Editorial note: In ‘Theory of the Subject’, Alain Badiou theorises four political affects (or emotional states) – courage, justice, anxiety and the superego. The superego represents the force of law, and hence of the established order. Anxiety arises from a lack of symbolic order, and impedes decisive action. Justice is the opposite of the superego. It rejects adherence to present laws. Instead, it expands the symbolic order to include new elements. It is the basis for a new commonality. Courage is the opposite of anxiety. It allows decisive action without guarantees.
Similar to Prof Örsan Öymen’s case, Dr Sahra Wagenknecht also presents a real, current and rarely encountered example in history that corresponds to the above theoretical explanation. We are publishing the summary we compiled from her interviews. The original texts are in German. Through this text, we provide the first translations of her views for introducing her to worldwide political awareness.
Titles are editorial.
Interview: Gerald Praschl, Björn Wolfram
Ms. Wagenknecht, now let’s get started with your party. Initially they only exist as a club. How come?
Founding a new party is not an easy thing. So far everyone has volunteered for the project. We are now at a point where that is no longer enough. We founded the association because we need donations to professionally prepare the founding of the party. We need full-time employees and much more. The party will finally start in January.
What exactly is the “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – for Reason and Justice” about?
Our most important goal is a return of reason to German politics. We have a difficult global political situation, crises and conflicts everywhere with a great risk of escalation. And in this very situation we have the weakest and most incompetent government the Federal Republic has ever had. Many people are rightly worried, angry and afraid of the future.
The fact that the party is named after me is a temporary solution until it becomes established.
What exactly are your plans for Germany?
Germany needs a strong, innovative economy. We are still one of the leading industrialized countries, but for how long? We must not drive our companies abroad or into bankruptcy. That’s why politicians have to take care of cheap energy, good education, and authorities that work efficiently. None of this is on the traffic light agenda.
Our second major theme is social justice. Many people work hard, but their income barely makes them through the month. They have been hit by the sharp price increases for food and energy. Social inequality has been increasing for years. And so many things no longer work in our country: Hardly any train runs on time, a health insurance patient waits months for a specialist appointment, tens of thousands of apartments and teachers are missing and more and more people face humiliating poverty as they age. Everything has to be different.
Our third major theme is peace. There is no military solution to most of the conflicts in the world. Neither in Ukraine nor in the Middle East. Germany must move away from black and white thinking. We have to take on a mediator role again, rely on diplomacy and balancing interests. Yes, Hamas is a brutal terrorist militia that cannot be negotiated with. But there will be no peace in the Middle East unless the interests of the Palestinians are taken into account. And smuggling more and more weapons to Ukraine doesn’t bring peace to Ukraine neither. The war can only be ended through a willingness to compromise: This applies to questioning our NATO membership and also the stereotypes on Crimea.
Our fourth important topic: I am concerned about how the corridor of opinions in our country is becoming ever narrower, how people stigmatize who do not take the dominant, green-oriented opinion bubble for granted. This was extreme during the Corona crisis. We are currently also experiencing it in the debates about the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East. Anyone who demands a differentiated view is quickly suspected of making a pact with Putin or with Hamas. This mind-norrowness is unworthy to any democracy.
The new party is named after you. Maybe Sahra Wagenknecht is simply their program?
Of course, the ideas and concepts that I represent also shape the program of the new party. The fact that it is named after me is only a temporary solution until it becomes established.
There have been rumors for a long time that you want to found a party. What made you decide to do it now?
I struggled with myself for a long time and was torn. Of course, I kept asking myself whether I could do it personally. This will change my life a lot and take a lot of energy. And I asked myself whether we can overcome the organizational challenges: Organizing tens of thousands of people in the long term, including the capable and honest and keeping the weirdos and extremists out is a mammoth task. However, we now have a very capable team and so many good people at the start that I firmly believe that we will be successful.
What was the alternative?
For me personally: to get out of politics at the end of the legislative period, to write books, to have more free time. But this decision has now been made and I am looking forward to new tasks. Our country needs a new political beginning, and for this it needs a new political force with clever ideas and serious concepts. The people deserve better politics.
Doesn’t it hurt you to leave the left?
