I ve read an article about that. Of course I am not holding my breath for such a development - but imagine for a moment it would happen in a similar way: Wouldn't the world be a better place and become a lot more interesting again?

Lots of empires dividing what is left and gaining a new target for the struggle for influence :)
Sounds almost too good to become true.

Personally I rather expect a bleak development here in Germany on mid-term should the crisis be a longer one and will post about it tomorrow here.

In a week after when an American insurance company announces the biggest loss ever of a single company within one quarter it is hard not to think about 'What if' this is going on. In this case, 'What If' the crisis will not go away within 12 months. I am not thinking about pure economical details - my focus is on the consequences for societies and nations, specifically here in Germany.
At the bottom I have a handful of questions to You about which development was likely in Your country in the event that the American President was unable to save the world.

To get an idea of which way our nations might take during the Crisis, let us for a moment assume that the economy will take a serious hit and not recover soon. Only by this pessimistic assumtion we can clearly draw the differences of the developments in our respective nations. So let us assume that unemployment will rise, tax revenues will drop, important banks cannot be saved and consumer confidence freezes for a period of at least 5 years while the political leadership seems helpless. What would happen?

If you take into account that even during the economical upswing of the last years, voter turnout at general elections and support for the established parties in Germany has tumbled, it is not difficult to guess that this trend would harden. Even two years ago when everything was still fine economically, I recall a professor for public law of my former university during a break in a seminar telling us the (at that time) latest shameful blunders of all political parties having seats in the national parliament when they - while being in charge - had tried to create laws at federal or state level serving their intentions and had failed horribly.
His literal résumé was that "one should not take part in national elections, as casting a vote for any of these parties only supports this horrible system". As it happens this man was not only a professor at the legal faculty of my former university - that was only his part-time job. His main job was to be a judge at the constitutional court - the last line of defense for our wonderful constitution so to speak. Back at that time I found it hard to stomach listening to a seeming custodian of our system who told us in a semi-private atmosphere of the reasons for his personal rejection of our parliamentary democracy.

If you furthermore take into account that - during the rather positive development of the last decade - political discontent of the people has risen due to the fact that only the richest 10% of our population have gained a considerable increase in buying power (in such a high way that it even balanced the partially drastic losses of other parts of our society), what do you think will happen during a prolonged downturn?

Should you have ever worked for a German company, then it is not - say - unlikely that you will agree to my perception that German business culture is and has always been rather authoritarian. The fathers of our constitution have put their utmost effort into keeping this trait out of our political system. Instead it was designed to become an anti-authoritarian state.
Yet despite all these efforts, the traditional authoritarian trait has creeped back into the German political landscape via our political parties. Within these, critical backbenchers have been sidelined systematically in favor of the highly acclaimed role model of a "party soldier". This has reached a state where it is difficult to say whether it would make a difference in law-making should the party leaders get the voting rights of their members of parliament and exercise it directly by themselves.


Now when during a serious downturn not only fringe groups lose their livelyhood but also a considerable part of the middle class does and the social state has to drastically cut its services due to lack of funds, what do you think most of the ever growing number of people staying away from general elections will do? I believe when that point is reached, they will awaken from their political limbo and spring to life. When even the state's own employees are becoming unfaithful, the order is weakened from within while from the outside its armour is still looking shiny.

Once there is enough discontent among the people, stability is threatened. Chaos follows and the streets may turn into a battlefield. Today I think it is not possible to predict which group would prevail in such a public conflict. It could be the "socialists", who despite the fact that the biggest downfall of their ideology did happen not too long ago have a growing number of supporters in all of Germany. It could be a fascistical movement, who more and more succeed at looking semi-moderate and try to appeal to the middle class.

But whatever colour the prevailing ideology would have, there is one thing to be sure of: This order would behave the same way every new order does - it would do its best to be the opposite of the last one and thus officially bring back the authoritarian state.



As You have finished reading this bleak outlook, I have a handful of Questions: Since there are readers from Europe, from America and beyond here - what do You think will be the course of Your country, should the crisis be a prolonged one? Would the reactions be different from the crisis in the 1930s - if so, why? How long would it take a serious economical downturn to shaken the current order in Your country? Or would the people instead of the state make themselves responsible for failure and have faith in their current system?

Frankly, I discussed the FDP's gain a few days ago with my colleagues coming to only a single conclusion: It shows the degree of disappointment the voters towards the governing parties - especially the conservative ones. Those turning to the FDP oppose the nationalization of banks and other troubled companies and instead believe in the market to regulate itself.
Then of course the FPD benefits from the government's efforts towards a complete surveillance of the financial sector - ranging from foreign banks to German bank customers.

Any other explanation is difficult, as the FDP's gain cannot result from a convincing strategy: The party is virtually non-existant in the press.

Merkel's patient governance might put even more strain on the conservative party. But this is too early to judge, as in the past she (too) often got away with her style of evading controversial topics.