🎓Stefan Fuchs (Wissenschaftsjournalist) im Gespräch mit Ulrich Beck (1944-2015). Der Soziologe Ulrich Beck führte mit seinem Buch "Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne" 1986 einer ganzen Generation nicht nur in Deutschland (Das Buch ist in 35 Sprachen übersetzt) überdeutlich vor Augen, dass die Zerstörung von Umwelt und Natur, wie sie der Club of Rome schon schon 1972 mit seinem Bericht zu den "Grenzen des Wachstums" formuliert hatte, weder vor Staatsgrenzen, noch vor Klassengrenzen halt macht. Die Menschheit steht in der globalisierten, kapitalistischen Plünderungsgesellschaft vor der Selbstvernichtung. Sollte es ein Überleben geben, werden nationalistische und national-sozialistische Politiker wir Donald Trump, Putin, Modi oder Xiu Jinping in dieser Zukunft rückblickend als Terroristen in die Geschichte eingehen. Ulrich Beck lehrte in München, London und Paris. Er verfasste 2012 zusammen mit Daniel Cohn-Bendit das Manifest "Wir sind Europa". Darin formulierten sie einen Gegenentwurf zum kapitalistischen Europa der Gegenwart.
/🎓 Stefan Fuchs (science journalist) in conversation with Ulrich Beck (1944-2015). With his book "Risk Society: On the Way to a Different Modernity‘ published in 1986, sociologist Ulrich Beck made it abundantly clear to an entire generation, not only in Germany (the book has been translated into 35 languages), that the destruction of the environment and nature, as already formulated by the Club of Rome in its 1972 report on ’The Limits to Growth", does not stop at national borders or class boundaries. Humanity is facing self-destruction in our globalised, capitalist society of plunder. If there is to be any survival, nationalist and national socialist politicians such as Donald Trump, Putin, Modi and Xi Jinping will go down in history as terrorists. Ulrich Beck taught in Munich, London and Paris. In 2012, he co-authored the manifesto ‘We Are Europe’ with Daniel Cohn-Bendit. In it, they formulated an alternative to the capitalist Europe of the present.
/🎓 Stefan Fuchs (journaliste scientifique) s'entretient avec Ulrich Beck (1944-2015). Dans son ouvrage « La société du risque. Vers une autre modernité », publié en 1986, a clairement montré à toute une génération, et pas seulement en Allemagne (le livre a été traduit en 35 langues), que la destruction de l'environnement et de la nature, telle que l'avait déjà formulée le Club de Rome en 1972 dans son rapport « Les limites de la croissance », ne s'arrête ni aux frontières nationales ni aux frontières de classe. Dans une société capitaliste mondialisée et prédatrice, l'humanité est au bord de l'autodestruction. Si elle survit, les politiciens nationalistes et national-socialistes tels que Donald Trump, Poutine, Modi ou Xi Jinping entreront dans l'histoire comme des terroristes. Ulrich Beck a enseigné à Munich, Londres et Paris. En 2012, il a rédigé avec Daniel Cohn-Bendit le manifeste « Nous sommes l'Europe ». Ils y ont formulé une alternative à l'Europe capitaliste actuelle.
📚 Veröffentlichungen u.a. / publications, entre autres / publications a.o.:
- Ulrich Beck: ”Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne.” Suhrkamp. Frankfurt a.M. 1986. - Ulrich Beck: ”Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity.” Translated by Ritter, Mark. London: Sage Publications, 1992. - Ulrich Beck: ”Die Metamorphose der Welt.” Übersetzt von Frank Jakubzik, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M. 2016. - Ulrich Beck: ”The Metamorphosis of the world: How Climate Change is transforming our concept of the world.” Cambridge 2016.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Welcome to Audioarchiv, the channel for historical interviews with female writers, philosophers,
activists, and intellectuals from around the world.
(00:34):
Hello. That in the face of inflation, global migration movements, climate crises, and wars,
the Western elites cling once again to the ideological thinking of the 19th.
Century, enriched by the promises of salvation from the global tech industry, might have shocked
the world-renowned German sociologist Ulrich Beck, who passed away in 2015.
(00:58):
Meanwhile, Russian Tsar Vladimir Putin is giving a lesson in historical revisionism and Stalinist
societal reconstruction, while his spiritual brother Donald Trump is in the process of transforming
the oldest democracy in the world into an Old Testament fascist high-tech state.
Survival of the racism carries clear features of Nazi racial programmes.
(01:24):
Tech billionaires and oligarchs serve as pop tanks and crutches for power, with subservient media here and there.
Court reporting and disinformation, along with clownish populist political staging for the disenfranchised.
In daily fury, the new rulers chase people before them while obscuring their global plundering intentions.
(01:47):
But can current Europe counter all of this?
It does not want to.
Rather, one prefers to join the ranks of the tributaries.
It appears to one as already seen on ancient Egyptian reliefs before Ramses II.
The envoys of the subjugated peoples kneel and lay their tributes at his feet.
(02:08):
Even democratic parties have swallowed the neoliberal poison.
As an example, Ulrich Beck called for a voluntary European Year for Youth over 20 years ago,
and what is happening today?
Flanked by military jingles and panic-mongering, European parties are beginning to militarily
(02:28):
restructure open societies in anticipatory obedience.
Training for killing instead of European education for tolerance and solidarity.
However, that the German military is not a place from which democratic thinking arises has been
evident to people since the 20th.
The century has been experienced painfully.
And also the future affected individuals.
(02:49):
European youth suspect that their impending fate should conscription be reintroduced.
War as a political option and it is always the others who are to blame.
The most important weapon of neoliberalism for the enforcement of its political goals is the
threat of the supposedly compelling laws of the world market.
