС. 2017. Том 13, № 3
3.5. The FDP
Having established itself as Germany's primary champion of unmitigated neo-liberalism in the 1990s, the FDP is the only German party to consistently demand that the neo-liberal policies of the Schroder-led government of the early 2000s be pushed further. Unlike the CDU-CSU, the SPD, and the Greens, which by the mid-2000s reached the conclusion that the neo-liberal reforms had gone far enough, the FDP continued to beat the drum for even bigger cuts to social programs, even greater de-regulation of labor markets, and even larger tax reductions for corporations and the rich (Merz, Regel, 2017, p. 29-30). By the early 2010s, this approach put the FDP increasingly out of sync with public opinion. The FPD declined in popularity and in the 2013 parliamentary elections even slipped beneath the 5 % threshold, thereby failing to win representation in the Federal Diet.
In hindsight, the defeat in 2013 might be considered a blessing in disguise because it led to a change of guard at the party's helm. This shift in leadership personnel enabled the FDP to rebuild its image around themes not directly related to neo-liberal precepts such as the role of information technology and the impact of European integration. Led by Christian Lindner, a suave businessman-turned-politician, the FDP posed as a champion of digitalization and upstarts in the IT sector and as a defender of German national interests against those who demanded a greater burden-sharing within the Eurozone. Even more importantly, the party cleverly exploited the opportunities that came along with the refugee crisis of 2015. As hundreds of thousands of refugees reached Germany, the FDP denounced the opening of the German border to these asylum-seekers as "irresponsible" and demanded a much more restrictive approach to immigration. As these stances found favor with a significant and growing part of the electorate, they enabled the FDP to once again rise in the public opinion polls (Decker, 2017, p. 101, 104; Feldenkirchen, 2017, p. 34-35; Michal, 2017, p. 26-28).
The FDP's election campaign constituted little more than the continuation of the party's rebranding policies of the previous two years (Bocking, Feldenkirchen, 2017; Knobbe et al., 2017, p. 14). While the party ignored problems such as poverty and the wealth gap, it did propose several changes regarding public social provision, labormarket regulation, and the tax code. It called for an extension of the retirement age from 67 to 70 years; the elimination of legal stipulations that grant workers the right to a daily rest period; the lengthening of the regular work week from a maximum of 40 hours to a maximum of 48 hours (Sell, 2017, p. 21-22); a substantial lowering of top-income tax rates; and a constitutional provision that would cap individual taxes, including mandatory contributions to public insurance plans, at 50 % of a tax payer's yearly income (FDP, 2017, p. 119-123).
3.6. The AfD
Founded in 2013, the AfD initially consisted of two factions. The first one comprised neo-liberal economists and business leaders whose primary goal consisted in making Germany abandon the Euro and revert to the Deutsche Mark. The second faction consisted of conservatives and nationalists who wanted to strengthen cultural traditionalism and reduce immigration. Before long, the two factions feel afoul.
The ensuing power struggle resulted in a victory of the conservative-nationalist camp and the departure of many of the neo-liberal economists and business leaders. Thereafter, the AfD increasingly espoused nationalist positions that aimed at promoting an ethnically-defined German culture. Given the traumata of twentieth-century German history and the anti-nationalist consensus that pervaded German political culture, the AfD seemed to be destined for marginalization. For a while, its approval rates were in free fall. However, the massive influx of refugees in 2015 provided the party with a new lease on life. As concerns about the integration of so many newcomers arose and as the Merkel-led government appeared unresponsive to these demands, the AfD quickly moved up in the polls (Decker 2016; Decker, 2017, p. 100-103).
