I Why we need a new economic system
Dependence on the prevailing economic system
Like a hurricane, the unleashed economy is sweeping across the globe, leaving a trail of destruction and disruption in its wake: environmental pollution, climate catastrophe, scarcity of resources, global unemployment and mass precarious employment, rural exodus and growing slums are the consequences. The uninhibited and uncontrolled growth of the economy is also causing us new distortions: first the financial crisis, more recently the national debt crisis and, in the near future, both together. When economic activity reaches its limits, these are ignored and passed over, stretched and overstretched until imbalances arise and critical imbalances arise from them. According to theory, markets tend to equilibria, the real economy teaches us the opposite: mass production leads to market saturation, which can turn into overproduction at any time, as happened in the economic crisis of 2009; Private households go into debt because they are provided with “easy credit” so that they can consume more than they can afford. The financial markets no longer seem to know any boundaries. Even the real economy and states are reduced to objects of speculation in order to increase profits to the limit. There is now so much money circulating on the world's stock exchanges that one bubble after another is created, the bursting of which results in a few winners and many losers and can threaten the global economy as a whole and social cohesion. George Soros, certainly not a Marxist, concluded in 1997: "I have made a fortune on the world's financial markets, and yet I now fear that the unrestricted intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values ​​across all areas of life are endangering the future of our open and democratic society. The most important enemy of the open society is no longer the communist threat, but the capitalist threat." (George Soros, The Capitalist Threat, DIE ZEIT, No. 4, January 17, 1997, page 25). Since then, the distortions and imbalances have noticeably increased. Economics promises to solve the problems, but as the cause of them it cannot keep its promise; In the best case, it replaces one symptom of the crisis with another – but the crisis remains. For example, it may be possible to reduce unemployment here and there, but only at the price of precarious employment conditions.

The economy can no longer even fulfill its fundamental promise that growth increases general prosperity. Rather, a redistribution of income is in full swing, culminating in the rich getting richer, the middle class getting thinner and the poor getting poorer. It's no wonder that there are more and more voices that are critical of the economy and, above all, want to limit the growth of the economy: "More than two thirds of Germans now doubt that their quality of life automatically increases when the economy grows. Whole groups of society have been experiencing for a long time what it is like to be cut off from prosperity. For others, the financial crisis has shown how dangerous it can be when bankers, entrepreneurs and even politicians focus on growth first and foremost. And aren't the many natural disasters that are The most urgent warning about where the growth-driven exploitation of the earth could lead everyone – directly into climate catastrophe? For a long time, criticism of growth was virtually taboo in established science, but recently the debate about the conventional growth model has also spread into established circles, into associations, parties and even into the traditionally very conservative economy It's becoming increasingly clear to forward-thinkers: In the future, we have to break away from the traditional belief in growth because it leads the world into a dead end." (DIE ZEIT, Petra Pinzler and Fritz Vorholz: Economic growth: Are they crazy?, No. 39, September 23, 2010, Internet address: www.zeit.de./2010/39/Wirtschacht, page 5). But economic growth is now the linchpin of our economic system. What would happen if we cut growth to zero? What impact would that have on society, the state and the economy? Without growth there would be more mass unemployment and precarious employment than we already have. Because the rationalization of job work, which replaces human labor with technical ones, is causing jobs to melt away like snow in the spring sun. Apart from growth, we have nothing to counteract this rationalization in our economic system. Growth secures employment, at least to a certain extent, and creates new jobs. With zero growth, the general level of prosperity stagnates. In a growth society like ours, distribution struggles would be the result: if there is no increase that can be distributed, people inevitably have to increase their own share of the pie.

