[8] News from Absurdistan: Germany - A Less Developed Country

[In statu nascendi]

A country of might is a more worrisome receptacle of evil than one with fewer resources to do bad.

Historically, Germany has shown a proclivity to combine features of advanced development and backwardness at the same time. Call it negative leverage - when awesome material and intellectual power is marshalled to promote the primitive, become efficient at regression or be a leader in reactionary matters.

I propose that it is easier to find funds and friends to help the libertarian cause in Malawi than to attract foreign aid for the purpose of educating the Germans about freedom. Your gut tells you: Malawi needs help, no doubt. But does Germany?

Back in the days of the GDR, the communist regime in East Germany was blessed with a peculiarity known as Das Tal der Ahnungslosen - the vale of the clueless. Given technology at the time, for geographic reasons, an important province of the communist country was cut off from Western TV broadcasts - namely, the area around Dresden.

When I see what tremendous advances knowledge about the importance of liberty and efforts to disseminate the message (internet) have made in other countries, especially in the USA, I cannot but help think that 'the vale of the clueless' has expanded to extend over the entire surface of German territory.

What I am saying is this: every day, I listen to radio broadcasts directed to a military audience - some 40 thousand Americans in my German home town. And what do I hear? I hear things otherwise never talked about in Germany. American syndicated radio is full of libertarian ideas. True, these ideas are not exactly preponderant in the broadcasts, but they are around, they are being discussed - increasingly it seems - and what is particularly encouraging: a significant number of people can effortlessly relate to them and actually understand the basic concepts, even though they may still end up supporting political forces of the mainstream.

In fact, my impression is that there are huge numbers of Americans who welcome and endorse the libertarian message. This trend is strengthened by the emancipation of the mind afforded by the internet, which turns hapless consumers of spin (offered by the leading usurpers of conventional mainstream media outlets) into purposive seekers of truth and high quality information. People begin to define what they want to hear, rather than being defined by what they hear.

Millions of Americans are ready for the libertarian turn in politics, ready to see the political duopoly of the Democrats and Republicans give way to something - in its composite fabric - uniquely American: constitutionalism, individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace.

By contrast, these values have no resonance in Germany.

As if living in the vale of the clueless, Germans, like their formerly communist brethren in East Germany and fellow-citizens of today, have never been educated in the meaning and import of individual liberty, limited government and free markets.

They believe that a constitution is an instrument rightfully catering to strong government - deeming the national government too puny to cope with the challenges of today and in need of supersession by a more powerful European hyper-government. And a strong government, they feel, is required to keep in check individuals and free markets, both being looked upon as sources of abominable vice. War is considered an expedient way to bestow the blessings of Western democracy upon countries thought savage, too weak to muster much resistance to the intruders (or else the Germans are adamant that their soldiers facilitate combat action but do not take part in it) or holding treasures easily reaped (oil or opportunities for [using military force to achieve] humanitarian feats).

With Germans, freedom evokes images of the Marlborough man, a holiday leave from the constraints of everyday life, rascals overstepping the bounds of decency. Freedom has no political connotations in Germany, least of all any to do with a libertarian order.

While freedom shows promise of a comeback in the States, in Germany it is drifting farther and farther out of sight.

Before the fall of the Berlin wall, you would still hear the odd German politician making mention of our freiheitlich-demokratische Grundordnung ( a political order based on freedom and democracy).

One no more hears any of this - as trite and hollow as the phrase used to sound in the mouths of gentlemen like the former Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

We have gotten rid of the "freiheitlich" bit, the thing about being based on freedom. "Democratic" is sufficient now.

As I am trying to demonstrate in this blog, Germany is uncharted territory in terms of libertarianism, there are no forces to speak of promoting liberty, no resonance to it in the populace, scarce literacy of the matter among intellectuals and almost complete philosophical Gleichschaltung (complete subservience of all members of society) along the lines of ignorance or rejection of the basic concepts of liberty.

Excellent sources of knowledge about liberty, e.g. the websites of American think-tanks such as The Cato Institute or the Future of Freedom Foundation, laudably offer their publications in foreign languages such as Arabic, Russian and Spanish.

Urgently needed are German editions.

Germany needs foreign intellectual aid.

The only original political innovation to have emerged and spread globally from postwar Germany comes from the ecologists, die Grünen (The Green Party), who figured out how to instrumentalize ecological concerns for populist power grabbing, using a shrewd strategy that combines the bias of our political system in favour of well-organized special interests with the art of vulgarizing ecological issues to foster powerful demagoguery.

Long before Al Gore, green politicians in Germany knew how to get big business to treat them more solicitously than politicians taking a pro-business stance. After all, who is more important to you? The guy who leaves you unhindered in your progress, or the guy who threatens to break your leg, unless you are ready for a little detour?

Corruption is supposed to be a sure sign of LDCs - less developed countries.

Go back to earlier posts at this blog and you will see just how corrupt Germany is.

The benefit/cost of corruption in a less developed country in the common sense of the word may be small - a rush fee of a couple of hundred dollars to get the utilities to link you up for business -, in Germany you may be dealing with a multi-billion stake to avoid derailment of large investments.

To repeat myself: a country of might is a more worrisome receptacle of evil than one with fewer resources to do bad.

Germany is rather advanced at being less developed.