(03:10):
With the spectre of globalisation, the global players manage to disguise their interest policy as economic reason.
Professor Beck, you have coined the term globalism for this rhetoric of globalisation and thereby
assigned yourself the difficult task of distinguishing between the liberal globalisation ideology
(03:32):
on the one hand and the real beginnings of a world society on the other.
How should one assess the political impact of this highly ideologically charged globalism?
The debate in Germany largely focuses on phenomena of economic globalisation.
And the interesting thing is, when you ask colleagues from economics, there is a great uncertainty
(03:57):
about how far there is already something like economic globalisation.
It is clear that there is internationalisation.
Internationalisation refers to the merging of economic action blocks, continental action blocks,
such as in Asia, particularly of course also Europe and then the USA.
(04:18):
Undoubtedly, significant movement has occurred here, a great intensification of trade.
But how far, for example, there is any observable intensification of trade between these blocks
or then with the rest of the world is extremely controversial and, in detail, probably also
questionable, so that one must overall say that this concentration on economic globalisation
(04:42):
must first be relativised regarding the data, the empirical data.
I find one phenomenon extraordinarily important, especially in this area of economic globalisation,
namely the fact that multinational corporations, due to technological possibilities, but also
many other conditions, are able to play different locations against each other, so to speak,
(05:08):
to engage in a cattle trade at the level of states.
This happens de facto, when one considers the data again, for example, the export of jobs, not
to the extent one might expect or how it is sometimes portrayed in public.
I believe there are about eight percent of jobs in Germany that are affected by this so far.
(05:30):
But, and this seems to me extraordinarily important, this realm of possibility has been opened
up and when one looks at studies about this change of location, it is essentially present everywhere.
Everyone calculates with this possibility and for me this is also a significant element of the
rhetoric of globalisation, that it has opened up this game of possibilities, even if it is not yet really being realised.
(05:54):
And this real possibility of globalisation also serves as a rhetorical figure, the territorially
bound powers such as labour are in any case bound to the place, but also the trade unions are
still organised territorially, the state is organised territorially, and through this game between
(06:17):
different locations, they are extraordinarily put on the defensive.
And this, I mean, is initially an element of globalism, that is, the ideology of globalisation,
which must be distinguished from the real phenomena of globalisation.
An important element in the effectiveness of this globalism, this rhetoric of globalisation, is the media staging.
(06:44):
How does this phenomenon, which you describe as semantic hegemony, come about?
The business associations, the companies are extraordinarily skilled in staging their position.
I find that sometimes one has the impression that they represent a current Marxism, a contemporary
Marxist position quite unabashedly, without mentioning the author.
(07:07):
One could almost say that the third volume of Capital is now being written in the Financial Times under anonymous authorship.
They openly address all the phenomena that Marx actually had in mind, such as the collapse or
the strong relativisation of the middle class in the USA, the fact that the global flow of financial
streams creates entirely new conditions, the Asian crisis, which shakes nation-states, all of
(07:34):
this is addressed quite naturally.
And in this way, it becomes visible with what vehemence this phenomenon of globalisation, as
a ghost that shakes all relations, is now wandering around Europe.
So no longer communism, but globalism is the ghost that is currently making the relations in Europe dance.
(07:59):
We will continue shortly with the interview.
Like us if you enjoy it.
This has evidently been very effective, not least because, in my perception, a new era is already
emerging behind it, an era in which territorial state actors must learn and also find their
(08:20):
way out of their defensive positions to reorient themselves in a global societal situation.
Who are the actors of this globalism?
Are there new coalitions, newly formed elites trying to enforce this rhetoric of globalisation?
First of all, it is the ideologues and actors of neoliberalism who see the market as the solution
(08:49):
to all the world's problems.
The idea, which is an adventurous notion for sociologists, not only for sociologists but for
all those who have read political theory, yes, those who have read Adam Smith, and we need not
even mention all the other authors, the idea that the market can somehow function without framework
conditions, without a moral figure underpinning it, without the state, without fundamental rights,
(09:12):
all of this seemed to constitute the self-understanding of Western modernity.
This is being swept away by this radicalism, I would almost say by neocapitalist totalitarianism,
perhaps to adopt a formula that has often been applied to Eastern Europe, with a gesture of
superiority and an attempt at prophetic persuasiveness that is quite astonishing.
(09:37):
This is indeed a revolutionary language spoken by management, by many economists who predominantly
represent this position, who strongly differentiate themselves, with good reason by the way,
against Keynesianism, against the attempt to reinterpret old national state models in this situation.
(09:59):
So it is a coalition of economists and politicians who politically articulate neoliberalism
and, in my opinion, do not even recognise that they are sawing off the branch they are sitting on.
These are, so to speak, dismantlers of the West, who, in parallel with the dismantlers of the
(10:20):
East, are actually reducing the political programme of liberal democracy very significantly
and are trying to displace the old ideas of democracy in the dominance of the market.
And then, of course, it is the corporations themselves that represent this ideology, although
I sometimes have the impression that one also falls too quickly into stereotypes.
(10:45):
My debates with the management in the upper echelons of international corporations continually
enlighten me about how diverse opinions and factions are there.
It is by no means the case that only neoliberals prevail, that only one faction among others
exists; after all, it is particularly also, and this is the least recognisable aspect, international
(11:09):
organisations, namely organisations like the World Bank, but also Europe as a political actor.
This applies to the entire transnational action level, which is gaining increasing influence
over individual nation-states, but at the same time also evades democratic legitimacy and, in
a certain way, even the very concept itself, although it is gaining more and more influence.
(11:32):
I believe that this is the great coalition that is driving deregulation in the global market
and that has indeed put all others under pressure with the rhetoric of globalisation, that is, with globalism.