With the consequence that the wealth differences in the population will become even greater than they already are. That being said, zero growth will not mean stagnation, but living standards will most likely decline. One reason for this is rising costs, another is that in zero growth people are likely to save more, especially since they are more affected or at risk of unemployment. This can lead to an economic recession at any time, leading to a further decline in prosperity. If growth rates fall and zero growth occurs, companies' profit expectations must be revised downwards. On the one hand, investors are withdrawing and capital is moving away. On the other hand, stagnating companies become easy prey for competitors, so that undesirable market concentrations increase. Then: rising costs cause company profits to dwindle until the first losses occur, which lead to bankruptcies. Furthermore, with zero growth, the willingness to take risks for entrepreneurial activities would decline, fewer investments would be made and hardly any more jobs would be created. If a country like Germany committed itself to zero growth in isolation, it would soon be less competitive in international competition. Growth is the ultimate means of achieving or maximizing profits. By thwarting this, zero growth also undermines the fundamental, driving motive of the economy. Not just a recession, but an unprecedented downward spiral that would be unstoppable. The state would be confronted with all the resulting problems. He would have to increase his spending to support the economy and stimulate the economy. At the same time, since public revenues are lower, the state would have to cover the growing deficit by borrowing, which increases its debt and puts it in a precarious position in relation to the financial markets. Limiting economic growth immediately creates a whole host of socio-economic problems that threaten the cohesion of society: "The economy is a system with an urge and compulsion to grow. Stabilization at a level once reached, i.e. zero growth, is impossible. If the modern economy does not grow, it will fall into crisis with all the bad consequences such as bankruptcies, bank collapses and higher unemployment." ("Without growth, the system collapses", interview by Robert Heusinger with Christoph Binswanger on ZEIT-online, from September 18, 2010, page 1).

Anyone who believes that they can simply limit the prevailing economic system without incurring drastic disadvantages has made a mistake; Anyone who believes that capitalism is a jack of all trades is naive: zero growth is followed by an existential economic crisis. Those who demand zero growth may suffer the same fate as Gorbachev in his efforts to save socialism: what “glasnost” and “perestroika” were for him is “limitation” for capitalism. Our situation is like choosing between plague and cholera: limiting the economy has consequences as catastrophic as its growth or its acceleration. As long as we look for a solution within the system, we will remain trapped in this hopeless situation. We can only free ourselves from this dilemma if we question the economic system itself and look for an alternative economy that is not dependent on growth. If we are not prepared to give up the current economic system, then we have no choice but to continue to rely on economic growth, even if this is not a viable solution. The state is therefore forced to pursue a growth policy, especially in view of chronically low growth rates. The state is once again increasing its spending, all in the hope that economic growth will recover strongly so that it can achieve what it has so often achieved in the past: rising incomes and more employment, bubbling tax revenues and bulging social coffers. However, experience now shows that despite all efforts, growth is much lower than before. As a result, the state takes in less than planned, especially since companies have been relieved of the burden through financial policy. The state remains stuck with its debts. We are in what is known as debt-financed growth: the state is constantly spending more money, throwing good after bad and overspending more and more. The state runs the risk of bleeding to death from this bloodletting. On the other hand, growth policy is increasingly taking on the character of a laissez-faire policy. Market forces are unleashed through deregulation, reductions in bureaucracy and decreasing state control. This policy favors the efforts and efforts of the economy to promote growth even when the markets are saturated. Saturation is ignored and its absorption capacity is expanded. Consumers are pressured and seduced by a gigantic advertising and marketing machine into buying more than they need; also more than they can afford – with the consequence that private households become indebted.

