For most of this century, Germany racked up one economic success after another, dominating global markets for high-end products like luxury cars and industrial machinery, selling so much to the rest of the world that half the economy ran on exports.
Jobs were plentiful, the government’s financial coffers grew as other European countries drowned in debt, and books were written about what other countries could learn from Germany.
No longer. Now, Germany is the world’s worst-performing major developed economy, with both the International Monetary Fund and European Union expecting it to shrink this year.
I can’t say much more other than what you’ve already said, but I have something to add for the last one. Being Eastern European myself, not being brought to work in Germany, but for working for several German companies inside Eastern Europe, such as ThyssenKrupp and Bosch. It’s true they like their workers cheap, obedient, and educated. I can count on one hand how many times they raised the pay from 2019-to 2022, and even then they argued within themselves so it’s just the bare minimum wage provided. I could scream into the void about how much more education I had, or what other skills I possessed, or how I did some of my superior’s work even, no one cared enough to pay more for it, instead I got a slap in the face reminder with an upper leader’s visit, saying how I should just shut up, and be grateful that I could work there, because I could be replaced by a machine anytime soon. If people were sick too much, or they could not endure the constant rotating shifts and 12 hours of standing work, they laid them off instantly, and hired new people. Once the local populace was less and less likely to go there due to working conditions known as the ‘meat grinder’ and the ‘lemon squeezer’ then they started hiring foreigners with a temporary place to stay in, like you said often a shoebox with multiple people living inside, which were mostly just shipped containers, with terrible isolation, no heating, or running water. With all of this being said, this is not just slander against Germans specifically, other countries do this too, other corporations do this too. As long as line go up, people are just a resource to be exploited, numbers on a screen for those juicy quarterly reports, so investors can feel good about themselves, and we can all have that nice extra 00.1% GDP growth that will ultimately do nothing for your average citizen.
Sadly this is in my opinion also cultural. There’s a cultural aspect to being obedient and loyal to a company. Working there for decades and RARELY being showered with a bit of gratitude in the form of a lame pizza party or some stupid company gathering. This is true for the older generations. They really fall for that shit and don’t question one thing. Younger people aren’t as willing to sell their souls to a company, which makes me a bit more hopeful about the future.
But yes, overall people are being treated like shit. I am sure that soulless capitalism is a big part of the problem, but at least in other countries tehre’s a more collective will to unionise and hold companies accountable for the shit they’re doing (just look at France). This is rarely the case in most german companies. There’s a saying “if a revolution was happening, Germans would line up to buy tickets for it”
With that being said, I am also eastern european. I have lived in Germany for a long time, I am a german citizen by now, I finished my school here and graduated at one of the best universities in the german speaking world. And at the same time, Many of my peers made me feel lesser because of my ethnic background. And here I am purely talking about the most concrete of examples. Like, a colleague randomly talking to me about the small/petty crime some people from my country commit here. Or randomly asking me stuff about the seasonal agricultural workers from my country, because of course I’m an expert on it. And MANY, many more examples. Or back when I used to have an indian flat mate, being asked about “the indian hygiene standards” as if I was living with an animal or something. And these are “educated” people I am talking about.