GERMANY IN TIMES OF CRISIS: PASSIVE REVOLUTION,STRUGGLE OVER HEGEMONY AND NEW NATIONALISM

Germany appears as the case in point of a country that is getting through the current crisis rather well. Central to this “success” is the passive revolution that the country has undergone in the 2000s during which a state‐led restructuring of the regime of accumulation has resulted in the creation of a new stratum of working poor and an overall lowering of wages. Following a discussion of this passive revolution and the resulting mass impoverishment, this article explores the struggle over cultural hegemony, which has surfaced in various controversies since the beginning of the current economic crisis in 2007. I argue that there is a passive consensus concerning “poverty” – which is unpopular, but regarded as inevitable – that is outweighed by an active consent concerning “Germany” – an immensely popular notion. In Germany, a new nationalism that blends classism and racism in the service of the economic competitiveness of the nation is argued to be at the core of cultural hegemony in these times of crisis.