Why do the Germans do what they do? Since the global financial crisis, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government in the European Union has seemed to alternate between bad cop and compulsive hoarder. Berlin forced Greek governments to accept punitive austerity measures, blocked the issuance of Eurobonds, and most recently balked at the need to spend heavily at the European level in response to the coronavirus, until it was almost too late. With near-zero interest rates and crumbling infrastructure at home, Germany still refuses to spend even as the new Biden administration passes a stimulus bill of “planetary scale.”
Is this neoliberal seppuku? An opposition to the expansionary state so complete that it would rather perish than run a deficit?
