Calling “Die Linke” far-left is imho, frankly, insane. Upwards of 80% of their positions are virtually the same ones the SPD had back in the few decades of them being actually moderately left under Willy Brandt. If you want far-left, that’s the MLPD.
Just because every other major party keeps moving further and further to the right doesn’t magically make the only moderate-left wing party far-left.
And for clarification: Left vs right is the political axis of the economic class struggle. It’s neither liberal vs illiberal nor progressive vs conservative.
In Germany this is especially entertaining: Die Linke are literally the only political party with seats in the Bundestag who don’t think mass murdering of children is totally acceptable as long as the murderers belong to a good race and the children to a bad race.
Even the German Greens hold that view that the race of a person is more important than their actual actions in determining the moral acceptability of what they do, to such an extreme level that even mass murdering of children becomes acceptable if one is a Jew.
So calling Die Linke far-left is pretty much an admission that, at least for these people, in Germany NOT holding the same views of the value of human life and the importance of race as the NAZIs held, is an “extremist” position.
Are leftists humanitarian?
I like to think that the basic principle of being Leftwing is “the greater good for the greatest number” and you will notice that there’s no qualifications there about some deserving more good things than others.
You will also observe that Equality is invariably a concern of Leftwing political ideologies, even if they diverge in for example thinking that we should aim for Equality Of Outcomes vs thinking we should aim for Equality Of Opportunity instead because the former isn’t actually possible.
IMHO, being a Humanitarian naturally follows from wanting to maximize the wellness of everybody in an equal way.
In summary, people who are genuinelly leftwing out of principle (so, those who reached their leftwing political views from their own personal principles, not tose who are tribalist followers of leftwing parties or ideologies that merelly parrot “their” team’s slogans) are Humanists in practice - in what they desire and what they do - even when not explicitly identifying as Humanists.
MLPD
I can never not read this as “My Little Pony Deutschland”.
Better than the Major/Minor League Police Department that my brain came up with
Privatelly owned Propaganda outlets in the West: “Any party whose policies are not dedicated to maximizing the wealth of the rich is extremist”.
What’s far left about this party? Genuinely asking, since I don’t have time to go through their program, and hoping someone else can give some highlights.
Far-right groups tend to be fascist, racist, violent, for disenfranchisement of everyone except ultra wealthy, pro Russia (for some reason). But what’s the equivalent to this “far”-ness on the left side?
To me it seems like it’s mostly one side that is far anything.
As far as I can tell, “Far-left” in Germany means that you don’t think that mass murdering of children becomes absolutelly fine when those doing the mass murdering claim to represent the Jewish People and the children are Muslim.
I say this because in Germany Die Linke is the only party with seats in the Bundestag which haven’t unwaveringly supported the self-proclaimed “Jewish Nation” whilst they indescriminatelly murdered Palestinians including tens of thousands of children.
Even the German Greens have been overtly pro Genocide as long as the right ethnicity is the one doing the killing, which is probably why their vote in Berlin fell from 18% to 14% all the while the right is in government in Germany and fucking things up (so one would expect that all of the leftwing would gain from it) - “We unwaveringly support a Genocide as long as those doing it represent a specific ethnicity” isn’t actually leftwing (in fact, it’s closer to the thinking of the AfD or even NAZIsm than to leftwing thinking).
I mean, if when it comes to mass murdering of people you goozestep alongside Politico it’s only natural that people who aren’t unthinking tribalists will conclude you have the same values.
I’ve actually lived in a couple of big cities in Europe and my impression of Berlin is that people there are possibly even more cosmopolitan and forwards thinking than in Amsterdam and way ahead of London, so this result (both the rise of Die Linke and the fall of the Greens) isn’t at all surprising.
Same thing, but they hate regular left more than far-right does.
It shows how much the left-right goalposts have shifted, that even centrist and centre-left policies and positions are seen as “far-left”.
That’s a common tactic from the right: framing absolutely anything even remotely progressive as “far left”.
Like “side loading” apps.
Works too.I’m with you on the shifting baseline (towards the right), but to call Die Linke “centrist” or “centre-left”… Let’s say: perhaps it’s the overcorrection we need.
Please tell me where Die Linke is left of the 20th century SPD, hell even the Wirtschaftswunder CDU would be roughly the same.
I gotta be honest I haven’t investigated their policies that deep but they seem like every leftist European party, with moderate takes, not that radical and absolutely not extremist like a “far” nomiker implies
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As a Canadian this is what concerns me most about Mark Carney and his pedigree. He’s a part of the old guard.