In the deep structure, this means, according to your analysis, the abolition of the distinction
(11:52):
between politics and economics as the ideological core of this globalisation rhetoric, and you
also speak of an imperialism of the economic.
Is this not an ideological fundamental pattern of modernity as a whole, whereby technological
knowledge is absolutised, leading to a kind of technocracy?
Is this not a threat that modernity has been exposed to from the very beginning?
(12:16):
It is certainly true that this has been emphasised repeatedly.
All the great theorists of modernity have seen this danger.
I only think of Max Weber, but Helmut Schelsky also painted the vision of the technical state
on the wall in the 1960s.
But let us take a theorist like Niklas Luhmann, who is not exactly regarded as a representative
(12:39):
of the political quality of modernity; he does, however, make a clear distinction between different
systems and would certainly, if asked, resist the idea of making economic rationality, the economic
system, the dominant system, which even undermines and subverts the political system and its own rationality.
(13:01):
There is this danger of technocracy, but there is also clearly, throughout the entire political
theory of modern society, the pluralism of rationalities, the differences of their own areas,
which articulate their own claims.
And if one does not want to understand modernity in a very truncated way, then it has always
(13:23):
been essentially a political invention, an attempt to connect economic rationality with democracy,
at least in the phase of the first modernity.
And this is an attack that only becomes apparent after the collapse of the power blocs.
And I do believe that one must clearly recognise that we are living in an era where capitalism
(13:47):
has lost its enemies and thus has become, at first glance, an organisational form of economic
processes that seems without alternatives.
If one looks more closely, this may be relativised, because there are many different capitalisms
that present themselves more and more.
But there is certainly this ideology of globalism, which aims to relativise even these differences.
(14:12):
And on the other hand, we are dealing with a situation in which democracy also arises without enemies.
This may seem much easier to many, but this is, of course, a situation in which this essential
design of a real utopia for the organisation of social processes and the self-determination
(14:32):
of citizens continually requires critical challenge, critical control in concrete terms, regarding what that means.
And if there is, so to speak, no real challenge in the articulation of parliamentary democracy
possibly now beyond the national state framework, then that is also a situation that must be
(14:55):
observed very carefully and may require critical commentary.
You say that capitalism has lost its enemies, but it may have become its own enemy.
This means that the framework conditions of democracy and the welfare state are, for them at
least, indispensable for a functioning capitalism.
(15:18):
This essentially means that only a tamed capitalism is viable.
Is this still true at the global level?
Does global capitalism actually require functioning democracies?
I believe that this will prove to be dramatic in the coming years.
One must say that what, for example, the USA has written on its banners is always twofold.
(15:41):
On the one hand, it is capitalism, free market ideology, but on the other hand, it is also political freedom and democracy.
However exactly this comes together and how easily it can possibly be regarded as a politics
of façade, which also enables old imperialistic power games underneath.
But I believe that these are indeed the major developmental trends that refer to one another.
(16:08):
And this will certainly become even clearer in the future.
Allow me to clarify this with an example.
We have a phase of deregulation of markets worldwide as a consequence.
This primarily forced various institutions within nation-states to dismantle special regulations
and open up for the global market.
(16:31):
We have outstanding examples here, and I am sure that there will be many more in the coming
years, where it becomes clear what follow-up problems this type of deregulation raises.
Thought of in a very immanent way.
One was the BSE crisis, that is, mad cow disease in Europe, the other is the Asian financial crisis.
(16:51):
Both have brought the simple insight back to the table that markets evidently need framework
conditions and coordination of quality norms and standards in order to function at all.
In Europe, it was very clear that the quality of the meat, which was still in the minds of the
British, was not accepted by the other Europeans.
(17:14):
This means that there were simply demarcation problems and enormous consequences due to the destabilisation of the markets.
The same can be studied in the financial markets in Asia.
If we keep in mind what has all been deregulated.
I will now only take telecommunications as an example, but it also affects the labour markets
(17:36):
in Europe, then environmental issues, all of these are questions that concern very sensitive
political and everyday matters, where coordination issues on the political level, on the economic
level, and in the way people shape their everyday lives, what they consider right, how they
want to live, are directly intertwined.
(17:58):
And I believe that a significant pressure for re-regulation will arise from this dynamic.
So after the phase of deregulation, we are increasingly entering a phase where, shall I say,
from the logic of the coordination of markets that are now being deregulated, constraints arise.
What should the quality of these markets be?
(18:19):
How are the standards determined that now serve as the basis for negotiations for global competitors?
And this will result in a compulsion for re-regulation, which in turn means a reversal of the logic of globalism.
For re-regulation actually presupposes strong states, presupposes strong negotiating partners,
(18:42):
who, interestingly, are no longer only national; they must be able to act internally, but they
must also be capable of acting externally, and this in areas of great heterogeneity.
We already know how difficult it is to align the USA and Europe and to reconcile that with Asia,
because here we only take the example of meat, so incredible contrasts collide with all the
(19:07):
economic interests, and if we now extend this to other world regions, such as Africa with its
very different backgrounds, with very different income and cultural standards that prevail there,
or South America, then one sees what an incredible need will arise to somehow coordinate these liberated markets again.
(19:30):
I would derive the consequence that through various conflicts, possibly re-regulation battles
that are taking place, the insight is increasingly gaining ground, if there are no real collapses,
but also through these collapses the insight gains strength that we really need standards.
(19:50):
This old insight that markets must be regulated may emerge very laboriously, but with very significant
consequences from the constraints of re-regulation on a global scale. To take shape.
And it will become apparent, on this occasion, what can already be seen now, that it is above
all cultural standards that are colliding, not just the economy, so of course economic interests,
(20:13):
but embedded in cultural standards.
The environmental problem with its significance here and elsewhere is just one example, as are
the lifestyles and the markets that build on them, so I believe that a very realistic perspective emerges.
