Now Corona is blamed

But the recession has long since taken hold in Germany: Production in the manufacturing sector has been falling steeply for 1.5 years, with industrial production falling by 2.5% in December alone. Even construction output has been stagnating since 2015, and in Southern Europe the overall economic output has been stagnating for some time. Italy, Spain and Portugal are particularly affected. Retail sales have fallen accordingly. Unemployment there remains high, and youth unemployment is even catastrophically high at 45% in some cases. See also: norberthaering.de, “What to do now”.

The ECB is desperately trying to get deflation under control. But this effort is countered by the German political class’s claim to power. With low wages and horrendous foreign trade surpluses it is extending its rule over southern Europe and degrading southern Europe into a reservoir of labour. The rules and laws of the EU serve as the basis of this economic and political relationship. The whole thing is then referred to as the “free market” and mainstream economists warn against state intervention and pretend that this is a natural state of affairs, but hide the fact that this relationship is only the expression of the political balance of power.

It is understandable that populist and nationalist regimes like Poland and Hungary are resisting, even the Conservative Party in Britain has promised its people to free them from the neoliberal grip and announced massive state investment to develop the country’s productive potential without wage dumping.

Now that the corona virus is the final cause for the world economic crisis to become apparent in Germany too, and to be denied and healed to appear ridiculous, the government promises to distribute the billions accumulated at the federal level to the companies. But this will not happen without even more brutal exploitation of the wage competition and will not mean a departure from the neo-liberal economic model but will merely be white ointment (Heiner Flassbeck calls the planned measures a pifax in a YouTube interview with PUNKT.Preradovic).

Because neo-liberalism is the technique of domination of our time, and austerity is an indispensable tool.