It’s not just bankruptcies that are on the rise, but also the breakdowns. And it is not just the onset of winter that is causing airports to close temporarily or ICE trains to be cancelled in droves. The cold season also existed in times when trips and appointments did not have to be cancelled en masse because of it. Besides, Berlin’s suburban train service was already breaking down when people could still walk around in T-shirts. And when the Nuremberg subway stops more and more frequently en route, it’s not because it’s snowing into the tunnels. In reality, airlines and airports have cut back on maintenance and staffing, as have railroads and local transit authorities. In Nuremberg, it’s the new “driverless” subway trains whose much-touted full automation is causing gridlock. Apparently, for cost reasons, technology that is not yet fully developed is being used. Organization and information are constantly overstretched because staffing levels are getting thinner everywhere.
It is by no means a coincidence that a series of breakdowns has been noticeable for years, particularly in the transportation and energy sectors. Privatized or commercially managed public services systematically negate their character as an infrastructure for society as a whole, whose extensive interrelations are, after all, personnel-intensive. The adventure stop in the middle of the route, the timetable chaos, or the power failure only make sense if purely economic cost rationality prevails. In terms of financial policy, crisis Keynesianism has replaced neoliberalism as emergency management, but in terms of business management, neoliberal cost-cutting policies are maintained and even promoted at all costs.
This also applies to the industrial, retail and banking companies, which have so far kept their heads above water by cutting corners despite massive sales slumps. If one person has long been expected to do what three did before, they are now expected to take over the tasks of four. Or else safety and repair capacity are being slashed altogether. Recalls of brand-new cars due to design and manufacturing flaws are on the rise, as are the defects in new buildings and friction in payment transactions, most recently due to malfunctioning credit cards and ATMs. Queuing at the supermarket checkout is becoming a habit because the cashier must stock the shelves at the same time. One hardly dares to ask about the conditions in the food industry. How wonderful it is that the staff of state and municipal inspection authorities is also being cut; presumably even more so in the wake of tax cuts and the subsequent decline in revenues.
Where once the resistance of recalcitrant employees was the sand in the gears of capitalism, the movers and shakers have now discovered that employees and customers alike will let them do almost anything. The pressure to perform is up, sick leave is down and fear reigns supreme. Soon, buyers will likely be voluntarily cashing in on themselves. The financial policy of a quasi-war economy corresponds to the everyday stress of a quasi-war economy. But all willingness and obedience are useless if the impossible is to be done immediately. From a practical and organizational point of view, nothing works anymore, because socially and economically, everything works. The sand in the gears of business administration is business administration itself.
Originally published in Neues Deutschland on 01/08/2010
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