Having undergone further radicalization in 2016 and 2017, the AfD's election campaign focused almost solely on questions of cultural identity and immigration policies. The party emphasized the need to expel large numbers of immigrants, close the door to all refugees, protect traditional family values, clamp down on crime — much of which it linked to the influx of foreigners — and reestablish national sovereignty by ending Germany's membership in the Eurozone (AfD, 2017, p. 6-41). Issues such as poverty and the gap between rich and poor played almost no role in the party's campaign. Its policy proposals in the fields of public social provision and labor-market regulation were patchy and somewhat incoherent. Its tax proposals, however, were consistent. Apart from calling for the abolition of inheritance taxes, taking a stand against the introduction of a wealth tax, and demanding a "fairer" tax code for businesses, the party also went on record in favor of a constitutional provision that would cap the grand total of all taxes, including mandatory contributions to public insurance plans, at 40 % of the GDP (AfD, 2017, p. 50-51).
In summary, of the six parties, only one — the Left Party — wanted to significantly reduce poverty and the wealth gap. To be sure, the SPD and the Greens also proposed measures to address these two problems. However, the SPD's proposals were rather limited in scope and the Greens' proposals were both distinctly unambitious and of little importance to the party's overall agenda.
4. THE ELECTORATE
Public opinion polls and elections results seem to suggest most voters cared little about poverty and the wealth gap. Between mid-June and September 22, the public opinion polls of the Emnid and INSA/YouGov polling firms indicated that the Left Party enjoyed the support of only 8-11 % of the electorate. During the same period, the corresponding figures for the other parties were: 21-26 % for the SPD; 6-8 % for the Greens; 34-40 % for the CDU-CSU; 7-10 % for the FDP, and 8-13 % for the AfD. In the case of the Left Party, the Greens, and the FDP, these polling figures were stable throughout the entire period under scrutiny. In the case of the AfD, they trended upward, and in the cases of the CDU-CSU and the SPD, downward. (Emnid, INSA/ YouGov). The election results of September 24, 2017, largely confirmed the polling data. When all votes were tallied, the Left Party ended up with 9.2 % of the popular vote, the SPD with 20.5 %, the Greens with 8.9 %, the CDU-CSU with 33 %, the FDP with 10.7 %, and the AfD with 12.6 %.
Table 2. The Results of the September 24, 2017, Parliamentary Elections in Germany
Party Percentage of the Popular Vote Seats in the German Federal Diet
CDU-CSU 33,0 246
SPD 20,5 153
AfD 12,6 94
FDP 10,7 80
Left Party 9,2 69
Greens 8,9 67
Source: Der Bundeswahlleiter, 2017.
The pundits were nearly unanimous that the voters' apparent disinterest in poverty and the wealth gap was a direct result of the long-lasting economic boom and the general prosperity the boom had brought about. "There is no groundswell for change in sight. The people are content with their country and with their Chancellor," veteran political analyst Klaus Stratmann noted at the beginning of the campaign (Stratmann, 2017). "The vast majority of Germans are satisfied with their economic situation," concurred Stratmann's colleague Markus Wehner. For the Left Party, Wehner added, the widespread contentedness was bad news. "If the masses are not getting impoverished, it's though for a socialist party that aims at redistribution (Wehner, 2017)."
However, research by the Allensbach Institute, the YouGov polling firm, and the Rheingold Institute suggests that beneath the apparent contentment lurked a strong undercurrent of voter dissatisfaction with economic and social conditions. A series of interviews that the Allensbach Institute conducted in June and July 2017 indicates that about two thirds of the electorate did not consider the economic conditions in Germany to be fair. Among those who had not partaken in the boom and the prosperity it engendered, this figure reached nearly 73 %. But even among those who had benefitted from the boom almost 63 % found economic conditions in the country to be unfair (Delhaes et al., 2017, p. 48-49).
