Germany in Crisis: 80 Questions for Politics and Society

The economy is limping along, unemployment continues to rise, social insurances’ financial requirement is increasing, and national finances are in bad shape: Germany is in crisis. Although there had been indications of these developments for years, consistent, problem-oriented action had not occurred. Politicians are now professing to have recognized the problem. This insight stands, however, in contrast to planned and suggested measures. Some fundamental problems are still not being tackled; the consequences of problems, and not their root causes, are being fought. Politicians are still intervening in complex systems, whose regularities and behavior they do not know well enough.

Before far-reaching social measures can be decided upon and implemented, society and politics should clarify the fundamental problems, their causes, and how they are interrelated, as well as mistakes of the past. Otherwise the problems threaten to further intensify. But how and where can one begin? Decisive questions aid both in obtaining a better picture of the problems, as well as in finding correct answers to current challenges. A catalog of questions put together by the Studienbüro Jetzt & Morgen can serve as a basis for discussion. It includes 80 questions concerning the following areas:

• National finance
• Social Security
• Unemployment
• Social equality, social insurance
• Economy and environment
• Economy and international competition
• Political style

Resume

In order to maintain its high standard of living, society is living beyond its means at the expense of the future: economically: through high national debt and future gaps in social insurance; ecologically: through high environmental pollution; globally: in that prosperity is based in part upon undesirable living conditions in poor countries.

This way of living beyond one’s means is reinforced by a short-sighted manner of dealing with problems and systems. Furthermore, society intervenes in systems supposedly in order to regulate, without understanding their regularities and behavior. The consequences are fatal: not only are ecological and economical goods wasted, but also the self-regulation of systems is suppressed new and increasing problems, including crises, are the result. The negative apex of unsystematic action is the belief that one can solve economic problems through permanent growth. Such a strategy must lead inevitably to crisis, on account of the exponential development of never-ending growth.
 

Literature

Methods of solution that reach further than those currently under discussion in politics and by society are necessary, on account of the aforementioned reasons. The Studienbüro Jetzt & Morgen has developed and published in book form a complete, continuing approach with comprehensive principles and a vision for sustainable actions. The press praised the multitude of political ideas, the networking of individual fields of politics, as well as the courage to present such a vision of future political action. The renowned Canadian organization Sustainability Report considers the english summary of the book to be one of the most advanced publications on the topic of sustainability.
 

Andreas Becker, Studienbüro Jetzt & Morgen:
„Zukunftsfähige Politik: Volkswirtschaftliche, ökologische und soziale Aspekte vernetzt“.*
München: ökom verlag, 2001. 212 pages.
ISBN 3-928-24472-8, Euro 17,00

* “Sustainable Policy: Economical, Ecological, and Social Aspects interlinked”.

Details of the book’s contents