It hurts me to see the state the Left is in today. I was involved in the PDS and in the Left for more than 30 years. The Left was once an influential force. Today it hardly plays a political role anymore because there is simply no electorate for the party leadership’s current course beyond a small activist scene.
Let’s study how Susanne Gaschke and Susann Kreutzmann try to manipulate and marginalize her:
Interview in Berlin, published by NZZ on September 10th, 2023, 5:30 a.m
The popularity of the traffic light coalition is at all-time low. All surveys show extremely low trust in the federal government, the chancellor and also in democratic institutions in general. How has the current government achieved this in such a short time?
It happened through an extremely haphazard, short-sighted, and in some cases, simply incompetent policy. I don’t mean to say that times are easy: we have a sluggish global economy, we are feeling the global political imponderables of the Ukraine war. But this government is increasing the problems instead of solving any of them and it is stubbornly ignoring the wishes of majorities. And it has absolutely no concept of the future. For example, cutting Germany off from cheap energy.
Are you talking about Russian gas, which we no longer receive because of the Russian attack on Ukraine?
Cheap gas is essential for our industry, for electricity supply and for heating — and if you no longer want to buy it from Russia, you should have had a plan for where else to get it. But the traffic light politicians didn’t make such a plan. And now high energy prices are killing the important parts of our industry. That’s a tragedy. Then Economics Minister Robert Habeck from the Green Party presents his heating law, which terrifies people because older buildings cannot be heated with a heat pump without incredibly expensive renovations . Small business owners and homeowners are wondering how they will even get it.
What do you think annoys people the most? Are the identity politics debates such as those you describe in your book, in the part “The Self-Righteous”?
The traffic light coalition constantly deals with secondary issues. Their thinking is full of presumptions: We have to educate people, otherwise they will be evil, racist and transphobic, eat the wrong things, drive the wrong cars and even use the generic masculine. Apparently no one at “Ampel” can imagine that there are people for whom an electric car or the health food store is simply too expensive. Or that there is no charging infrastructure for such cars in the countryside, far from Berlin. By the way, no public transport neither.
But there must be other reasons for the aloofness you describe than just ideology.
I believe that younger politicians in particular are less and less encountering normal life these days. This applies particularly to Green Party politicians, but not limited to them. Far too many come from well-off parents, work for members of parliament during their studies, which is why they often don’t even get a degree and then become members of parliament themselves. They are missing important real-world experiences.
But you yourself have also been involved in politics throughout your adult life.
I did voluntary work until I was 35 years old, I didn’t make a living from politics. I was a self-employed publicist and had to see where my income came from every month. I know what economic uncertainty feels like. In the dominant milieu, discussions often come from a fairly privileged position. That changes the topics and the way you look at things. Today I can afford to shop at the health food store, but I don’t consider myself a better person because of it. And I especially reject the presumption of wanting to educate people. The climate activists probably really believe that the world will end tomorrow if Germany doesn’t save it by radically relinquishing from foregoing prosperity. In the context of such a worldview, good wages, secure pensions or enough daycare places are negligible issues.
Pro-refugee stance is often a cynical exposition of the privileged
Is this a culture war in your view? Or is it the political right who is waging a culture war against liberal democracy?
I don’t think the term culture war is appropriate because it’s not just about cultural problems, but also about social problems. Of course, everyone should talk how they want to live — if anyone wants to join in the gender stuttering, please, do join. But the language that is imposed for that is of course also a distinctive feature that a privileged elite uses to differentiate itself from the —so-called— “stupid” people. When it comes to issues like immigration, the social dimension is even more obvious. Of course immigration can be enriching. But when it reaches a level that overwhelms a country, it is primarily the poorer parts of the population who suffer by it. In medium-sized cities today, all social housing facilities are occupied by immigrants. The daycare places are full packed as well, especially in poorer districts. And the level of learning in schools drops when 80 percent of the children in a primary school class do not speak German.
Danger: Courage+superego (Badiou) may bring out reactive type of political movements (Deleuze)
You know well the East Germany. Elections will take place next year in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony. In the latest surveys, the AfD is sometimes over 30 percent. How do you explain that? Why are East Germans in particular so fond of the AfD?
