Economists should be ready for conflict, found Jürgen Donges and repeatedly explained this to his students. Economists have an “obligation to bring to the public” – Donges adhered to this maxim himself throughout his entire working life. The economist intervened as chairman of the Kiel Institute for World Economy, professor of economic political science at Cologne University of the Council of Experts (SVR), as chairman of a deregulation commission and finally as a member of the New Social Market Economy initiative financed by metal employers.
He fought for the dismantling of state regulations and, as early as the 1980s, raised the then and now unpopular demand to free trade with poor countries in Africa, South America and elsewhere because this was the only way for them to prosper. Many saw the professor as “neoliberal” or “market radical”. He was feared as a strict examiner among his Cologne students and admired as a passionate scientist. “Donges was uncompromising when it came to economic reason,” says Michael Hüther, director of the Institute for German Economics. “But he was also ready to change his mind if you convinced him with good arguments.”
Jürgen Bernardo Donges was born in Seville in 1940 as the son of a German bank employee and grew up in Madrid. There he did the Spanish and then the German Abitur. Spanish was his first language, he remained connected to the country and its culture. “Only when he spoke Spanish could he really come out of himself,” remembers Michael Hüther. Donges studied at Saarbrücken University, at that time a haven for economic thinking. Herbert Giersch, one of the most influential professors there, became president of the World Economic Institute in 1969 and took Donges with him. In Kiel he dealt with developing countries and structural policy and eventually became Vice President. When in 1989 not he, but Horst Siebert from Constance, succeeded Giersch in Kiel, he accepted a position at the University of Cologne.
Donges called for deregulation of the labor market
One of the advantages of Cologne as a location was its proximity to Bonn, the then federal capital. Politics was more present. In 1992 Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl appointed him to the Advisory Council of the “Five Wise Men” (in 2000 he became its chairman). Since 1988 he has headed a deregulation commission of the federal government. Some of their proposals have now become a reality in whole or in part: the abolition of the postal monopoly and the establishment of Deutsche Post and Deutsche Telekom, the opening of the energy markets, and competition in part of rail transport.
But Donges wanted more. He was convinced that the “European social model”, as he called it, would have no future and called for the deregulation of the labor market. As early as 2003, he complained in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” in 2003 that the young generation is not being treated fairly because the young cannot expect the corresponding consideration for their pension contributions. He rejected compulsory master craftsmen as well as a transatlantic free trade area (TTIP). All trading partners should be treated equally. During the euro crisis, he protested against the bond purchases by the ECB. He saw it as a prohibited act of state financing by the central bank.
Jürgen Donges died last Friday at the age of 80 with his family in Cologne.