Answer to: The politically correct answer is that we owe our prosperity to the hard work and ingenuity of the people who live here. This is what government politicians say in their usual speech.
Answer B: However, the truthful answer must be that this magic formula for our wealth is a combination of drugs. Germany owes her prosperity in recent decades to the fact that domestic hard work and ingenuity have been closely linked with the interests of three imperial powers.
For once, history was kind to the Germans.
Without the simultaneity of our special relations with the United States, Russia and China, the economic miracle of the last 40 years would not have existed.
It's true: Mr. Economic Miracle Ludwig Erhard provided the initial spark. But it is equally true: others provided the fuel for our rise. The diplomat and former ambassador of the Federal Republic in Argentina and Singapore, Ulrich Sante, calls them “the three pillars of our prosperity.”
1. Thanks, Uncle Sam
The Federal Republic, together with the United States, applied free trade principles after 1950, in many bilateral free trade agreements and in the WTO, the Geneva-based World Trade Organization. Thus arose the rules-based order that, in the first place, made safe investments outside the national territory possible.
Both countries colonized each other's territory with their companies. McDonald's and Coca-Cola arrived in Germany, later Google, General Electric, Goldman Sachs and Microsoft. In contrast, Volkswagen, BMW, Siemens and Thyssenkrupp built their factories in the United States. From 2000 to 2022, 2.6 trillion (dollars) of American capital flowed to Germany and 5.4 trillion (dollars) of German capital flowed to the United States.
2. Energy partnership with Russia
The form of government changed, but the supply relationship remained: first the Soviet Union, later the Russian Federation, supplied German industrial society with cheap energy. At its peak in 2021, more than 65 percent of our gas imports came from Russia.
3. Export partnership with China
With the beginning of its reform policy under Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping (reign 1979-1997), the People's Republic of China became the new sales area for the German export industry. Since the 1970s, hardly any other country has purchased German industrial products with such diligence and reliability. We were the men's clothing suppliers to the new Asian economic power.
Between 2010 and 2022 alone, the Federal Republic delivered goods worth more than one trillion euros to China, with the chemical industry and the construction of machines and plants especially benefiting. Not to mention the German automobile industry, which together with Volkswagen reached number one in China. At its peak, VW sold more than 40 percent of all its cars in the People's Republic.
Why is this important? Because these three associations are dissolving before our eyes with no replacement in sight.
The fact is: The current formula of active ingredients for our prosperity no longer works.
Energy Partnership Announcement
During the war in Ukraine, gas deliveries from Russia ended because Putin turned off the tap. On December 5, 2022, sanctions from the West were added, so the flow of oil has been interrupted since then. To highlight the discord of the situation, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline exploded about two months earlier.
World power China
The new China no longer wants to be the extended workbench of the Germans. They now see themselves as the most powerful export power in the world. For every container from the EU that arrives in China, 3.5 containers leave the People's Republic towards Europe.
“The Moor has done his duty, the Moor may go” from Friedrich Schiller's drama “The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa” is currently being translated into reality. The new German-Chinese reality is as politically incorrect as this phrase.
America first
Today, Democrats and Republicans in the United States support this slogan. “Buy American,” Joe Biden just shouted during his State of the Union speech. Tech companies are sucking up data, Wall Street is sucking up investment money, and the Inflation Reduction Act is attracting investment funds from German companies. Germany is no longer a “preferred partner” for both Republicans and Democrats.
Conclusion: This change of era is not reflected in contemporary German debates: cannabis, heat pumps, citizens' money. Instead, a successful parade of trivia is presented in front of an audience of millions. Perhaps this is the deepest cause of discontent with democracy. Even before the Chancellor, the people feel that the formula for our prosperity no longer works and that a new one is not being sought. Kurt Tucholsky: “People misunderstand most things; But most of the time it feels good.”