Germans Love Socialism

Posted: 1/7/2017  Updated: 1/8/2017

Germans love socialism or so it seems if you follow the public policies emanating from this country since 1945.

Latest Example

Just read this article in one of the leading German daily newspapers: Ein neues Anrecht auf befristete Teilzeit Mehr als zehn Millionen Beschäftigte in Deutschland arbeiten in Teilzeit. Doch was ist, wenn sie auf eine volle Stelle zurückkehren wollen? Ein neuer Gesetzentwurf soll das erleichtern. (Sorry, it is in German).

Federal Labor Minister Nahles (Social Democrat party) supports a draft law to introduce an entitlement or right for every employee to reduce full time work to part time work and to revert back to their previous full time job. This requirement affects all companies with a payroll of at least 15.  This comes on top of an already existing law mandating an entitlement to unlimited part time work. German companies are by law required to offer open positions first to part time employees.

Some refer to Germany as laborers paradise! I beg to differ!

In this context it is really surprising that the German economy has been doing so well for so many decades especially in the export sector. Must be still strong German ingenuity and competitiveness; hard work and still exemplary work ethic; and fair and no nonsense business dealing.

Incomplete List Of Past Examples

There are so many past examples that this list would need to be amended. It is by far not exhaustive.

The examples are in no particular order.

1. Residential rental laws are heavily biased against owners of rental properties. German courts constantly and overwhelmingly decide in favor of tenants.
2. The German Constitution stipulates that private property must serve the common good. Whatever that means ...
3. The health care system is compulsory and heavily run and controlled by government. Almost any conceivable socialist measures have been taken, e.g. pervasive price and income controls, professional licensing requirements, exclusive or monopolistic rights of pharmacies, negative lists for medications and much more.  The government run insurance system is dominating a rather minor private insurance market (oddly enough Beamte (civil servants) are privately insured.
4. The energy sector is heavily government run and controlled. How else would chancellor Merkel be able to decide on a whim to shut down the nuclear power plants. How else would it be possible to subject Germany to a comprehensive and massive transformation to so called green energy sources?
5. All German companies must establish a labor council consisting of employees with enormous power if the company’s payroll exceeds 50. The origins of this law date even back to 1916, preceding the Russian Revolution by just one year or less. Thus Germany has soviets co governing companies for very long time.
6. Gender quotas for company board rooms were introduced in 2015
7. A gender equal pay law is in progress
8. Taxation in Germany is ridiculously high and Germans are willing to put up with it or are ignorant about it. The value added tax alone is about 19%. Social security tax is about 18%; health insurance tax about 31%; unemployment insurance about 3% (Tax rates are shared between employer and employee). And so on and so on
9. Labor law is heavily tilted in favor of employees. Overall, hiring and firing is made overly difficult. Maternity leave (also referred to as parental leave)  for either mother or father is up to two years. Employer fully paid sick leave is up to six weeks; after that statutory health insurance pays 70% of salary for another 78 weeks.