The Cost of Austerity

Last week in Neuss, Germany a disgruntled long-term unemployed man apparently cracked under the relatively relentless pressure being applied by the German government to "force" the unemployed into employment.

It began with a change in the welfare and unemployment  payments paid once  unemployment insurance ran out under the new Hartz IV  laws (January 2005) which became dependent upon seeking/finding/accepting work through the new federal employment agency.

The most striking of the conditions is that within a codex of human rights including human dignity there are a number of jobs which if offered to recipients of Hartz IV payments and not taken up by them will result in their payments being reduced or totally curtailed.

Having lived in Germany and visited it often I can patently say that the general quality of life level is good given the amount of money spent on public infrastructure, transportation, health, education and society in general which was a result of a Sozial Marktwirtschaft or social market economy in which the state steps in to try and ensure that social inequities are kept within reason in conjunction with a vibrant market economy.

This functioned extremely well in Germany where it was combined with a strong work ethic, a pride in employment and an underlying understanding of the rights and responsibilities of its' citizens.

As with all systems which try and deal with broad problems in a "one size fits all" approach there has been much slippage one manifestation of which has been the occurrence of third generation welfare families.

Hartz IV was supposed to deal with this problem, among many others hence the "workfare" aspect of the new law.  As with many things German there are procedures to be followed which often means an almost endless filling (and apparently re-filling) in of forms in order to keep current payments.

So last week in Neuss, at what is essentially the Federal Employment Agency a 50+ year old unemployed unskilled labourer decided that the state was out to get him and the jobs center case worker assigned to him was the medium through which the state was acting and so took out a knife and stabbed her to death.

The office continues to receive death threats and there have been instances in other centers where the police have been able to detect and disarm knife-carrying men attempting to enter.

I am not suggesting that Hartz IV is responsible for these acts of violence.  I am saying that there is a segment of society even within a reasonable wealthy Germany which is being squeezed- apparently in some cases to the breaking point.

We have seen the result of debt reduction packages in the less wealthy southern European states such as Greece, Portugal and Spain.

It is what England's Cameron is trying to implement, and what America's Romney wants to implement- the removal of the State as a social "equaliser".  

Desperate times call for desperate solutions.  Desperate men also turn to desperate solutions-those on the top-and those on the bottom.