The AfD appeals to those who are dissatisfied — and East Germans have even more reason to be dissatisfied because wages there tend to be worse and prosperity is lower. Nevertheless, the AfD’s upswing is a pan-German phenomenon: people defend themselves when governments ignore their problems and needs. Most AfD voters are neither Nazis nor right-wing extremists. They are just pissed off and want to show their protest.
But they apparently want to vote for a party in which there are right-wing extremists.
I think it is absurd to blame voters. The other parties should ask themselves why their policies are driving voters into the arms of Nazis and right-wing extremists.
Another marginalization attempt by Susanne Gaschke and Susann Kreutzmann (the interviewers) by associating her with AfD through her views on the Ukraine conflict:
We spoke briefly about Ukraine earlier, which is another topic on which you and the AfD come to similar conclusions: What do you think Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would have to do to end the Russian war of aggression against his country?
He would have to be willing to compromise. We see that despite all the arm deliveries, the front is barely moving and Ukraine cannot win this war militarily. So you need realism and a willingness to negotiate. I assume that the Russians will not vacate Crimea. The Russian Black Sea Fleet has been there for 200 years. And there are hardly any residents of Crimea who would like the Ukrainians to recapture there. And in Donbass, the population should decide for themselves which country they want to belong to in a referendum under UN supervision.
“We are sinking while Russian economy is growing”
How do you imagine German-Russian relations in the future?
As much as this war is to be condemned, we need better relations with Russia again. The economic sanctions primarily harm Germany, not the Russians. The Russian economy is growing by 1.5 percent this year, the German one is collapsing. This is an economic war against our country that our government supports out of blindness and stupidity.
Interview by Jan-Henrik Hnida Joshua Schultheis at Web.de
In your opinion, Germany should import Russian gas again without imposing any conditions?
Well, what does setting conditions mean? You have to talk about the price. But I don’t see why Germany is almost the only country in the world to ruin its economy with the argument that we are not allowed to trade with a warmonger, while at the same time making representations to Qatar or Saudi Arabia, who have waged a bloody war in Yemen for years.
Furthermore, we did not break off our economic relations with the United States when they invaded Iraq or Libya.
Interview by Marion Trimborn | September 9, 2023, 1:00 a.m. | Update on September 9th, 2023 at NOZ
Now the so-called little man is the left’s regular voter. Why can’t your party benefit from the government’s mistakes?
Because the leadership of the left is unfortunately just as far removed from the real problems of the citizens. It would be our job to represent people with low and middle incomes, pensioners with small pensions, the part of the young generation that does not live in the luxury of dad providing for their living. But since that fails, the dissatisfied are looking for another address and today that is increasingly the AfD.
So are the established parties, including the Left, to blame for the rise of the AfD?
Definitely yes. According to surveys, a large part of the population no longer feels represented by any party. Many vote for AfD out of desperation and anger, in order to give the established political class a slap in the face. But this huge gap in representation is a problem for democracy.
The AfD is now at 20 percent nationwide…
The problem cannot be solved by bashing the AfD. On the contrary, the more the issue is exaggerated the more the debate becomes unobjective and the more the AfD benefits out of that. What’s much more important is that if people had a serious alternative, those who are not at all convinced by the AfD but only vote for it out of desperation would certainly put their cross somewhere else.
On sanctions against Syria
INTERVIEW • July 11, 2023, 12:01 p.m in Berlin, by Andre Bochow at Südwest Presse
You want the sanctions against Syria to be lifted — with the presumption that the dictator Assad will no longer wage war against his own people and the Syrian refugees can return?
The sanctions prevent the reconstruction of the country and they do not affect the rule power of Assad. They affect ordinary population. Most of those who flee Syria do so because of a lack of economic prospect and not because of some fear from dictatorship.
On the war in Europe: You consider the Ukrainian offensive to be a mistake. Why?
I do not believe that Ukraine can win this war militarily. The offensive hardly moves the front, but it costs hundreds of young men lives every day. How long will this continue?
So negotiations?
What else?
On the fake-Left mascarade
Ms. Wagenknecht, what does it mean to be left-wing in the actual sense?
Good question. It means getting involved in politics for people who have a hard time. For those who were not born with a golden spoon in their mouth, who have to prove themselves every day and fight hard.
So your political commitment is about advancement opportunities for everyone?
