State and Economy in Germany beyond the 1980s — ‘Model Germany’ or ‘A Colossus on Feet of Clay’?

Abstract

The theology of market economics demands above all a fundamental faith in the dynamic nature of capitalism and the inevitability of growth. Its ideological systems are littered with absolute categories which only allow a linear vision of increasing prosperity. When this linear view is interrupted by world-wide stagnation, debt crises, mass unemployment and inflation, the automatic response is to blame ‘external’ factors: OPEC, the trade unions, the flawed policies of the state. These, according to some, are the culprits for the present ‘sclerosis’ of the German economy’ and it is their neutralisation/ reform which promises a return to the traditional path of growth and full employment. Such faith, however, would seem to be empirically unverifiable and theoretically suspect, not the least because it does not admit an alternative to its own forms of organisation.