Bit by bit, the brightly lit dining hall of a countryside hotel near Potsdam fills with people. There are about two dozen of them, a mix of AfD members, followers of the Identitarian movement and members of nationalist student fraternities (Burschenschaft). People from the middle classes – doctors, lawyers, politicians and entrepreneurs – are also […]
There’s a fucking reason I said legitimate and not just feelings. The AfD didn’t cause precarious employment relations, it wasn’t the first to agitate against welfare recipients, it didn’t cause the lack of affordable housing, it didn’t come up with Hartz IV and unconstitutional sanction regimes. It didn’t set the policy of the established parties since reunification. 30% of the workforce are in precarious employment, not counting the unemployed mind you, about 12% never know anything else. More are afraid of landing there.
What the AfD did is direct those feelings in directions that suit them and not address the actual issues (according to their programme they even want to make it worse).
No it doesn’t. Maybe from the rich when we finally get around to taxing private planes out of existence but not in general. Making sure that there’s proper public transit means not only that people don’t need to buy a new car, they can get rid of their old one, investing in district heating would mean that people don’t need to buy heat pumps and generally make building cheaper. A lot of climate measures have the opportunity to save money and simultaneously make the life of the precariat better. More vacation days means people won’t be annoyed if you tell them to take a train and ferry to Mallorca. I diagnose you with lack of political imagination.
That addresses the precariat. To address capital there’s another equation: Not investing now will mean magnitudes more of economical damage down the line. We literally can’t afford to do nothing.