I fully feel he understands the severity and the velocity of which we need to move but I don’t think he’s willing to commit to the levels of austerity the times call for. In Canada we should also be pledging to nationalize or re-nationalize our industries. People are going to lose jobs en masse thanks to America. The writing is on the wall, the safest employer out there right now for the last 10+ years has been government.
If you’re old or astute enough you accept this is simply the cycle that history goes in. We need a new New Deal for Canada and Canadians, but I’d argue as this thread is about Germany that we all need it.
“We need a clear commitment to combating antisemitism; otherwise, things won’t work with us,” he said.
That better not be an anti Palestine thing.
Let me apologize it for the same way people to for the AfD:
They’re not real far-left, they’re just the first nominally leftist party in a while. First of all, the far-left got defeated in 1992, with the fall of the Soviet Union. Sure, you can find the odd lolcow communist online, but they’re a small minority.
The reality is that people got enough of this unregulated capitalism nonsense. They have landlord fatigue. They have car fatigue. They have billionaire fatigue. And all the Nazi parties like the SPD, CDU, and AfD have ignored these concerns, all because they didn’t want to hurt the feelings of Peter Thiel.
Everything is so literally Hitler nowadays, good to see some change. Call me back once they have Stalin mustaches and opening the Gulags!
Hope the German government keeps up with the properties. I say that because for example in the US, they have you paying taxes for infrastructure upkeep and we have lights out on the highways and overgrown trees that people are gonna hit their head into. You know what I do every spring and fall in my area because the fucking city won’t, I go around with pruning loppers and cut down the overgrowth so tall tax payers don’t hit their fucking heads into the trees. In the winter I shovel in front of the nearest crossing light buttons because the city won’t.
So I pray to God Germany will use the tax payer money to actually upkeep the properties and not let them go to ruins and have people living in absolute fucking shit holes.
Yes! More nationalisation please! Here in the US we really need to nationalise spacex and starlink to start with and go from there.
All billionaire assets should be nationalized. Though I’m not sure what would be the best way to handle all the media conglomerates the government will end up owning after that.
First, no single person should be allowed to own a significant portion of a single product line within a country. So if a single person owns 10% of all media companies in the US, they should be forced to sell until they own less than 1%.
Second, no single company should be allowed to own a significant portion of a single product line’s market share within a country. So if a single company owns 30% of all car sales in the US, they should be forced to split up into smaller companies until they own less than ~15%.
Imagine no billionaires, imagine workers owning a meaningful portion of the company they work at, imagine busting companies so quickly and at such a low bar we never have to worry about monopolies again. No SpaceX being critical national infrastructure, no google being allowed to be a giant for so long, no internet line capture by your local ISP, no banks so large them failing could shatter the country, no AI bubble worth anything to worry about.
We can do it everywhere.
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Woo. Good for you guys.
Well that’s Berlin - the most liberal city in Germany, reacting to the rightward shift of the country and the most unlikeable centre-right chancellor that the Christian Democrats could find (Merz), but the overall picture isn’t that bright.
The AfD has done extremely well in Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, getting more votes than any other single party. In Meck-Pomm, the centre-to-left parties will be able to form a government, but in Saxony, there’s a good chance that the AfD will work together with a new populist party that split from the leftists and actually get into power.
Don’t get your hopes up. Now they have to deliver on these promises. And if they completely fuck it up guess who gets into power?
Actually, given the past decade or so in practically every country in the world on both sides of the spectrum?
No, you don’t. You don’t have to deliver. You just have to do something, no matter how badly your implementation winds up.
Progress over perfection
How is a municipal government going to nationalize anything? Wouldn’t you need control of the national government for this?
Nationalizing is a bit of overambitious promise to be honest. However, they are hopefully going to pursue winding down the housing bubble by any other means possible. She recently told they will form a dedicated team just to deal with the greedy contrcts with illegal terms, to start with. No subrenting with higher rent, no short term contracts for furnished apartments with double price. They also plan to initiate more housing projects hopefully.
Germanys national law already allows for the local government (be it municipal or state level) to force properties into public ownership. The previous owner has to get paid for that. So its basically a government forced sell of the property to the corresponding public entity (typically the city).
They could have done that all along without any law changes. The discussion is only about if they should do that.
Not an expert, but:
Germany is a federation of states, this was a state election, not a local municipal election.
There was a referendum about this issue that was broadly popular a couple of years ago.
The most likely coalition is going to be, greens + social democrats + socialists.
The socialists have said this is their red line on joining the coalition, The greens want to do it, but the social democrats are opposed and framed this the socialists simply not wanting to govern (this same coalition has ruled the state of Berlin before, though).
