THESIS on German Rightwing Populism
A Rationale for the Protection of High-Performance National Cultures
Patrik Schumacher, London, October 2024
Contribution to the session entitled From Powerhouse to Populism: Germany Today.
Battle of Ideas Festival 2024, Convened by the Academy of Ideas, Church House, 27 Great Smith Street, Westminster, London, 20th October 2024
My background, to the extent relevant here:
I am a German-born British citizen and entrepreneur leading a London-based firm, founded by an Iraqi woman, now employing 500 professionals from 60 nationalities, exporting high value services globally. We are a multi-ethnic organisation but not multi-cultural. We are all adherents of modern civilisation, competent participants of modern high-performance culture, even if many of us come from less advanced societies.
My contribution this morning:
to play the devil’s advocate and steelman the stark anti-immigration agenda of the patriotic right wing of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), from the perspective of the long term global common weal, that is humanity’s overall flourishing. (This was also the perspective taken by Karl Marx, taking the weight of the whole word on his shoulder. So non-trivial traces of my prior intellectual life as Marxist remain.) My thesis put forward here says: right wing “populism” might be the best chance to preserve the German powerhouse.
My contribution to this debate focusses on the right wing of the AfD, referring to the centre-right or centrist bulk and leadership of the party only as a foil. The derogatory designation of the AfD as “populist” is a polemic without merit, or rather: the AfD is no more “populist” in the sense of campaigning with drastic simplifications than any of the old parties that level this accusation. The intended insinuation of the phrase “populist” is, in my view, not only unfair with respect to the centre-right part of the party but also with respect to the patriotic or right wing of the party. In fact, this questionable use of the term “populism” as a means to substitute a smear for argumentative engagement, seems to have led to it being received and used as a batch of honour by those so designated, implying more democracy, popularity and closeness to the people.
The AfD’s centrist federal leadership is taking a pragmatic stance against the overburdening of Germany with mass immigration since 2015, in terms of the overburdening of welfare, increasing crime, the stress on housing, schools, nursery places, doctor appointments etc. The AfD is proposing to reintroduce border controls, abolish pull factors like generous welfare and quick naturalisation, actually return those without right to stay etc. These measures are about relieving current stressors by slowing down immigration. (And indeed these popular proposals are now finally being adopted into the programme of the governing coalition and the established opposition, after years of AfD vilification due to precisely these proposals.)
The AfD’s self-described patriotic wing, in contrast, approaches this issue from a much more fundamental perspective, grounded in a deeply felt world view. They are emphasising 1500 years of history developing a national character and culture, and the achievements of the German nation in terms of art, philosophy, science and industry. They say that mass immigration from culturally distant nations is an existential threat to the very survival of the German nation, and to the survival of European culture in general. They see a demographic time bomb which will, in the absence of decisive efforts towards reversal, lead to native Germans becoming a minority in Germany. Some background statistics: In 2019, 40% of children under the age of 5 had migration background. In 2022 it was already 41% of children up to the age of 15. The fertility rate of native Germans is far below replacement level, and the AfD right wing expects this to further shrink if not reversed with very significant incentives. The worry is that the minority status of native Germans is already sealed. There is a sense of existential urgency. The primary, overriding political task for them is to halt and reverse what they call the “population substitution”. (The “remigration” they propose, beyond returning illegal immigrants, is meant to be strictly voluntary, via financial incentives, which might include German investments in the respective countries of origin.)
For the new right and identitarian AfD German patriots this is not primarily a pragmatic question of maintaining economic performance but a question of the preservation of a cherished identity, the need to belong, fuelled by pride and emotional attachment to the unique German nation. Perhaps also expressing the particular interests of the natives who are still a majority.
Although there is nothing undemocratic or reprehensible about expressing the majority’s attachments and perceived interests in the political process, these are not my attachments, feelings and concerns. I feel no nostalgia, nor am I a politician who has to represent a bounded group interest like a particular electoral majority-defined national interest. I am arguing from the perspective of humanity’s long-term flourishing on this planet.
In yesterday’s session on ‘Western Civilisation under siege’ the question was raised (but not answered): “Can Western Civilisation be upheld by a new, non-European population?”
I rephrase in my terms: “Can modern, high technology and high productivity culture be expected to continue to progress at pace with a majority and further increasing proportion of people socialized within more backward conditions?
My answer: there could indeed be reasonable doubt, depending on the speed of the substitution, and on where specifically the majority of the new arrivals come from, and which cultural socialisation they come with or receive in the second or third generation, i.e. the degree of relevant assimilation (enabling productive economic integration). Mass migration is qualitatively different from gradual small-scale migration. There is always a point at which quantity transforms into quality. Beyond this point even the purpose of the migrants themselves is thwarted, namely when they recreate at their destination what they were trying to escape from.
I believe the UK has a much better chance to achieve a continuously upgrading modern high-performance culture with a non-white majority than Germany, due to the on average higher level of educational attainment of immigrants coming to the UK, many via UK university degrees. In contrast to Germany, the UK has the exceptional advantage of being able to attract top talent from around the world, effectively brain-draining the rest of the world, including the rest of Europe, not even excepting Germany herself. The concentration of the best and brightest in global centres like London is conducive towards advancing humanity’s technological frontier, and therefore in the interest of the long-term global commonweal. In this sense, advanced societies are misguided, both with respect to their own economic interest as well as with respect to the interest of world society, if they, due to aesthetic-nostalgic sentiments concerning their national character, set up barriers to this beneficial influx from a global high-talent pool. Germany’s right-wing patriots might therefore overshoot in their protective efforts. Even the UK is currently running this risk when it starts to curb foreign influx into its university system, or when reducing the visa opportunities of foreign-born graduates, in order to keep total immigration numbers down.