From the constraints and conflicts of intercultural international coordination and re-regulation of markets.
(20:38):
A relativisation of globalism will also emerge. Yes, quite the opposite.
It will, that would be my prediction, actually come to a phase where one will possibly discuss
politically legitimised actors in the transnational sphere anew, unless the problem arises that
(20:58):
the political actors have meanwhile disempowered themselves.
Yes, that is of course the question that is now emerging.
At the moment, one cannot really imagine that such a perspective will truly receive a real political chance.
But let's take a moment.
We have rapidly changing wave movements, of which one always does not quite believe that the
(21:22):
next one is already on the way.
Europe is changing very dramatically.
We now have various left-oriented governments, either already in office or possibly as election winners in Germany.
One must be very cautious as to whether this will really be the case.
But the chances are currently not bad, so that some form of left coalition in Europe could emerge,
(21:47):
which ultimately, when one looks at all the actors, aims at such a policy of re-regulation;
whether this will actually materialise is of course a question that we can observe ourselves in the coming years.
So it seems to me that the new social democracy, even that across the Channel, raises questions
(22:09):
about whether it is not rather continuing to float on this neoliberal rhetoric and moving in
that direction rather than steering against it.
So why is it that even the opponents of this neoliberal dogma, a part of the left spectrum parties,
seem so politically paralysed by this rhetoric?
(22:34):
The government of Tony Blair and New Labour is an ambivalent but highly interesting phenomenon in this context.
In my opinion, it is only conceivable under the devastating triumph of Thatcherism in Britain.
Thatcherism was so effective because Mrs Thatcher famously assumed that there is no such thing as society.
(22:58):
She said there are only families, the state, and the market, and hurried to politically establish
this state, driving society into absolute depression because she attacked the very foundation of existence.
This created the basis for Tony Blair, who actually proclaimed not just a New Labour but a New Society.
(23:22):
I say this because I believe we are sometimes a bit too shortsighted in the experiment that
is taking place in Britain.
I consider it likely that it is not the most interesting experiment in Europe either.
And as is often the case with experiments, the outcome is still unknown.
But one should not overlook that this experiment is being attempted and that it is an experiment
(23:46):
in the farewell to neoliberalism.
In the self-understanding of the theorists around Tony Blair, there is not only the formula
Beyond left and right, but increasingly this is being replaced by the formula the third way.
When we hear this, we always have the notion of the third way between capitalism and communism.
(24:08):
That is not what is meant.
It refers to a departure from neoliberalism, particularly the Anglo-Saxon, American version
on one hand and Thatcherism, that is the conservative position on one hand and that, which pains
us Continental Europeans a bit, and the social democracy or state socialism of the continental European countries.
(24:34):
And the third way attempts to distinguish itself from these two paths, which are presented as
errors, but indeed to implement a new form of re-regulation of the economy in many respects
and also a reformulation of the welfare state in many respects against this conception.
And this scope of the experiment is not properly captured for me both in the faction and in the German discussion.
(25:01):
For the German parties, for the German party spectrum, you are quite ruthless.
There you see no real voice that opposes this neoliberal rhetoric, this rhetoric of globalisation. Is that correct?
Yes, I am astonished at how little a counter-voice, a credible counter-voice, has been noticed so far.
(25:27):
The conservative parties, namely the CDU and CSU, adopt a lot of this rhetoric, then try to
deviate somewhere in quite an interesting way, but do not really put forward their own proposal against it.
The SPD is also indecisive and actually divided within itself, speaking with a forked tongue.
(25:48):
Germany would be in a position to learn from the Anglo-Saxon disaster of neoliberalism, which
must always be stated, this is simply not perceived by us and is also seen politically in this
way in Britain, to learn and not to repeat the mistakes that are being made there in a very dramatic manner.
I will again take an example (26:09):
the privatisation of the railways, which has led to catastrophic
conditions that are now being vigorously discussed and debated.
The railways have become slower, more unpredictable, and more expensive.
So it is a completely absurd situation, also a discussion example, in which in Britain this
(26:35):
euphoria for privatisation is being relativised very strongly, across all political parties
and across all classes in society.
Therefore, it would be extremely important, simply because we have entered this debate much
later, not to make the same mistakes that others before us have made and not to glorify role
(26:57):
models that have nearly collapsed under their own brilliance.
What is really behind these constraints of global competition that allegedly force the dismantling
of the welfare state, that compel us to abandon our Bismarckian pension system sooner or later?
Are the social achievements of European social history over the last 150 years not somehow still
(27:22):
to be salvaged for global society?
One must first see that the problem is already intensifying.
For we have increasingly global dependencies that are changing the scope of possibilities for
economic actors more and more.
And at the same time, the consequential problems of these actions continue to accumulate within the nation-states.
(27:48):
On one hand, we have a decline in taxes, particularly those that transnational corporations want to pay.
Yes, we even have a policy that states we need less and less tax revenue.
It is not only that they pay less, but it is also being offered to them by politics.
And at the same time, we have increasing costs because all the consequential problems are accumulating
(28:14):
in the nationally tied networks of the welfare state.
This is a situation that cannot last in the long term.
Moreover, we have the high productivity of labour in Western European countries, which is indeed
much greater, especially in Germany, than in the USA.
This is still not being recognised.
And this means we can produce much more goods and services with far fewer workers.
(28:39):
This means that the factor of labour is losing significance, and at the same time, it is expected
to bear everything it has always borne.
This is a situation that cannot end well.
This means that it requires a fundamental change in thinking and a reorganisation.
I believe that it should be possible, and is indeed possible, to reform and reframe the welfare
(29:03):
state transnationally, at least partially detaching it from welfare state contexts.
And there are indeed role models for this.