We will see.
I just watched a video about Vienna housing, in it the presenter said that about 1/3 or Vienna’s housing was municipal-owned. So maybe not nationalized but a close by reference for what could be done.
Yes, Vienna is a positive example although they sold off large portions of their holdings in the past and had to buy them back for a lot of money, IIRC.
Is there a word for “munipalising”?
That’s sort of what I’m wondering. Do they actually mean nationalizing or did they just say that because there’s not a word for local public ownership.
Which is weird because it’s actually a fairly common thing. There should be a word for it. I mean maybe there is but I don’t know it.
Edit: I looked it up and it seems like the verb in this case would be to municipalize, as you said. This word seems to be very rarely used but if that’s what they meant there is a term for it.
Berlin has more than municipal power though. It has state power in the federation of German states.
To draw a comparison, it’s as if Toronto was its own province, without the Ford government being able to dictate what happens within its limits. Or Houston was a state, without Texas being able to extend its corrupt fingers over it.
Let’s keep in mind this was translated from German
Indeed, the German word this was likely translated from has a different meaning. A literal translation would be something like “to transfer into government ownership”, so the nation as a whole doesn’t fearure in it, even though the overall meaning is very similar.
I think they meant munipalising + as the other commenter said, Berlin is its own state in the German federation, so it still makes sense to call it nationalising
Communalizing
Is it coming into hands of communes?
The principle is that whatever the national law says has to be followed, but if there isn’t a national law, the federal country can do something. Also housing is more of a local issue.
There are laws to “eminent domain” stuff, but it has been mostly used for Autobahn and coal mining in the past and only affected peasants in little villages who couldn’t fight back.
Otherwise good question, that’s what almost everyone is asking at the moment.
My point is nationalizing means to place it under control of the national government. Presumably you would need the national government’s active involvement in this. If they just mean the local municipality taking public ownership of something I think nationalizing is not the right word. Perhaps this is a translation issue?
Yeah, what is definitely happening is that the ownership of significant real estate will be transferred from private companies to… probably public benefit associates that aren’t directly controlled by the government but sort of government adjacent. By legal force. I think it’s fair to call it nationalization but the word doesn’t matter that much.
Back to public ownership I should add, it was sold to private companies to solve some short term debt issues after the reunification.
I think the word does matter. I wouldn’t want the national government owning my home because they’re distant and unaccountable. A local organization is much more connected to the people.
But maybe that’s just my perspective, I’m not sure how common that is.
yes the word matters. nobody here talks of nationalisation. the term used rather translates to communalization.
On a side note: the houses being talked about are currently predominantly owned by large multi-national corps, thus even if it was the national government, that would be an improvement.
But the national government has a lot of money and power, while local and regional governments generally have less.
Anyhow, a lot of the now “private” housing in big buildings in German cities (also former western germany) WAS ‘nationalised’ until late '90s - '00s. In many cases it was (is) the property of a “city social housing construction/renting company” which has local/regional businesses, banks and political representation on the board. Only the last 20-30 years did these semi-public companies start to sell it all out (after reunification of Germany it sped up a lot). The argument was (and still is) that the renovation of a lot of these ‘older’ big apartment buildings was too expensive for those ‘social’ companies to bear, and by selling it fresh private capital would pour in and the old buildings would get renovated. In many cases renters got to stay where they were after sale to private investors for decades still and even keeping their old rent amount for all that time. Until the owner suddenly decides to “seriously upgrade the building”: then they can kick everyone out relatively easily and set new prices after renovation. But in reality a lot of those “seriously upgrade” kicking renters out situations was just that: everyone out, a little bit of paint but no serious upgrading, and afterwards every apartment has new rent contracts for way more money. Often also because apartments were split into more units. Result for many inhabitants: being forced to leave the housing they’ve lived in for many decades, forced to pay higher prices, but get similar or worse housing quality. It’s very very reasonable that in cities where this is a very widespread situation, renters are super pissed off at companies like “Vonovia” which dominate entire neighbourhoods and give 0 fucks about renters, only about their shareholders. Germany has a very high % of home renters and a pretty low % of home owners, especially in larger cities.
That’s exactly the issue though. Most national governments already have too much power. Giving them more by having them own housing seems to have little upside. I understand the downside of private ownership but I don’t see the downside of local public ownership. If they are lacking in funds there are also local options for increasing revenue.
I got really confused when I thought the title was “Far right party wins berlin election” and saw the turkish name.
I only clocked the good news when I read “the left party”
Great news! Yaay!
Free weed too?
This person is a Russian agent
Lol no. Fuck Putin.
Wundermark
