State or Market? A debate about privatizations. Review – Politics

Good idea that the small Westend publishing house had: to establish a book series called “Streitfrage” in the rowdy, easily excitable German present. Unlike on Twitter, where people like to fight uninhibitedly and usually without in-depth knowledge of the subject, things are peaceful here, more or less well thought out and also much easier to read. This is due to the old-fashioned form of administration that books have, there are only two opponents. In the present case it is about privatization, the pros and cons of the FDP politician and Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki and the social scientist Tim Engartner, who teaches at the University of Cologne. They wrote their essay without knowing the other’s.

Kubicki writes that the privatization of companies is “neither good in principle, nor are they bad,” but that it is sometimes necessary. As an example of such a necessity, he takes the “quite unpleasant” look back at the gigantic privatization of the GDR state economy since 1990, whose negative consequences such as mass unemployment, a lack of prospects for people and the resulting phenomena such as frustration and xenophobia Kubicki does not hide. “It wasn’t all bad,” but it was silly not to “allow any nuances” on this subject.

These are peaceful words from the pen of the notorious polemicist Kubicki, and his portrayal of what he sees as a successful privatization of the Deutsche Bundespost and Lufthansa is also mild. But he also mentions the example of the Berlin water supply, which was sold – and bought back – by the city, with expensive consequences for water consumers. At the end of his contribution he says: “If privatizations succeed, then everyone’s chances and possibilities increase.” All? Well, as long as they are “consumers” and “market participants” anyway.

1.2 million jobs were lost

A few years ago, Tim Engartner made a furious plea against privatization. “Privatizations,” he now writes as if he were a critical echo of Kubicki, “are always accompanied by the promise that all members of society would gain from it and that no one would lose anything.” But that’s not how it is: According to Engartner, more than 1.2 million jobs have been destroyed by the privatization of public infrastructure in the past 25 years alone. Privatized waste, energy and water supplies sometimes cause prices to triple. Engartner, whose contribution is more well-founded and also more committed – as far as the social consequences of privatization policy are concerned – than that of Kubicki, hopes for its renaissance after the Corona crisis with its massive interventions by the state. For the benefit of the weak, not just the market participants.