The fight against populism : welfare policy ensures not only the democracy

Federal President Roman Herzog reminded today especially of his dictum, during a Berlin speech at the Hotel Adlon over twenty years ago. The itself rather portly, Yes stuffy-looking man had Bouncing: "a jolt has to go!" Whereupon his Parole is covered the most only vague in my memory. Has impressed upon "the jerk", to associate with a full braking, where the driver from the recoil is shaken. Was meant to be the jerk almost as a short version of the classic turn of phrase: "get it on the belt!"

Duke's Trouble was the reform of the aversion of his countrymen, which would now bring all the "victims". Too many subsidies, there is to much regulation, to many of the cures at the expense of funds, lack of competition, high wages. In short, there is too much government, complained to the head of state, and that's why a "loss of freedom".

It is worth back

That was in 1997, on the very last stage of the predigital era. Meanwhile, it is already printed. Neo-liberal freedom fantasies have lost their Flair, because where they were implemented, it turns out to be the forerunner of a shift to the right. On financial crisis and social degradation, unregulated digitization, globalized Economy, migration and climate change, populists react with nationalist hostility to Democracy. They demand more police, more military, you are looking for isolationism, or want to force medieval fear of God.

The strongest political tendency of the neotraditional but on all continents. His promise is, that the conditions "be back" like in the good old days, which it touted as you, never gave up. Meaningful Symbol for the Desire for safety, the bulky SUV-cars, the cross, increasingly, through the streets of the major cities are, than it is essential to cope independently in the desert of the present. The combination of SUV and sedan ciphered, a message such as: We want to be in here privileged for us – out there are dangers lurking.

On the other side of the political spectrum, the solution is bundled said: A jerk to the left must go through the Land. From the Right, instead of from the back, jerking the speech is there. Designing a future with a strong welfare state and justice, opposes the uncertainty the promises of respect of pensions and additional payouts of state funds to private households. But these concepts are not thought far enough, the consequences of the technical revolution.

The enormous implications of the structural change triggers so enormous and diffuse Fears. Digitality means a change at the micro level, for most of the time enjoyed completely non-transparent. Globalization means a change at the macro level, the dynamics is not even for experts sufficiently transparent. Careers, opportunities, the whole of everyday life is changing rapidly.

scapegoats are sought

In periods of uncertainty, disoriented, looking for more fixes, and disoriented political elites scapegoats among minorities – the result of the current surges of xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Europe and all other continents, from Brazil to the Philippines. The urgent mission of the Western democratic constitutional States, self-holding, for itself and as political role models for prädemokratische autocracies, Kleptokratien or "God States".

If political education, solid Knowledge and a strong, democratic consciousness of the broad layers of the society, all political destructive back row can be prevented. As Roman Herzog, at the time, according to the "jerk" called, dawned the Dimension of change already, and he had clearly recognized that "education must become the mega-issue of our society. We need a new departure in education policy in the coming knowledge-based society.“ Education policy is also, in the first place, political education. Far-sighted democracies have invested their tax billion in education palaces.

Federal government of the SPD- "social plans" columns large coalition

Only to create social creativity, and democratic self-awareness. This consciousness is necessary for survival in the face of the magnetic-seeming dynamics of change, the Bots and outrage, the Influencer, and Fake News, masquerades and lies. What is invested on a broad Basis in education, moves income to the General public, in taxes, pensions, and prosperity – in the preservation of democracy.