Posts Tagged ‘Stephan Kramer’
Hans Werner Sinn
…did me a favor. In my last post I wrote, rather ambiguous, that comparisons with the shoah are legitimate in order to illustrate differences.
Hans Werner Sinn, Head of Germany’s ifo institute, now failed to do this properly and caused a storm of widespread indignation in Germany.
This is what he said: “In every crisis, people look for someone to blame, for scapegoats. During the global economic crisis of 1929 as well, no one wanted to believe in an anonymous systemic failure. Then it hit Jews in Germany, today it is managers.”
First of all, this is not a comparison, it is an analogy. His first sentence illustrates that. As such, the sentence might have caused an uproar, but it is totally legitimate. What Sinn does, however, is connecting his simple truth with a concrete example: the economic crisis in 1929 and the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany. Why is this crossing a red line? The current crisis has often compared to 1929.
The problem, however, is that anti-Semitism and political extremism in the 20s and 30s had many causes in Germany, first of all the lost war and the deep feeling of insecurity following it. The democratic system never had been truly accepted within among German officials, the military already planned the next big war in the 20s. The political and social situation was totally different from today. Sinn does not reflect on that, instead, he creates a simple analogy: back then: Jews – today: managers.
He even might be right. Managers are scapegoats for the current economic crisis, and some rightfully so. But because he does not take the differences into consideration, the whole conclusion is doomed to fail. The situation today is totally different. The consequences of being a scapegoat today will be that managers might have some money cuts and might be put into a more efective set of controls in the future. Back then, it was “being beaten, murdered or locked up in concentration camps”, as Stephan Kramer said. Mr Sinn did not make these fundamental differences clear – and by failing to do so, he implied that managers might soon be treated the same way as Jews in the wake of 1929. This turns the correct (and insignificant) assertion “in every crisis there are scapegoats. managers are scapegoats today” into news – and into impudence.