This is possible to the extent that one simultaneously relativises the importance of paid work
as the ultimate goal, for example, by considering models of a citizen's income that could, in
(29:29):
some form, still be performance-related, but are no longer solely tied to paid work.
Why should we not include family work?
Why should we not include citizen work, public engagement?
Then one could transform this liberation from the burden of paid work into a genuine opportunity for development.
(29:50):
All of this presupposes profound reforms of the social security system, which ultimately can
no longer be implemented within the framework of the nation-state.
They would have to be considered at the European level, at least at the European level.
I fundamentally believe this is possible, but it is not apparent that this initiative is truly being taken up.
(30:13):
So far, it has only been portrayed very faintly and not really with political conviction and mobilising power.
And it would undoubtedly be necessary to do this on the condition that corporations and the
economy are asked to contribute in a new way.
(30:34):
This cannot be financed solely through paid work, which is still decreasing, but the question
of distribution must be readdressed.
Apparently, at the moment, no one has the courage for this, not even the trade unions, if I
am hearing correctly, and certainly not politics, as it is too busy courting the economy and
(30:55):
has been pushed onto the defensive by globalism.
I am very much aware of all this.
And yet, I believe it is not possible to do otherwise than through a redistribution of societal
wealth, and even in a very original self-interest of capitalism, which ultimately needs the
(31:17):
framework conditions again if it wants to achieve any form of stability.
So I even believe that we do the economy a favour by making it aware that it now has to take
on similar responsibilities for democracy and the welfare state in the transnational framework
(31:38):
as it does in the national framework.
And I could even imagine, by the way, that after discussions with and the economy, such a policy is not entirely hopeless.
But no one is pursuing it and no one is formulating it.
Thank you for being with us at audioarchiv.
Follow us, so you don't miss an episode and don't forget the like button.
(32:02):
See you next week, your audioarchiv team.
Welcome to Audioarchiv, the channel for historical interviews with female writers, philosophers,
activists, and intellectuals from around the world.
(00:34):
Hello. That in the face of inflation, global migration movements, climate crises, and wars,
the Western elites cling once again to the ideological thinking of the 19th.
Century, enriched by the promises of salvation from the global tech industry, might have shocked
the world-renowned German sociologist Ulrich Beck, who passed away in 2015.
(00:58):
Meanwhile, Russian Tsar Vladimir Putin is giving a lesson in historical revisionism and Stalinist
societal reconstruction, while his spiritual brother Donald Trump is in the process of transforming
the oldest democracy in the world into an Old Testament fascist high-tech state.
Survival of the racism carries clear features of Nazi racial programmes.
(01:24):
Tech billionaires and oligarchs serve as pop tanks and crutches for power, with subservient media here and there.
Court reporting and disinformation, along with clownish populist political staging for the disenfranchised.
In daily fury, the new rulers chase people before them while obscuring their global plundering intentions.
(01:47):
But can current Europe counter all of this?
It does not want to.
Rather, one prefers to join the ranks of the tributaries.
It appears to one as already seen on ancient Egyptian reliefs before Ramses II.
The envoys of the subjugated peoples kneel and lay their tributes at his feet.
(02:08):
Even democratic parties have swallowed the neoliberal poison.
As an example, Ulrich Beck called for a voluntary European Year for Youth over 20 years ago,
and what is happening today?
Flanked by military jingles and panic-mongering, European parties are beginning to militarily
(02:28):
restructure open societies in anticipatory obedience.
Training for killing instead of European education for tolerance and solidarity.
However, that the German military is not a place from which democratic thinking arises has been
evident to people since the 20th.
The century has been experienced painfully.
And also the future affected individuals.
(02:49):
European youth suspect that their impending fate should conscription be reintroduced.
War as a political option and it is always the others who are to blame.
The most important weapon of neoliberalism for the enforcement of its political goals is the
threat of the supposedly compelling laws of the world market.
(03:10):
With the spectre of globalisation, the global players manage to disguise their interest policy as economic reason.
Professor Beck, you have coined the term globalism for this rhetoric of globalisation and thereby
assigned yourself the difficult task of distinguishing between the liberal globalisation ideology
(03:32):
on the one hand and the real beginnings of a world society on the other.
How should one assess the political impact of this highly ideologically charged globalism?
The debate in Germany largely focuses on phenomena of economic globalisation.
And the interesting thing is, when you ask colleagues from economics, there is a great uncertainty
(03:57):
about how far there is already something like economic globalisation.
It is clear that there is internationalisation.
Internationalisation refers to the merging of economic action blocks, continental action blocks,
such as in Asia, particularly of course also Europe and then the USA.
(04:18):
Undoubtedly, significant movement has occurred here, a great intensification of trade.
But how far, for example, there is any observable intensification of trade between these blocks
or then with the rest of the world is extremely controversial and, in detail, probably also
questionable, so that one must overall say that this concentration on economic globalisation
(04:42):
must first be relativised regarding the data, the empirical data.
I find one phenomenon extraordinarily important, especially in this area of economic globalisation,
namely the fact that multinational corporations, due to technological possibilities, but also
many other conditions, are able to play different locations against each other, so to speak,
(05:08):
to engage in a cattle trade at the level of states.
This happens de facto, when one considers the data again, for example, the export of jobs, not
to the extent one might expect or how it is sometimes portrayed in public.
I believe there are about eight percent of jobs in Germany that are affected by this so far.
(05:30):
But, and this seems to me extraordinarily important, this realm of possibility has been opened
up and when one looks at studies about this change of location, it is essentially present everywhere.
Everyone calculates with this possibility and for me this is also a significant element of the
rhetoric of globalisation, that it has opened up this game of possibilities, even if it is not yet really being realised.
