Ingo Schulze – 10 theses about the crisis {europe - very good read}

[xchrom]

http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/1451011-ingo-schulze-10-theses-about-crisis

For about three years I haven’t written any articles, because I no longer know what I should be writing about. It's all so obvious: the elimination of democracy, the increasing social and economic polarisation between rich and poor, the ruin of the welfare state, privatisation and commercialisation of all spheres of life and so on, and so on, and so on...

If the madness is served up to one every day as a matter of routine, it's just a matter of time until one considers oneself to be sick, abnormal. In the following I will try to summarise some thoughts that seem important to me:

1. To speak of an ‘attack’ on democracy is to speak euphemistically. A situation in which a minority of a minority is allowed – i.e., it is legal – to seriously harm the public good for their own enrichment is post-democratic. The public sphere itself is guilty, because it is unable to elect representatives that perceive its interests.

2. Every day one hears that governments must “win back the confidence of the markets." By ‘markets’ it is primarily the stock exchanges and financial markets that are meant: that is, those speculators who, in pursuit of their own interests or the interests of others, are raking in as much profit as they can. Are they not those who have relieved the public sphere of unimaginable billions? They are the ones whose “confidence” our top elected officials should be struggling to win back?

3. We are right to be outraged by Vladimir Putin's concept of "guided democracy". But when Angela Merkel spoke of "market-based democracy”, why did she not have to beat a retreat?

[Kaleko]

1. Wow, that is one insightful article well worth reading.

The combination of lucidity and self-honesty with which the writer describes what he sees is a very rare treat.

It puts the name Ingo Schulze on the map for me.

Thanks for posting, xchrom!

[xchrom]

2. Sure. I thought it was quite good. Nt