ALLIANCE FO§ DEMOCRACY

Minimum Wage I
The semi-slave state of Germany

If minimum wages were introduced, employers would hire fewer people – this was the suspi-cion relied on by Christian Democrats and Free Liberals. And it worked; the introduction of minimum wages was initially prevented. But in view of the dramatically increasing number of people living on the poverty line (12.5 million at the end of 2010; trend increasing), this ar-gumentation is untenable for a social state. Minimum wages must therefore come, because of all the freedom of movement which can play a role on the labour market, and because of the increasing poverty of a certain sector of the population. This sector of the population does not include the 5% of Germans who own 95% of German financial and material assets. They are becoming richer all the time, a development which is ultimately being supported by the policy of growth financed by borrowing, which has been practiced for decades. In this respect, much of the growth achieved in the past is not attributable to the normal pro-ductivity of a country, but to increased demand generated by means of borrowing. Even with-out further exploration of these statements it can easily be seen that the nominal financial assets of 95% of the population in relation to the 5% who own 95% of the financial assets, are decreasing continually, and therefore it is predictable that the proportion of poor people will increase continually. Today it is appropriate to speak of Germany as a semi-slave state, and it will be even more so in the future.

Despite all the crises, despite impending national bankruptcy, despite delayed insolvency, the economy of Germany is still in a good position in comparison to other countries of the Euro-pean Currency Union. What applies for the introduction of minimum wages applies even more for hourly rates. For Alliance for Democracy, the questions concerning the equalisation of wages in the former East and West Germany are of supreme importance. West Germans earn four times as much as East Germans. In addition, there are still pay gaps between men and women. West Ger-mans are affected just as much as East Germans by this. In both regions, women still earn 25 to 30% less than men. Alliance for Democracy considers this to be neither reasonable nor contemporary. With the reunification freedom has been restored to the people of East Ger-many, now they must also be ensured of the corresponding financial opportunities.

In this sense, today it is no longer acceptable in a social state if working people are paid less and less, to the point where there will soon be hardly any difference between earned income and state support. It is to the credit of those in the low-wage sector who still prefer to work, and not take it easy at the cost of the state. And those who have to live at the cost of the state should receive more support in their efforts to find work, because it can be assumed that all those receiving support, e.g. Hartz-IV recipients, want to return to work, and suffer when kept away from working life.

A further reason lies in the distribution of assets. The great majority of the population (95 %) has little or no financial means of realising an entrepreneurial idea, while a very small part of the population (5%) owns 95% of German financial assets and certainly even more in material assets. So it is always the same sectors of the population who can implement their – always the same – ideas. They own the capital equipment, they control the procurement of goods. They manage and mismanage. And support policies which allow them to get away with it. And the mass of the population pays for the aberrations of the 5% through their tax burden. It is time to turn the tables, to manage the country in the sense of a free, but social market econ-omy, and to increase social security payments.

Politics has so far been unable to do this, because there was no corresponding regulatory policy, because there was no economic determination and competence, and because there was no social will. We must put up resistance against these failings, there can be no more understanding for the trade unions and their connivance with industry and politics. Alliance for Democracy will also become involved here.