Since the beginning of this week it has been clear: Germany is getting a new party. The former left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht, 54, announced on Monday the founding of the “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht”, or BSW for short, named after her. There are still many questions about the new party. A lot can still be said about their economic policy agenda.
On Monday, Wagenknecht presented a “founding manifesto” that describes the central points of their agenda on five A4 pages. Economic policy is under the heading “Economic Reason” mentioned as the first point. The chapter begins with a kind of list of defects: the unpunctuality of the train, the long waiting times for a specialist’s appointment, a lack of apartments and daycare places are mentioned, as are “dilapidated roads and bridges, dead spots and slow internet”. Overall, it is said, the public infrastructure is “in an embarrassing state for a leading industrial country.” The education system is also described as dysfunctional. And further: “Since the Russian sanctions and alleged climate policy suddenly made energy more expensive, our country is threatened with the loss of important industries and hundreds of thousands of well-paid jobs.”
Overall, Russia policy is obviously a defining parameter of the Wagenknecht agenda. When it comes to solutions to the grievances described, the paper mentions not only “massive investments” in education, infrastructure and business support, but also relationships with other countries: “Germany, as a country with strong exports and poor raw materials, needs a foreign trade policy that is based on stable trade relationships with as many countries as possible partners instead of new bloc formation and excessive sanctions and which ensures our supply of raw materials and cheap energy.” A clear indication of a turn to Russia.
“It is striking that Russia policy is addressed twice in this short chapter,” says economist Hubertus Bardt from the German Economic Institute in Cologne. “The Russia sanctions are mentioned very critically. It has to be said that the sanctions are a problem for individual companies, but they play almost no role for the overall economic situation in Germany.” The paper also fails to recognize “that there are no European gas sanctions against Russia, but that Russia has stopped gas deliveries to Europe.”
Classic left-wing demands can also be found in the manifesto
Bardt also recognizes anti-American overtones, for example in the passage in which the Wagenknecht alliance “rants against overseas corporations,” as Bardt says. Specifically, the paper mentions Amazon, Google parent company Alphabet, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple, as well as the financial investor Blackrock. These would “impose a toll on all other market participants, undermine competition and destroy democracy. To a considerable extent, the current inflation is also the result of a market failure caused by excessive economic power.” “Politics influenced and bought by corporations and the failure of the antitrust authorities” are criticized as the cause. For economist Bardt, “there is more than just a hint of conspiracy theory.”
The founding manifesto also contains classic left-wing demands: The BSW wants to provide tax relief for middle and lower incomes, and in interviews Wagenknecht also called for the minimum wage to be raised to 14 euros per hour. The rich, on the other hand, should be asked to pay more, as should large corporations. The term “wealth tax” does not appear directly in the manifesto, but Wagenknecht made it clear several times elsewhere that she wants to tax inheritances and assets more heavily. But, as she said in this week’s press conference, it was only about people who “have hundreds of millions or even billions.” For example, anyone who inherits their parents’ house should not be burdened, even if this house is in Munich and is therefore “worth millions”.
The stance of the party currently being founded on climate policy is much less concrete, says expert Bardt. On the one hand, there is talk of “supposed climate policy,” which fundamentally calls into question the legitimacy of climate protection measures. At the same time, however, there are warnings about the “destruction of our livelihoods” as a “serious challenge”. “What that will mean in concrete positions remains to be seen,” said Bardt.
The considerations about the role of the state in the economy are also noteworthy. Specifically, the alliance paper states that they want to “limit market power and unbundle dominant companies. Where monopolies are unavoidable, the tasks must be transferred to non-profit providers.” Bardt translates this by saying that the BSW wants to remove private-sector competition from central economic sectors and organize the tasks by the state. “Abandoning entrepreneurial initiative does not improve performance,” says Bardt. Instead, there was a risk of higher costs and declining service. Overall, says the economist, it’s all “a pretty thin soup.”