Both Germany and the UK would significantly increase their chances of successful assimilation, if they would significantly reduce welfare. Welfare is not only a pull factor for inadequately trained economic migrants, but also offers a viable alternative to assimilation and economic integration for second and third generation individuals and families with migration background, thereby subsidizing parallel societies with disempowering cultural patterns and stunted career development potentials.
Increasing strife in society, loss of cohesion and political fracturing, perhaps expressed in the formation of ethnic-based political parties are a further risk that could infringe on economic development.
But even in the absence of the outbreak of disrupting conflict: Culture matters. The concept of culture presupposed here has little to do with superficial folklore (food, dress) but involves shared systems of beliefs (religious or otherwise), shared values, including moral norms, typical behavioural patterns, institutions like family structures, class structures, patterns of socialisation, levels of trust between strangers, work ethic, emphasis on educational attainment, social bonds, as well as valued personality traits.
Culture is a key factor in achieving freedom and prosperity. Development economics confirms this. We need to grasp the extremely improbable, rare, unique historical prosperity take off, the singular escape from the Malthusian trap since 1800 in Western Europe, when productivity gains outpace the population growth they induce. This escape was finally made possible by a more than two-thousand-year cumulative accrual of many complementary cultural resources, an intricate network of preconditions that is very difficult to copy, not least because it includes many tacit ingredients that depend on deep socialisation.
This highly evolved, intricate prosperity engine can only function if all essential ingredients are being reproduced, to the required quality specifications. The educational and intellectual competency requirements of advanced economies have been steadily growing in recent decades, since the technology-induced Post-fordist socio-economic restructuring. Toady’s production systems – including robotics, 3D printing, Software as Service (SAS) etc. – allow for an unlimited absorption of innovations, in contrast to the mechanical mass production systems of the Fordist era. Robots can be reprogrammed every month to manufacture updated designs, new SAS apps can be launched or updated daily and made instantly available to billions of people. To take the fullest advantage of these innovation potentials, the factor of human and social capital is increasingly important, and the required specs continue o rise. Therefore, its harder for our current advanced knowledge economies than it was for the advanced Fordist manufacturing economies 1920 – 1980, to integrate workers with language, education and socialisation handicaps due to their origin in a backward country or milieux.
Even today, there is only a handful of these engines in full flourish. Germany has been, and probably still is or can be, one of them, and it would not be in the long-term interest of world society to let Germany, or any of these precious engines be fractured, slowed or compromised in its further development potential.
Technological and organisational innovations delivering productivity gains build up cumulatively and constitute the most momentous and enduring contribution any society or network of people can make to world society. The benefits can be reaped by everybody world-wide, at least on the level of consumption. To reap the benefits on the production side, by adopting and imitating the advanced economic processes, is much harder. To be sure, in several (but still rare) instances, emerging economies have succeeded in importing and assimilating the highly evolved productive capacities of the most advanced nations. In comparison to growth during a phase of catch-up development, further advances in the development of the productive forces delivering per capita growth at the frontier is even harder still, because this growth can only be had via original innovations. The many technological, organisational, institutional and cultural preconditions that have to coevolve and line up to make this possible, make this an ever so rare, improbable achievement. The social organisms that evolved to successfully deliver this feat are ever so precious, deserving protection from radical untested transformations with uncertain outcome.
This insight allows me as cosmopolitan, arguing from the vantage point of the global common weal, to partially align with the aims of a political project trying to protect a highly evolved national culture from dilution through indiscriminate mass migration, even if the motivations foregrounded by this political project are focussing on emotional attachment and anxiety with respect to safeguarding national identity, and perceived native majority interests. To be sure, it is important to always emphasise that this partial, qualified support is based on an overlap in mediate goals based on divergent motivating reasons and criteria, and that this support distances itself decisively from any hostility or generalising prejudice directed at migrant populations. The utmost care must be observed in the debates on immigration to avoid or minimized the risk of inciting hostility and alienating migrants willing and capable of integration. However, I would also want to stress here that the political and intellectual leadership of this patriotic wing of the AfD is being polemically misrepresented when such prejudice and hostility is being attributed to the AfD by the established parties, for reasons of political expediency. In fact, these leaders stress that they neither in any way blame migrants, nor harbour any animosity towards the migrants enticed to come to Germany by current policies and (for them mostly illusory) opportunities.
Here is another point of difference between my approach and the approach of the New Right: Their concept of ethno-pluralism - animated by a sense of respect for cultural differences and identities (that in their mind can only be preserved if allowed to stay geographically separate) - is much closer to the left’s concept of multi-culturalism and identity politics, in contrast to my insistence on ranking (historically evolving) cultures in terms of superior vs inferior on a scale ordered in terms of the critical capacity of a culture to facilitate the ‘development of the forces of production’ (to use a still pertinent Marxian phrase), in accordance with the latest technological conditions and opportunities. This distinction between a relative superior vs inferior culture or society is not subjective or imponderable. It is confirmed by the direction of the migration flows themselves.
My conception, in contrast, is fully compatible with melting pot conceptions of integration, as long as the high-productivity cultural patterns are allowed to win out in the competitive evolutionary process. This indeed can be expected in a process of cultural evolution within the framework of a free society based on unencumbered markets and discourses, i.e. without political barriers to competition or politically enforced protections and without subsidies for the perpetuation of low productivity cultural groups or enclaves. Cultural identities should never become fetishes or values in themselves but must always be measured by their ability to advance individual and collective human flourishing. In a fast-evolving technological context this criterion requires recurring critical self-distancing, promotes adaptive cultural flexibility, and penalizes cultural rigidity and resistance to evolution. This criterion must also be applied to the patriots who cherish and try to protect the German people.