Could Germany Fracture?
All sorts of centralized organizations that appear rock-solid may well melt into air as the disintegrative dynamics gather momentum.
Rising political and social discord that is generally being attributed to “populism” may actually be the re-emergence of ancient geographic and cultural fault lines. An often-overlooked manifestation of this might be the nation-state of Germany, a possibility fleshed out by longtime correspondent Mark G.
It’s both convenient and expedient for politicos to blame “populism” for the fracturing of the status quo. Given the unsavory undertones of ethnic/religious bias of “populism,” this allows the media-savvy politico (and aren’t they all media-savvy?) to paint his/her opponents as racist via the code-word “populist.”
Labeling dissenters “populists” doesn’t explain or predict anything. In terms of economic classes, it’s more insightful to distinguish between the Protected Class (insiders and favored elites) who benefits enormously from the status quo and the Unprotected Class (outsiders, marginalized workers, those without privilege or access to cheap capital).
But this doesn’t exhaust the sources of profound social discord. As historian Peter Turchin explained in his recent book Ages of Discord, historical eras are either integrative periods in which people find reasons to cooperate and join forces, or disintegrative periods in which reasons to split apart become dominant.
Clearly, the world-system of this era is entering a disintegrative phrase, and dismissing dissenters as “populists” solves nothing. For insight on how the disintegrative phase may manifest in Germany, let’s turn to Mark G.’s commentary:
Merkel faces own ‘German BREXIT’ Chancellor’s immigration crisis is ‘Threat to Europe’
The breakdown of the Bavarian CSU and German CDU center-right coalition (refounded post WWII by Konrad Adenauer) is historic. And it has definite regional implications. I think we could be watching the beginning moves not in a “German Brexit” but in the political collapse of the modern German state into multiple components.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
