significantly fostered by Red-Green labour market reform. Because The Left, whatever else its internal differences were, had fairly consistently opposed such measures and advocated for better labour protection, it was widely expected that the party would win support from deteriorating economic and social conditions. So far, that hasn’t happened. In fact, The Left is struggling to maintain its 10 – 14 percent-share of the popular vote; the only party whose approval rate increased since the crisis became serious in September 2008 is the Liberal Party, doubling its share from 8 to 16 percent. While the government, formed by a coalition of Social Democrats and Conservatives since 2005, jumped, reluctantly though, onto the international bandwagon of fiscal stimulus and ultralax monetary policies, the Liberal Party could gather the hard core of tax-cutters around it.
money for banking bailouts whereas The Left party advocates for publicly funded protection and creation of jobs but, until now, it didn’t succeed in making these differences known to potential voters. Though Keynesianism had a certain resurgence over the last months, it wasn’t The Left party that benefitted from this unexpected departure from neoliberal policies. To be sure, some within the party, and even more in the broader, particularly the activist left is skeptical about Keynesianism anyways and would rather suggest the nationalization of banks and industries. And in fact, The Left gave up its hesitation to advocate such measures in tandem with Keynesian spending programs. How-
ever, the government had already occupied this political territory through a preemptive political strike. While The Left was still debating the pros and cons of state ownership, given the party’s roots in East Germany’s state socialism this is certainly understandable enough, the government had no difficulty in broadening its policy toolbox beyond neoliberalism. As in the case of public spending, nationalizations on government terms are not meant to help workers but to socialize private losses and moderate the process of devaluation of over-accumulated capital, while The Left’s ideas on nationalization might actually help to protect jobs and redirect the economy from exports to ecological sustainability. However, nationalization is another field in which The Left doesn’t appear as a driving force but rather an organization driven by economic changes and the governments’ quick responses to these changes. The test for The Left will come once these government responses either completely fail or once workers can clearly see that the government-mix of neoliberalism with Keynesianism, topped with sprinkles of nationalization, only serves the rich and powerful. R
At the other end of the economic policy spectrum, The Left party lost its unique selling point. Before the crisis, The Left was the only party in Germany advocating for Keynesian policies. Though these policies were never unanimously supported within the party, public perception saw The Left much more as Keynesian welfare state than as a workers or socialist party. Now, its claims for public expenditures and employment programs pale compared to the government’s spending spree. It is certainly true that the government spends most
Ingo Schmidt is a Vancouver labour educator and activist.
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