Yes, that is the core of left-wing social policy, at least as I understand it. Educational opportunities for everyone, fair wages and decent pensions for everyone, social security. Of course, being on the left also means working for a productive, innovative economy, the basis of prosperity and the welfare state. And in terms of foreign policy, it means a primacy of diplomacy, dialogue and loyalty to treaties.
The key question is how to achieve a fair social and economic order. Do you want to empower or mentor people?
I can reassure you: empower. People should be able to stand on their own two feet and earn their own living, regardless of their parents’ background and position. They should be able to live safely and in dignity in their homes, neighborhoods and villages. And that’s what we need above all: education, education, education!
Undisputed. But schools today offer more support programs than ever before – and the education system is permeable. Isn’t all this enough for you?
This may perhaps apply to Switzerland, in the best case scenario. In Germany, however, presents a different picture today: poorer people live in poorer neighborhoods with poorer schools experiencing a poorer level of learning. Their children are sent to schools whose graduates are generally unable to write or do math well and therefore have poor chances on the job market. The disadvantages are perpetuated in many biographies — and that shouldn’t be the case in an enlightened society. Otherwise we will end up with a new class society with ghettos for the poor and the rich.. and social unrest of course.
What would be the solution – more support in schools, education vouchers, scholarships?
Scholarships make sense, but educational vouchers tend to encourage ghettoization. What is needed instead is a better mix in schools so that everyone can learn from each other. Employing sufficient number of decently paid teachers is more important than all the curricula in the world. And targeted support for children and young people at all levels is necessary – anyone who wants to achieve this should be able to do so.
She doesn’t patheticize herself, no victimization, no romanticizing neither
You are the daughter of a single mother; your Iranian father disappeared when you were very small. Were you supported in your family?
I can not complain. My mother, a trained economist, took me to the theater at an early age in the GDR. She also tried to open doors for me in other ways. At the same time, we weren’t a bed of roses financially – my mother worked full-time at the state art trade in a gallery, and at the same time she looked after me. That was anything but easy. In today’s language one would probably say: We were neither particularly disadvantaged nor privileged.
It can hardly be denied that you have a strong desire to achieve. Did your mother instill it in you?
No, my mother showed me the world, but she didn’t force me. I’ve been pretty ambitious for as long as I can remember, even as a child. I wanted to prove that I could do it — less to others than to myself.
Were are you now in competition with yourself?
That’s what it felt like, indeed. I always wanted to get better, read more, learn more, understand more. At school, I felt humiliated when I didn’t get a top grade in the exam.
Did you feel social pressure to perform?
I was curious and hungry for knowledge. My grandparents taught me to read and write when I was four. However, they thought that a child at my age should play for as long as possible. Play, don’t learn! In my case that was certainly not the right way. I didn’t start school until I was seven, like all other children in the GDR. That seemed very late to me at the time; I would have preferred to have gone to school at the age of four.
You were a good student, later studied and received a doctorate in economics. How does today’s fashionable leftism differ from the actual leftism as you described it?
Basically: in everything. Today’s left-wing liberalism is neither left-wing nor liberal, but the ideology of a well-off academic metropolitan milieu. It reflects the world and interests of this privileged class and often rather in an arrogant form: The left-wing liberals, who I would prefer to call lifestyle leftists, are committed to diversity and open borders, against racism and climate change. That’s certainly honorable, but they can also afford it without it hurting them; they are academically educated and speak the same politically correct language; They earn decent wages and usually come from wealthy families.
Agreed. But what’s wrong with that if people decide to live the sheltered lifestyle of radical, alternative urban chic?
Basically nothing. Anyone can ride their cargo bike to the health food store, stock up on high-quality groceries and be happy that they have a second electric car at home, which in the best case scenario is even powered by the new solar panels on the roof. Of course, this is all extremely legitimate and sometimes even makes sense. But no one should believe that they are better by doing that. This is the core of the ideology of the lifestyle left: to elevate a lifestyle into a political statement and look down on everyone who doesn’t live, eat, think and talk in the way you do. I think this moral contempt is a real social problem.
Anxiety+superego (Badiou) brings out the “beautiful soul” (Hegel)
Why?
