Opel becomes a model case of desperate contradiction processing
In the midst of the global financial and economic crisis, the free-market community has changed horses. The state, long dismissed as a bureaucratic evil, has been harnessed everywhere with gigantic financial packages to pull the wagon of capital to safety. On the one hand, the meek market radicalism thus acknowledges that the state has always been an integral part of the social system and not an external disruptive factor. On the other hand, it shows precisely because of this that the state cannot be a sovereign savior, but is itself imprisoned by the inner contradictions of the glorious market economy. The state programs, which were on par with those of the war economies, have only postponed and shifted the problem of a lack of real capital valorization. While the transnational financial bubble economy lasted for two decades until the crash, national state finances are already reaching their limits within a year.
According to the economists’ own standards, the crisis can only be overcome if there is a comprehensive market shakeout. In plain language: Even large corporations have to jump ship in order to reduce overcapacity and then supposedly get a fresh start. In the financial sector, however, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was seen not as a market shakeout, but as the worst possible accident and the trigger of the crisis. As a result, not only were the other major banks kept afloat by financial injections from the state, but industrial corporations were also bailed out. General Motors in the U.S. and its subsidiary Opel in Germany are prime examples of this. After much wrangling over state aid, Opel stayed with GM, but the problem has not gone away. In the automotive sector in particular, the tentative economic spring is living almost exclusively on government programs. Apparently, there is little faith in autonomous market forces if state aid for the GM subsidiary is now being discussed again.
Opel is becoming a model case of desperate state contradiction processing. By supporting the still-struggling carmaker, the federal and state governments are distorting competition according to market criteria. This applies to foreign competitors as well as to other German automakers and their European subsidiaries. There is a simple reason why we hear so little about this. If European sales collapse after the economic stimulus programs expire, all the car companies will go to their countries and point the finger at Opel or GM. It would be an admission that the initial stimulus aid has failed and that the state needs to provide long-term support for key industrial sectors.
Postponed is not canceled. Since the shift to the state has not changed the underlying problem of the deficit economy, the market shakeout is still to come. In view of the already overstretched state finances, continuing to try to delay this consequence is like trying to square the circle. At the same time, the much-vaunted monetary and economic policy fronts between the U.S. and the EU have turned into their opposite. The former pioneer of market radicalism is subsidizing its wobblers without restraint and is apparently willing to accept an inflationary surge in the long term, perhaps in the belief that there is no alternative to the dollar as the world currency. Conversely, the European faith in the state, which has temporarily returned to favor, is experiencing its Waterloo because the contradictory structure of its monetary union has made the crisis of state finances manifest in this area for the first time. Therefore, a crisis Keynesian escape to the future, as in the United States, has become impossible. Although the permanent subsidization of the economy by the state will also come to an end there, the European escape route is already running in the opposite direction.
The regulation of drastic austerity programs for the euro countries, as is also being pursued in Germany, is of course in stark contrast to the option of new rescue packages. Governments face a dilemma. Either they save all of them or none of them. Why should Opel, of all companies, be subsidized when the elimination of subsidies is on the agenda everywhere? What’s more, the government’s austerity measures and possible tax hikes (or both) threaten to strangle the weak economy in the entire eurozone, which has been supported by the government since 2008, all the more quickly. Once again, the auto industry will be particularly hard hit, not least German exports to the EU. It is impossible to save Opel with an exemption and at the same time expose it to the next economic slump. Focusing on the will of the electorate as reflected in the opinion polls cannot undermine the logic of the crisis. The famous market shakeout will prevail even if people no longer want to know anything about it because there is no self-sustaining upswing in sight. Capitalism does not work without the state, but neither does it work with the state alone.
Originally published in the print edition of the weekly newspaper Freitag on 06/03/2010
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