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Hamburg's former First Mayor Klaus von Dohnanyi (SPD) sees Germany facing inevitable structural change regardless of the corona pandemic.
In an interview, the 92-year-old former Federal Minister explains how this restructuring of the economy and society could work.
WORLD:
Mr. von Dohnanyi, the corona pandemic has the country firmly under control.
What situation will Germany be in at the end of 2020?
Klaus von Dohnanyi:
I hope that by the end of the year we will have made the pandemic more manageable again.
However, the economic consequences are still underestimated.
Because purchasing power will decline significantly worldwide, among consumers, companies and states.
This will also have a negative impact on our labor markets.
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At the same time, climate protection, environmental protection and advancing digitization could initially also cost jobs and prosperity.
We are heading into a very difficult time.
WORLD:
Why do you initially see these developments as a threat to our prosperity?
von Dohnanyi:
If we want to curb climate change, for example, then we must first and foremost reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Among other things, this costs jobs in the coal industry.
How can we replace them on site?
With what qualifications?
This also applies to the automotive industry when converting to electric or hydrogen drives.
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The big task of the future is therefore to find a timely balance with other, good work when dealing with climate protection, environmental protection and digitalization.
We can't just put today's workers off to a more beautiful world tomorrow.
WORLD:
Is Corona therefore only an accelerator for a fundamental change of course?
von Dohnanyi:
The economic and financial consequences of the Corona crisis are making the ecological restructuring more difficult, which we should have undertaken anyway: environmental and climate protection as well as the consequences of digitization.
However, the pandemic is also causing high costs, and this money could be lacking in ecological reconstruction.
That is the context.
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WORLD:
What does an ecological economic policy look like?
von Dohnanyi:
It is important to find a balance between the necessary preservation of jobs and prosperity on the one hand and the urgent ecological cuts on the other.
Without any ideology, pragmatically and carefully.
However, I fear that we have meanwhile embarked too much on a green ideological basis that believes that everything can be done immediately and at the same time.
Greens with political responsibility, such as the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg Winfried Kretschmann or the Mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer, are therefore in a justified contradiction to their party.
We have to de-ideologise the debate without evading ecological imperatives.
Green ideology will not build a bridge between well-paid work and climate and environmental protection.
WORLD:
What would the country threaten with an ideologized debate?
von Dohnanyi:
Then we would lose too many jobs and with them the social prosperity that is the basis of all democratic stability.
WORLD: But
what does digitization mean in this context?
von Dohnanyi:
The advances in digitization are just as inevitable as the need for ecological restructuring; they have been and will be accelerated by the pandemic.
But they also carry the risk of further division in society.
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Not only between young and old, but also in terms of personal skills: not everyone who can serve well in retail could also program for Amazon.
And further increasing social inequality could become an explosive in our democracy.
WORLD:
In the labor markets, the federal government is steering against the current economic crisis with short-time work benefits and lavish financial aid.
von Dohnanyi: In
doing so, the federal government has definitely done the right thing.
But the President of the Federal Social Court, Rainer Schlegel, recently urged a necessary review of individual measures.
We have to be careful that protective instruments do not unnecessarily hinder the inevitable structural change.
What the Germans can now expect from short-time work benefits
In order to counteract the loss of work caused by the pandemic, Hubertus Heil is presenting a new draft for an Employment Protection Act.
See the statement by the Federal Minister of Labor here.
Source: WORLD
WORLD:
So what should a concept for the time after the crisis look like?
von Dohnanyi:
The desired restructuring of our economic and social system into ecologically sustainable structures is also essentially an entrepreneurial task of the state, which, however, must be implemented by private companies in the real market economy.
A comparison is often made with the period after 1945.
But at that time the task was a lot easier: it was about rebuilding - what was before.
Today, however, exactly the opposite is required, because we have to create what is not what it should be today.
And every architect knows that remodeling is usually more difficult than building from scratch - especially if the residents stay in the house.
So we first need to carefully plan the sequence of the respective steps.
The ecological restructuring of a large industrial society can only succeed politically if a balance is repeatedly achieved between ecology and prosperity.
But that will only work if we turn the new tasks into new markets and new jobs.
WORLD:
You are calling for nothing less than the restructuring of the republic.
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von Dohnanyi:
It is indeed a question of extensive restructuring.
If we only consider the activities that from today's perspective are harmful to the climate or the environment, then not much will remain unaffected.
The restructuring actually encompasses the whole of society and its labor markets.
WORLD:
Where does the conversion have to progress more consistently?
von Dohnanyi:
We are making certain progress in our consciousness and in reality, but of course we are only at the beginning.
Perhaps we could accelerate the restructuring process more successfully if we improve cooperation between politics and companies.
The state of Norway is investing 1.5 billion euros in an attempt to recover carbon dioxide and store it in rock.
Unfortunately, the federal states have already rejected this.
However, such an approach shows a way in which new markets can be developed out of ecological necessities.
The state and municipalities could perhaps support start-ups specifically for tasks that solve ecological tasks in a more innovative way.
If, in this sense, government agencies understood themselves to be more “entrepreneurial”, then, in my personal experience in various political offices, major steps in ecological restructuring would be possible.
WORLD:
Can politics even control this upheaval?
von Dohnanyi:
Democracy is under pressure - primarily from the new media.
Too often they undermine trust through fake news.
Germany is still quite stable compared to other countries, but as the organized resistance to the Corona measures unfortunately shows, conspiracy theories can also significantly hinder political work in us.
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Or, if every necessary cooperation between politics and business is heralded as “lobbyism”, there can be no restructuring to secure prosperity.
Source: WORLD infographic
WORLD:
Do you have an example of a necessary cooperation between politics and business?
von Dohnanyi:
Could politics possibly persuade Airbus to develop better ventilation technology for schools and hospitals in view of the experience with Corona?
Airplanes have particularly effective ventilation systems.
Could this perhaps bring those employees back into work who are currently affected by short-time working at Airbus?
Would that be a task that politicians could tackle locally with the company?
I don't know of course.
WORLD:
To do this, politics itself would have to slip into the role of the entrepreneur.
von Dohnanyi:
No, it would only be necessary for politicians to also think more entrepreneurially.
Politicians have to understand that they are part of the great Federal Republic of Germany.
We have to understand city, municipality and country as a complex company - including their companies.
Every mayor, every prime minister, every responsible person in the federal government must know that he is responsible for what would be possible on site for the individual private companies today.
To do this, we have to make local politics more capable of acting, including through economic training.
Because, to use the words of the economist Joseph Schumpeter: We are in a phase of “creative destruction”.
Innovation is also demanded from politics today.
WORLD:
Do you still have hope for Germany?
von Dohnanyi:
Of course, yes, but we have to become more aware of the big problems.
We are the industrial nation that will be particularly affected by the necessary restructuring.
Small-minded political arguments are of no use here.
WORLD:
Which coalition do you trust to rebuild the republic after the general election?
von Dohnanyi:
I don't tie that to parties, but to a program that pragmatically argues for a balance between maintaining good work and the necessary restructuring of the economy and society without ideology.
I would like to see such a coalition.
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