Competent leadership. For Germany.
“The welfare state is the worst form of capitalism,” this quote from Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto recently came to mind when I was thinking about the connection between poor education and migration in Germany. Because while our social, health and education systems are falling to their knees under the burden of unchecked immigration, we cannot get this avalanche under control; we have become too attractive – as a country of refuge (!), not as a country for innovation.
Why? Because we don’t want it any other way. Rather, we always want to be the good ones, if not the best, in the fight against climate change and in asylum policy, even though we have long been paying too high a price for both.
We give billions of euros in development aid every year, hundreds of millions of which go to the world economic power China. In an almost unbelievable naivety, we are returning the art treasures from our museums that were stolen during the colonial era to their countries of origin in Africa, where they end up not with the population, but in the hands of old and new potentates.
In our own country, with basic security and citizens’ money, we create the illusion of effortless income for everyone – working is no longer worth it. We don’t realize that this type of welfare state takes away people’s motivation and ultimately their dignity. The social industry business model has now become so independent that it produces thousands upon thousands of new addicts every year. But when I ask our building contractor who clears out and cleans the basement in the building, I hear that he can no longer find anyone who can do this work at all or for less than €30 per hour.
What are they doing, those responsible in the government and with them the green-urban-academic milieu that has taken control of culture, media and politics? What reality do they live in? Are they printing money somewhere? Where is the respect for the sovereign, the hard-working people who pay for everything? Why do you ignore reality and where do you get your pride from? In high state offices, some of them without training or professional experience, without any contact with workers, craftsmen and farmers, they apparently do not want to admit that their ignorance is responsible for the fact that extreme positions are becoming more and more viable for many people. People who no longer feel heard by politics.
In psychology there is the well-known “Dunning-Kruger effect”, named after the American psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger. Accordingly, incompetent people often overestimate their own abilities – while at the same time underestimating the abilities of competent people. A vicious circle of incompetence begins, critical self-reflection does not take place, the positive self-image must be maintained at all costs, especially when there are hefty rewards in the form of power, positions, high salaries and pensions. Self-confidence can boost your professional career and the world loves blenders and loudspeakers. Some become presidents, and in Germany some manage to take ministerial posts.
But none of this is a reason to give up hope. We should not resign ourselves to what is perhaps the worst government of the post-war period. And we can raise our voices, take a stand, not give those responsible a moment’s peace and send a signal of reason in the next elections. It’s hard to believe, but there are definitely a few capable people in the political jungle who could be considered for a better leadership team. I think this country is still too good for anything else.
In this sense
Yours warmly
Ernst M. Ehrenkönig
CEO & Managing Partner