(05:54):
And this real possibility of globalisation also serves as a rhetorical figure, the territorially
bound powers such as labour are in any case bound to the place, but also the trade unions are
still organised territorially, the state is organised territorially, and through this game between
(06:17):
different locations, they are extraordinarily put on the defensive.
And this, I mean, is initially an element of globalism, that is, the ideology of globalisation,
which must be distinguished from the real phenomena of globalisation.
An important element in the effectiveness of this globalism, this rhetoric of globalisation, is the media staging.
(06:44):
How does this phenomenon, which you describe as semantic hegemony, come about?
The business associations, the companies are extraordinarily skilled in staging their position.
I find that sometimes one has the impression that they represent a current Marxism, a contemporary
Marxist position quite unabashedly, without mentioning the author.
(07:07):
One could almost say that the third volume of Capital is now being written in the Financial Times under anonymous authorship.
They openly address all the phenomena that Marx actually had in mind, such as the collapse or
the strong relativisation of the middle class in the USA, the fact that the global flow of financial
streams creates entirely new conditions, the Asian crisis, which shakes nation-states, all of
(07:34):
this is addressed quite naturally.
And in this way, it becomes visible with what vehemence this phenomenon of globalisation, as
a ghost that shakes all relations, is now wandering around Europe.
So no longer communism, but globalism is the ghost that is currently making the relations in Europe dance.
(07:59):
We will continue shortly with the interview.
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This has evidently been very effective, not least because, in my perception, a new era is already
emerging behind it, an era in which territorial state actors must learn and also find their
(08:20):
way out of their defensive positions to reorient themselves in a global societal situation.
Who are the actors of this globalism?
Are there new coalitions, newly formed elites trying to enforce this rhetoric of globalisation?
First of all, it is the ideologues and actors of neoliberalism who see the market as the solution
(08:49):
to all the world's problems.
The idea, which is an adventurous notion for sociologists, not only for sociologists but for
all those who have read political theory, yes, those who have read Adam Smith, and we need not
even mention all the other authors, the idea that the market can somehow function without framework
conditions, without a moral figure underpinning it, without the state, without fundamental rights,
(09:12):
all of this seemed to constitute the self-understanding of Western modernity.
This is being swept away by this radicalism, I would almost say by neocapitalist totalitarianism,
perhaps to adopt a formula that has often been applied to Eastern Europe, with a gesture of
superiority and an attempt at prophetic persuasiveness that is quite astonishing.
(09:37):
This is indeed a revolutionary language spoken by management, by many economists who predominantly
represent this position, who strongly differentiate themselves, with good reason by the way,
against Keynesianism, against the attempt to reinterpret old national state models in this situation.
(09:59):
So it is a coalition of economists and politicians who politically articulate neoliberalism
and, in my opinion, do not even recognise that they are sawing off the branch they are sitting on.
These are, so to speak, dismantlers of the West, who, in parallel with the dismantlers of the
(10:20):
East, are actually reducing the political programme of liberal democracy very significantly
and are trying to displace the old ideas of democracy in the dominance of the market.
And then, of course, it is the corporations themselves that represent this ideology, although
I sometimes have the impression that one also falls too quickly into stereotypes.
(10:45):
My debates with the management in the upper echelons of international corporations continually
enlighten me about how diverse opinions and factions are there.
It is by no means the case that only neoliberals prevail, that only one faction among others
exists; after all, it is particularly also, and this is the least recognisable aspect, international
(11:09):
organisations, namely organisations like the World Bank, but also Europe as a political actor.
This applies to the entire transnational action level, which is gaining increasing influence
over individual nation-states, but at the same time also evades democratic legitimacy and, in
a certain way, even the very concept itself, although it is gaining more and more influence.
(11:32):
I believe that this is the great coalition that is driving deregulation in the global market
and that has indeed put all others under pressure with the rhetoric of globalisation, that is, with globalism.
In the deep structure, this means, according to your analysis, the abolition of the distinction
(11:52):
between politics and economics as the ideological core of this globalisation rhetoric, and you
also speak of an imperialism of the economic.
Is this not an ideological fundamental pattern of modernity as a whole, whereby technological
knowledge is absolutised, leading to a kind of technocracy?
Is this not a threat that modernity has been exposed to from the very beginning?
(12:16):
It is certainly true that this has been emphasised repeatedly.
All the great theorists of modernity have seen this danger.
I only think of Max Weber, but Helmut Schelsky also painted the vision of the technical state
on the wall in the 1960s.
But let us take a theorist like Niklas Luhmann, who is not exactly regarded as a representative
(12:39):
of the political quality of modernity; he does, however, make a clear distinction between different
systems and would certainly, if asked, resist the idea of making economic rationality, the economic
system, the dominant system, which even undermines and subverts the political system and its own rationality.
(13:01):
There is this danger of technocracy, but there is also clearly, throughout the entire political
theory of modern society, the pluralism of rationalities, the differences of their own areas,
which articulate their own claims.
And if one does not want to understand modernity in a very truncated way, then it has always
(13:23):
been essentially a political invention, an attempt to connect economic rationality with democracy,
at least in the phase of the first modernity.
And this is an attack that only becomes apparent after the collapse of the power blocs.
And I do believe that one must clearly recognise that we are living in an era where capitalism
(13:47):
has lost its enemies and thus has become, at first glance, an organisational form of economic
processes that seems without alternatives.
If one looks more closely, this may be relativised, because there are many different capitalisms
that present themselves more and more.
But there is certainly this ideology of globalism, which aims to relativise even these differences.
(14:12):
And on the other hand, we are dealing with a situation in which democracy also arises without enemies.
This may seem much easier to many, but this is, of course, a situation in which this essential
design of a real utopia for the organisation of social processes and the self-determination
(14:32):
of citizens continually requires critical challenge, critical control in concrete terms, regarding what that means.