Because these people now set the tone in metropolises, media, administrations and parliaments – and not only distance themselves from the majority, but also despise them. This leads to resentment among less privileged people. And it also means that the everyday problems of most people are no longer addressed, neither in the media nor in politics. That’s why many people turn away from politics, stop informing themselves, stop voting, or vote right out of anger. The more non-voters, the more unstable the democracy! Because democracy should be there for the many and not for the few.
In your opinion, who represents the “left-wing” liberalism that you described, most consistently politically?
The green. They represent the left-liberal doctrine in its purest form. The SPD traditionally still has some roots in the trade unions and the working class environment, but this origin is increasingly being cut off. The SPD has also largely become a left-liberal academic party that cares about its own sensitivities. But there have long been CDU prime ministers who have the feeling that they need to change their gender. And the CDU has long shared with the Greens the idea of addressing climate issues through lifestyle issues.
What counter-recipes do you have up your sleeve?
Quite simply: identify the real problems and deal with them. Let’s take the daughter of Indian immigrants who work in IT and have a good salary. She is a migrant and, for my sake, not white, but of course she is much more privileged than the child of a bio-German low-income family whose father works as a furniture mover and whose mother is mostly at home because she only gets odd jobs due to the lack of professional qualifications.
Ergo?
Ergo, we should sharpen our awareness of the injustices in our country. If the child of the low-income family is disadvantaged, this has nothing to do with skin color, nor does it have anything to do with gender or gender identity, that are, the new categories that concern the woke left-wing liberals so much. However, it has a lot to do with the most important form of discrimination faced by many people in Europe — social discrimination based on coming from a poor family. While we have become class-blind, fashionable opinion makers constantly talk about discrimination based on skin color or sexual orientation, which of course still exists. But something fundamentally is being slipped out there.
My impression: woke left-wing liberalism is not a grassroots democratic movement, but a coup from above. Self-appointed advocates file lawsuits on behalf of supposedly disadvantaged minorities whom they don’t even know — and for whom they have no mandate.
Admittedly, speaking as a lawyer, it’s a real problem. But advocates on social and traditional media often don’t just speak on behalf of others they don’t know. At the same time, they want to be their educational representatives — the new ideal is the right life according to the teachings of the lifestyle left. And this ideal is cynical because most people can’t afford it, not to mention whether it would really be desirable if everyone went along with this woke nonsense.
They exaggerate!
You’re understating it! This is no longer a media phenomenon – the lifestyle left has long since it begun to reshape society in companies, educational institutions and the media with their rules and language codes. We are currently experiencing the end of liberal debates with different opinions and the resurgence of a moralism that only knows two predicates: good and evil. This moralism is also deeply dishonest: many of those who talk about flight shame fly halfway around the world for business and pleasure. In the best case scenario, they compensate for this by improving their CO 2 balance and their conscience by purchasing suitable certificates. Or they invest in investment funds, which are often more greenwashed than truly environmentally friendly. The new moralism is usually an expression of quite a double standard.
How do you feel about gender yourself?
This idea that you can change social reality by changing language is completely alien to life. Of course, you can speak very accurately about a completely unjust world – that doesn’t change the status quo in the slightest, it even cements the existing conditions. But I think something else is even worse.
What?
Politically correct language, which also includes supposedly gender-appropriate language, is a kind of language code for language users trained in the humanities. A distinctive feature to stand out and differentiate yourself from the common people. In this way they can assure themselves that they belong to the group of supposedly cosmopolitan people and contempt everyone else who constantly makes linguistic mistakes.
How do you speak yourself – as you speak or, if possible, correctly and gender-sensitively?
I stick to the rules of the German language. I begin a speech with “Dear Sir or Madam” and address everyone present in the hall. Otherwise, I generally speak of “listeners”, “employees” or “students” and of course I mean both genders. I avoid talking about “listeners”, “employees” or “students”, which is semantically incorrect, and I also avoid repeating the female and male forms every time until the language becomes a real satire, right Incorporate language breaks that should represent a written gender star or colon. No normal person can take all of these discussions seriously anymore — it is a defacement of the German language, a destruction of interpersonal communication that does not make the world one iota fairer.
The finding is paradoxical: the more people are gendered, the hotter becomes the debate about linguistic discrimination of all kinds.