Renate Kocher, the Institute's director, made light of this data. "In a free society," she opined, "it is impossible to reach the kind of social order that a large majority of the people will regard as fair (Delhaes et al., 2017, p. 46)." Yet, even if one concedes that at any given moment in any given society there will be people who will regard social (or economic) conditions as unfair, Kocher's explanation remains unconvincing. By suggesting that one can always expect a minority of respondents to consider prevailing social (or economic) conditions to be unfair, she fails to explain why a large majority of respondents declared the German economic order to be unfair. Kocher's explanation ignores the existence of poverty and a large wealth gap. It is far more
plausible to assume that the discontentedness is rooted in an awareness of these two problems rather than in some sort of innate disposition to be disgruntled regardless of the circumstances.
A survey that the YouGov polling firm conducted in early July 2017 suggests that the discontentedness that the Allensbach Institute observed was indeed closely linked to the existence of poverty and the wealth gap. The survey revealed the existence of a large consensus on the meaning of "social justice". According to the majority of the respondents, "social justice" is rooted in four principles: first, equality of opportunity, which implies that children from poor families ought to have the same chances of success as children from rich families; second, adequate remuneration, which implies that all full-time workers ought to receive a decent wage and that top managers must not be paid astronomically high sums; third, equal pay for equal work, which implies that women and men must be paid equal wages for equal work; and fourth, collective responsibility for those who are in need, which implies that nobody must be left without access to food, clothing, housing, education, medical care, and the other necessities of life (Ibid., p. 2, 10, 19, 21).
The survey indicated that eight of ten voters believed that "in Germany wealth and power are very unequally distributed (YouGov Political Research, 2017, p. 10)" and that seven out of ten voters considered social injustice to be "a problem" or even a "very big problem" in German society (YouGov Political Research, 2017, p. 9). The survey further suggested that eight out of ten voters wanted government to bring about a more even distribution of incomes, seven out of ten voters wanted government to increase corporate taxes, and nearly seven out of ten voters wanted government to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor (YouGov Political Research, 2017, p. 20).
Another YouGov survey, which was conducted in late July 2017, even suggests that most voters had a rather critical view of "capitalism". The survey indicated that six out of ten voters associated capitalism with the statement, "the rich get richer, the poor get poorer" and four out of ten voters considered "capitalism" to be shorthand for "exploitation of the weaker [by the stronger]". In contrast, only one quarter of the electorate believed that "capitalism" signified "economic opportunities for a country". Overall, 52 % of the respondents to this survey stated that the term "capitalism" evoked negative or very negative connotations in them while a meager 16 % of the respondents professed that the term "capitalism" evoked positive or very positive connotations in them (Inhoffen, 2017).
These findings raise the question, why did voters' choices fail to reflect the general concern with social injustice and the widespread unease about capitalism?
Research that the Rheingold Institute conducted several weeks prior to the election provides a clue to the answer to this question. Based on in-depth interviews conducted by a team of psychologists, the institute found that many voters perceived Germany to be a rich country or even the world's most successful country. At the same time, many voters perceived Germany to be marred by a variety of problems that include a crumbling infrastructure, rising crime rates that had turned certain urban areas into no-go-zones, growing material inequality, and the increasing contamination of public debates by intolerance and hatred. Moreover, many voters saw the future with a large dose of skepticism, fearing instability or even social conflict. At the
same time, they yearned for stability and tranquility. These perceptions, fears, and longings translated into a strong preference for continuity, which primarily benefitted Merkel, who was typecast as a protective mother, and the CDU-CSU (Rheingold Institut, 2017).
These findings suggest that voters' behavior can be explained primarily not by a disregard for social justice but by a fervent yearning for stability. Put differently, it was fear rather than contentment that seems to have motivated a sizeable part of the electorate. Many voters seem to have followed the logic of the adage "stick with the devil you know!"
The failure of many dissatisfied voters to act on their dissatisfaction likely was caused not only by psychological motives but also by the absence of a strong political leadership in the camp of social justice. In the context of the election campaign, this kind of leadership could only have been provided by the SPD or the Left Party. However, the SPD was unwilling and the Left Party unable to fill this role.