And if there is, so to speak, no real challenge in the articulation of parliamentary democracy
possibly now beyond the national state framework, then that is also a situation that must be
(14:55):
observed very carefully and may require critical commentary.
You say that capitalism has lost its enemies, but it may have become its own enemy.
This means that the framework conditions of democracy and the welfare state are, for them at
least, indispensable for a functioning capitalism.
(15:18):
This essentially means that only a tamed capitalism is viable.
Is this still true at the global level?
Does global capitalism actually require functioning democracies?
I believe that this will prove to be dramatic in the coming years.
One must say that what, for example, the USA has written on its banners is always twofold.
(15:41):
On the one hand, it is capitalism, free market ideology, but on the other hand, it is also political freedom and democracy.
However exactly this comes together and how easily it can possibly be regarded as a politics
of façade, which also enables old imperialistic power games underneath.
But I believe that these are indeed the major developmental trends that refer to one another.
(16:08):
And this will certainly become even clearer in the future.
Allow me to clarify this with an example.
We have a phase of deregulation of markets worldwide as a consequence.
This primarily forced various institutions within nation-states to dismantle special regulations
and open up for the global market.
(16:31):
We have outstanding examples here, and I am sure that there will be many more in the coming
years, where it becomes clear what follow-up problems this type of deregulation raises.
Thought of in a very immanent way.
One was the BSE crisis, that is, mad cow disease in Europe, the other is the Asian financial crisis.
(16:51):
Both have brought the simple insight back to the table that markets evidently need framework
conditions and coordination of quality norms and standards in order to function at all.
In Europe, it was very clear that the quality of the meat, which was still in the minds of the
British, was not accepted by the other Europeans.
(17:14):
This means that there were simply demarcation problems and enormous consequences due to the destabilisation of the markets.
The same can be studied in the financial markets in Asia.
If we keep in mind what has all been deregulated.
I will now only take telecommunications as an example, but it also affects the labour markets
(17:36):
in Europe, then environmental issues, all of these are questions that concern very sensitive
political and everyday matters, where coordination issues on the political level, on the economic
level, and in the way people shape their everyday lives, what they consider right, how they
want to live, are directly intertwined.
(17:58):
And I believe that a significant pressure for re-regulation will arise from this dynamic.
So after the phase of deregulation, we are increasingly entering a phase where, shall I say,
from the logic of the coordination of markets that are now being deregulated, constraints arise.
What should the quality of these markets be?
(18:19):
How are the standards determined that now serve as the basis for negotiations for global competitors?
And this will result in a compulsion for re-regulation, which in turn means a reversal of the logic of globalism.
For re-regulation actually presupposes strong states, presupposes strong negotiating partners,
(18:42):
who, interestingly, are no longer only national; they must be able to act internally, but they
must also be capable of acting externally, and this in areas of great heterogeneity.
We already know how difficult it is to align the USA and Europe and to reconcile that with Asia,
because here we only take the example of meat, so incredible contrasts collide with all the
(19:07):
economic interests, and if we now extend this to other world regions, such as Africa with its
very different backgrounds, with very different income and cultural standards that prevail there,
or South America, then one sees what an incredible need will arise to somehow coordinate these liberated markets again.
(19:30):
I would derive the consequence that through various conflicts, possibly re-regulation battles
that are taking place, the insight is increasingly gaining ground, if there are no real collapses,
but also through these collapses the insight gains strength that we really need standards.
(19:50):
This old insight that markets must be regulated may emerge very laboriously, but with very significant
consequences from the constraints of re-regulation on a global scale. To take shape.
And it will become apparent, on this occasion, what can already be seen now, that it is above
all cultural standards that are colliding, not just the economy, so of course economic interests,
(20:13):
but embedded in cultural standards.
The environmental problem with its significance here and elsewhere is just one example, as are
the lifestyles and the markets that build on them, so I believe that a very realistic perspective emerges.
From the constraints and conflicts of intercultural international coordination and re-regulation of markets.
(20:38):
A relativisation of globalism will also emerge. Yes, quite the opposite.
It will, that would be my prediction, actually come to a phase where one will possibly discuss
politically legitimised actors in the transnational sphere anew, unless the problem arises that
(20:58):
the political actors have meanwhile disempowered themselves.
Yes, that is of course the question that is now emerging.
At the moment, one cannot really imagine that such a perspective will truly receive a real political chance.
But let's take a moment.
We have rapidly changing wave movements, of which one always does not quite believe that the
(21:22):
next one is already on the way.
Europe is changing very dramatically.
We now have various left-oriented governments, either already in office or possibly as election winners in Germany.
One must be very cautious as to whether this will really be the case.
But the chances are currently not bad, so that some form of left coalition in Europe could emerge,
(21:47):
which ultimately, when one looks at all the actors, aims at such a policy of re-regulation;
whether this will actually materialise is of course a question that we can observe ourselves in the coming years.
So it seems to me that the new social democracy, even that across the Channel, raises questions
(22:09):
about whether it is not rather continuing to float on this neoliberal rhetoric and moving in
that direction rather than steering against it.
So why is it that even the opponents of this neoliberal dogma, a part of the left spectrum parties,
seem so politically paralysed by this rhetoric?
(22:34):
The government of Tony Blair and New Labour is an ambivalent but highly interesting phenomenon in this context.
In my opinion, it is only conceivable under the devastating triumph of Thatcherism in Britain.
Thatcherism was so effective because Mrs Thatcher famously assumed that there is no such thing as society.
(22:58):
She said there are only families, the state, and the market, and hurried to politically establish
this state, driving society into absolute depression because she attacked the very foundation of existence.
This created the basis for Tony Blair, who actually proclaimed not just a New Labour but a New Society.