That corresponds to the logic of the whole thing. Of course, someone can always claim that they are not being addressed or depicted appropriately. The game can go on forever. To be honest, I find such discussions very tiring. They have nothing to do with the reality of most people’s lives. Nobody should allow themselves to be terrorized by self-appointed language police. The language belongs to everyone. Therefore: as far as I’m concerned, give everyone who wants their asterisk – and everyone who wants their generic masculine!
What does it mean to be liberal in the original sense?
Respect for other opinions and the strict commitment to ensuring that everyone can express theirs. For me, this is the core of liberalism. It’s also about the awareness that you can always deceive yourself, that your own beliefs can change through experience or knowledge – that we are beings capable of learning and can only progress together through exchange.
On “liberalism”: What was progressive in the 18th century is regressive (feudal) today!
And in business life?
Real performance competition for shared progress. Being economically liberal doesn’t mean that the stronger and more powerful wins the prize – it means that everyone has access to the market and the better ones prevail in the end. Confident consumers must have real choice to decide which manufacturer offers the best products.
You sound like a true ordoliberal!
You’re welcome, that’s not a dirty word for me – on the contrary. The ordoliberals have recognized that the spontaneous market does not regulate everything — fair competition is needed, and for this in turn the right rules and regulations are needed, i.e. the state. He must use tough antitrust laws to ensure that the best prevail, not the most powerful, and that consumers are not ripped off. Unfortunately, we are a long way from that.
Finally, let me read a passage from Ludwig Erhard’s classic “Prosperity for All”. OK?
Go ahead!
“The most promising means of achieving and securing prosperity is competition.”
Agreed. There is no question that competition is the central lever for innovation, production growth and prosperity. However, I would say that the state has to provide start-up financing in the event of technological upheavals – see, for example, Silicon Valley, which would originally have been inconceivable without state military research.
“It (competition) alone leads to economic progress benefiting all people, especially in their function as consumers, and to the dissolution of all advantages that do not result directly from higher performance.”
Performance is of course central – but that is too idealistic. The competition cannot do this alone. Of course, anyone who inherits a company, for example, has a big advantage – they don’t have to manage it themselves, but can appoint someone to do it for them. And in this case he has immense income that has nothing to do with performance.
Counterargument: It is not only a great achievement to build a company yourself, but also to inherit one and maintain its innovative ability and thus its value.
If you manage it yourself and tackle it yourself, sure! But if you appoint someone to do it, then not. And there are now many such models, with private corporate foundations and trusts. Or even with large, properly diversified stock portfolios. The privileged shareholders receive distributions without bearing any responsibility themselves. Then you are actually a recipient of a non-benefit basic income worth millions — that is feudalism in its purest form.
“Competition brings about, in the best sense of the word, a socialization of progress and profit and also keeps the personal striving for achievement alive.”
The profit belongs to the owner and is not automatically socialized. A negotiation process and appropriate rules in the labor market are required to ensure that employees also get their fair share of prosperity. One thing is clear: it is important that entrepreneurs invest their profits. This is the only way to create innovative products over a longer period of time – and with them attractive jobs.
You talk like an economist!
Of course it depends on the industry, but in industry the following applies to the added value of a company: 80 percent of the added value goes to the employees as wages, a little less than 10 percent goes to the shareholders as dividends, a good 5 percent flows into the provisions and 5 percent as taxes to the state.
Admittedly. Many family business owners want their employees to be paid fairly. If they do well, the company does well too. This is the only way they can survive in the market. At the same time, however, there are more and more global corporations that are organized as stock corporations. And that’s about reducing wage costs and increasing profits in the short term, i.e. quick returns, and most of the profit is distributed.
Last question – the three most prominent politicians in Germany are currently three women: you, Annalena Baerbock and Alice Weidel. An accident?
Is that us? This is a question of political perspective. Women in Germany no longer operate in a niche – we had Angela Merkel as Chancellor for 16 years.
They’re distracting. Angela Merkel did not have a particularly high profile – she made the diamond shape with her hands and often remained silent, talking too much.
Well, maybe that was her special profile? But otherwise: women? Men? Doesn’t matter. I can’t think of much about that.
Notice on the higher quality of the last interview: Interviewer René Scheu is a philosopher, Blick columnist and managing director of the Institute for Swiss Economic Policy (IWP) in Lucerne.