In the winter of 2017, the SPD had briefly given itself the appearance of wanting to turn its campaign into a veritable crusade for social justice. But by the spring of 2017, it became increasingly clear that the party's commitment to social justice was rhetorical rather than substantive (Nachtwey, 2017). While there was a lot of talk, there were preciously few policy proposals to go along with it. Like parents who take their children to the candy store merely to buy a small pack of chewing gum, the Social Democrats first created high expectations and then quickly proceeded to quell them.
Tellingly, the public reacted first with enthusiasm and then with disdain. In the winter of 2017, the SPD rapidly gained more than 10 percentage points in public opinion polls and almost drew level with the CDU-CSU. In the spring, however, it receded as quickly as it had risen. In May, three quarters of the electorate said that they favored greater justice but that they had no idea for which policies SPD-leader Schulz stood (Lucke, 2017, p. 6). Four months later, more than 70 % of the electorate considered the SPD not to be truly be committed to social justice (SPD kann mit sozialer..., 2007). Many voters may have felt like the journalist at the Economist who wrote, "there are few real policy differences between the SPD and Mrs Merkel (Agenda 2021, 2017, p. 49)".
Unlike the SPD, the Left Party did conduct a veritable crusade for social justice. However, it had already diminished its electoral chances in 2015 and 2016, when it adamantly supported the opening Germany's doors to all refugees from war-torn countries such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This approach found little favor with the unemployed and the working poor — the very groups that would otherwise form a logical constituency for a party devoted to overcoming poverty and reducing the wealth gap. For several years, the unemployed and the working poor had been forced to tighten their belts as a succession of Merkel-led governments had refused to boost benefits from public social programs. Not surprisingly, the unemployed and the working poor believed that there were not enough resources available to help poor foreigners. They feared that the arrival of large numbers of poor immigrants who needed to be housed, fed, and clothed, and who required medical and educational services would force them to tighten their belts even more. Not only would public funds be diverted to the refugees, but after some time, the newcomers would also turn into competitors for
low-wage jobs and cheap flats. As a result, most unemployed and working poor were adamantly opposed to the opening of the door to asylum seekers and the Left Party lost many potential voters to the AfD (Nachtwey, 2017; Hagen, 2017).
CONCLUSION
Both the public opinion polls that preceded the September 2017 election and the election result itself indicate that a vast majority of the voters supported parties that took a good deal of their inspiration from neo-liberal precepts. However, the popularity of these parties did not constitute a ringing endorsement of supply-side economics. In fact, a large majority of the electorate was dissatisfied with the vast gap between rich and poor and favored a redistribution of wealth from the top to the bottom. Voters were drawn to the CDU-CSU and the other business-friendly parties not because they electorate cherished supply-side economics but because these parties seemed to be the best match for the voters' deep-seated yearning for stability.
The causes for the much-lamented social injustice are unlikely to disappear unless there is a fundamental change in the economic and social policy approach. Since such a change is unlikely to occur anytime soon, voters' disenchantment is likely to stay. It may even intensify as poverty and economic insecurity are likely to take on a new dimension in the future. Not only does the German manufacturing sector face new challenges stemming from other competitors' increasing ability to produce high-quality machine tools and electric, self-driven cars but further progress in information technology will inevitably cause the disappearance of existing jobs. But even if voter dissatisfaction with poverty and the wealth gap will intensify, it will take strong political leadership to turn this dissatisfaction into votes for the kind of economic and social policy approach that can create (greater) social justice. For such leadership to emerge, the SPD will need to re-social-democratize itself, the SPD and the Left Party will need to forge an alliance, and the SPD-Left Party alliance will need to present a program that includes not only increased public social provision, a re-regulation of the labor market, and higher taxes on the rich but also the blueprint for a credible economic model that can replace the one that is currently in place.
Ralph P. Guentzel — PhD (History), Professor; rguentzel@franklincollege.edu
Received: 30.09.2017
Accepted: 07.11.2017
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ЛОЛИТЭКС- 2017. Том 13, № 3