(23:22):
I say this because I believe we are sometimes a bit too shortsighted in the experiment that
is taking place in Britain.
I consider it likely that it is not the most interesting experiment in Europe either.
And as is often the case with experiments, the outcome is still unknown.
But one should not overlook that this experiment is being attempted and that it is an experiment
(23:46):
in the farewell to neoliberalism.
In the self-understanding of the theorists around Tony Blair, there is not only the formula
Beyond left and right, but increasingly this is being replaced by the formula the third way.
When we hear this, we always have the notion of the third way between capitalism and communism.
(24:08):
That is not what is meant.
It refers to a departure from neoliberalism, particularly the Anglo-Saxon, American version
on one hand and Thatcherism, that is the conservative position on one hand and that, which pains
us Continental Europeans a bit, and the social democracy or state socialism of the continental European countries.
(24:34):
And the third way attempts to distinguish itself from these two paths, which are presented as
errors, but indeed to implement a new form of re-regulation of the economy in many respects
and also a reformulation of the welfare state in many respects against this conception.
And this scope of the experiment is not properly captured for me both in the faction and in the German discussion.
(25:01):
For the German parties, for the German party spectrum, you are quite ruthless.
There you see no real voice that opposes this neoliberal rhetoric, this rhetoric of globalisation. Is that correct?
Yes, I am astonished at how little a counter-voice, a credible counter-voice, has been noticed so far.
(25:27):
The conservative parties, namely the CDU and CSU, adopt a lot of this rhetoric, then try to
deviate somewhere in quite an interesting way, but do not really put forward their own proposal against it.
The SPD is also indecisive and actually divided within itself, speaking with a forked tongue.
(25:48):
Germany would be in a position to learn from the Anglo-Saxon disaster of neoliberalism, which
must always be stated, this is simply not perceived by us and is also seen politically in this
way in Britain, to learn and not to repeat the mistakes that are being made there in a very dramatic manner.
I will again take an example (26:09):
the privatisation of the railways, which has led to catastrophic
conditions that are now being vigorously discussed and debated.
The railways have become slower, more unpredictable, and more expensive.
So it is a completely absurd situation, also a discussion example, in which in Britain this
(26:35):
euphoria for privatisation is being relativised very strongly, across all political parties
and across all classes in society.
Therefore, it would be extremely important, simply because we have entered this debate much
later, not to make the same mistakes that others before us have made and not to glorify role
(26:57):
models that have nearly collapsed under their own brilliance.
What is really behind these constraints of global competition that allegedly force the dismantling
of the welfare state, that compel us to abandon our Bismarckian pension system sooner or later?
Are the social achievements of European social history over the last 150 years not somehow still
(27:22):
to be salvaged for global society?
One must first see that the problem is already intensifying.
For we have increasingly global dependencies that are changing the scope of possibilities for
economic actors more and more.
And at the same time, the consequential problems of these actions continue to accumulate within the nation-states.
(27:48):
On one hand, we have a decline in taxes, particularly those that transnational corporations want to pay.
Yes, we even have a policy that states we need less and less tax revenue.
It is not only that they pay less, but it is also being offered to them by politics.
And at the same time, we have increasing costs because all the consequential problems are accumulating
(28:14):
in the nationally tied networks of the welfare state.
This is a situation that cannot last in the long term.
Moreover, we have the high productivity of labour in Western European countries, which is indeed
much greater, especially in Germany, than in the USA.
This is still not being recognised.
And this means we can produce much more goods and services with far fewer workers.
(28:39):
This means that the factor of labour is losing significance, and at the same time, it is expected
to bear everything it has always borne.
This is a situation that cannot end well.
This means that it requires a fundamental change in thinking and a reorganisation.
I believe that it should be possible, and is indeed possible, to reform and reframe the welfare
(29:03):
state transnationally, at least partially detaching it from welfare state contexts.
And there are indeed role models for this.
This is possible to the extent that one simultaneously relativises the importance of paid work
as the ultimate goal, for example, by considering models of a citizen's income that could, in
(29:29):
some form, still be performance-related, but are no longer solely tied to paid work.
Why should we not include family work?
Why should we not include citizen work, public engagement?
Then one could transform this liberation from the burden of paid work into a genuine opportunity for development.
(29:50):
All of this presupposes profound reforms of the social security system, which ultimately can
no longer be implemented within the framework of the nation-state.
They would have to be considered at the European level, at least at the European level.
I fundamentally believe this is possible, but it is not apparent that this initiative is truly being taken up.
(30:13):
So far, it has only been portrayed very faintly and not really with political conviction and mobilising power.
And it would undoubtedly be necessary to do this on the condition that corporations and the
economy are asked to contribute in a new way.
(30:34):
This cannot be financed solely through paid work, which is still decreasing, but the question
of distribution must be readdressed.
Apparently, at the moment, no one has the courage for this, not even the trade unions, if I
am hearing correctly, and certainly not politics, as it is too busy courting the economy and
(30:55):
has been pushed onto the defensive by globalism.
I am very much aware of all this.
And yet, I believe it is not possible to do otherwise than through a redistribution of societal
wealth, and even in a very original self-interest of capitalism, which ultimately needs the
(31:17):
framework conditions again if it wants to achieve any form of stability.
So I even believe that we do the economy a favour by making it aware that it now has to take
on similar responsibilities for democracy and the welfare state in the transnational framework
(31:38):
as it does in the national framework.
And I could even imagine, by the way, that after discussions with and the economy, such a policy is not entirely hopeless.
But no one is pursuing it and no one is formulating it.
Thank you for being with us at audioarchiv.
Follow us, so you don't miss an episode and don't forget the like button.
(32:02):
See you next week, your audioarchiv team.
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