Austerity in Germany: Looting by Another Name
When times are tough, we’re told we’ve all got to make sacrifices for the greater economic good. But only some are expected to bear the brunt of it.
Near the end of 2024, Berlin’s Senate announced sweeping budget cuts of €3 billion. These cuts will affect nearly every facet of social spending, including health care, education, culture, and 20 percent of the public transportation budget (amounting to €660 million).
While the consequences of these disastrous cuts have yet to fully manifest, they are having real effects on the city. Cultural austerity has forced the end of the beloved museum Sundays, and the very existence of other venues and institutions has been placed under threat. Public transportation, already plagued by delays and cancellations, is becoming less reliable and simultaneously more expensive. Next up on the chopping block may even be some of Berlin’s public parks.
Ask a “fiscally responsible” politician and they’ll tell you that Berlin just doesn’t have the money for the things that make society thrive. Strangely, this logic doesn’t apply to the €2 billion budget of the Berlin police, which is set to increase. It was no problem to find €720 million for a short extension of the A100 highway. To top it all off, the city just happens to have had €1.4 million lying around to host a traveling exhibit manufacturing consent for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Berlin’s economic priorities mirror similar decisions at the federal level, namely the altering of the German constitution in early 2025 to allow for unprecedented borrowing to the tune of €500 billion. This is not to invest in people’s well-being, but rather to re-militarize. To be sure, some of this amount will go into Germany’s decaying infrastructure. They make it sound like this will be invested in crumbling schools and hospitals, but in reality, it’s all for war-related infrastructure like train tracks and highways — you’ve gotta move the bombs somehow.
How do we square this circle? Why must public transportation suffer cuts, while the A100 extension — which demolishes neighborhoods, exacerbates congestion, worsens the city’s air quality, and forces the closure of cultural spaces — is considered a worthwhile investment? Why is there no money to reduce healthcare waiting times, but the Berlin police, whose weekly assaults on peaceful demonstrators often necessitate medical intervention, don’t shoulder any of the budget reductions? If the government can literally rewrite the rules to fund weapons that increase the likelihood of war on the European continent, why can’t it do the same to expand educational resources?
Politicians know this too, but under capitalism, they are forced to prioritize the exploitative and imperialist interests of the capitalist class.
When social resources are siphoned away from essential services, they’re redirected to corporations and executives in the forms of tax breaks, subsidies, and government contracts. This stripping of social infrastructure has a secondary effect, too: longer commuting times, worse access to health care, and fewer educational opportunities — this means regular people are occupied with daily concerns that distract them from the ever-intensifying exploitation of their labor.
Funding of the police cleanly fits into this picture. There’s only so much that people will tolerate before they voice their frustrations and seek change. When this happens, the state needs a well-equipped and loyal police force to defend it from dissatisfied citizens, who outnumber the ruling class by orders of magnitude.
When you start to feel the effects of society being looted through austerity, remember that it doesn’t have to be this way. The government is taking money away from schools to invest in weapons. Putin is not the biggest threat to our collective well-being; the main enemy is at home!