Helmut Schmidt pointed out that the profits of many companies are now paid for by the debt of the masses. (Helmut Schmidt, How do we escape the depression trap, DIE ZEIT, January 15, 2009, No. 4, page 1). Economic growth degenerates into false growth: the prosperity of some grows at the expense of others. No wonder that the income gap is widening almost everywhere and more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. This is particularly drastic in the USA: "Things have been going well for the rich. Their income has been rising for decades and their stock portfolios have been increasing in value. If an American had a fortune of $75 million in the 1970s, he made it onto the list of the 400 richest people in the country that Forbes magazine compiles every year. In 2007, it took more than a billion dollars for this. Things have gone less well for the poorer people. The annual wage of a middle-aged, The average male American worker was currently earning $45,113. Adjusted for inflation, that's slightly less than the average worker earned $45,879 in the 1970s. (DIE ZEIT, online, August 20, 2009, No. 35, Is growth only available for inequality?, page 1, www.zeit.de/2009/35/Ungleichheit ). Conquering new markets also enables additional growth. Through increased exports, domestic production capacity will be utilized and possibly increased. An export nation like Germany would have had negative growth for a long time without its sales opportunities abroad. Seen in this way, exporting means nothing other than burdening other countries with their own growth problems. Greece got into debt, among other things, because Germany and other countries sold it more than it could afford. Here, what happens between the state and the capital owner, between "below" and "above" is repeated between states: the prosperity of one comes at the expense of the other. Economic growth is a means of maximizing profits. If there are limits to this in the real economy, people turn to pure monetary transactions, in which money is made into more money without the detour through the production of goods and services. Nowhere else is the growth as pronounced and nowhere else are such high returns achieved as in transactions on the financial markets. These returns are so enormous because the "investments" serve to create large price differences and pocket these as profits.

These price differences are produced through speculation, market power, manipulation, time advantage over other market participants through the use of the latest technology (e.g. high-frequency trading), information advantage and insider knowledge, influencing ratings and processing financial transactions outside of official stock market events. But this growth is built on sand; At some point the bubble bursts, growth evaporates, prices plummet and losses skyrocket. The efforts for economic growth – be it financial market-induced, consumption-induced or debt-financed – ultimately have the opposite effect of what they are intended: instead of a general increase in prosperity, there is a redistribution of income from bottom to top; Instead of more full-time jobs, we are creating precarious employment relationships; Instead of public budgets becoming more balanced, public debt is increasing; Instead of economic prosperity there are financial and economic crises. Economic growth, whether positive or negative, causes crises; If we try to promote it, we also create tangible problems. The principle of economic growth has had its day in every respect. The reason we are forced to force growth is because we are dependent on an economic system that relies on growth. If we want to avoid a growth-related collapse, we need a new economic system that works without growth.

The power of the economy and the powerlessness of the public
As long as we expect the prevailing economy to bear plenty of fruit and produce benefits for everyone, and that it will ultimately produce our happiness, we will make ourselves dependent on it. We feel this dependency in different ways: for example, the economy enforces all its demands by pointing out that otherwise competitiveness would suffer, prosperity would be at risk and, above all, that jobs would be lost. The public has no choice but to give in if it doesn't want to run the risk of accepting these disadvantages. In other words: we are vulnerable to blackmail. The power of the economy is further demonstrated by the fact that global companies (TNCs) in particular are reversing the principle of competition: they do not compete for the best locations, but the locations have to compete for them; It is not the state that determines the framework conditions to which they have to adapt, but vice versa, the economy dictates the framework conditions that are favorable to their well-being; It is not so much the economy that is competing for employees, but rather that they are competing to get a job with the company. But nothing can match the power and brazenness of the financial markets, this "strangely faceless creature made up of banks and stock exchanges, hedge fund strategists and insurance managers, but also pension funds and small investors." (Der Spiegel, World on the Abyss, No. 32/2011, p. 63). The financial markets not only trade in derivatives, they are themselves a derivative. Once created to serve the real economy, they have risen to become a meta-economy, which has turned the tables and made the real economy a plaything of its own interests: the financial markets "dictate the conditions of the remaining economy. …The dynamics of finance capital have increased the expected returns for the manufacturing industry, for goods markets and services and forced the implementation of competitive societies." (ZEIT online: Interview with Joseph Vogl: "What we have to learn now", August 14, 2011, pages 2 and 3, www.zeit.de/2011/33/Finanzkritik-Interview-Vogl). Nothing is sacred in finance. She speculates with everything she can get her hands on: stocks, raw materials, currencies, companies, real estate and, more recently, against states. Just like in a casino, you bet, gamble and bluff as much as you can and regardless of losses. The real estate boom in the USA was used, if not sparked, to carry out billion-dollar speculative transactions on the financial markets, which initially led to incredible profits on the stock exchanges.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before the whole mumbo jumbo collapsed. The handling of the resulting disaster, known as the financial crisis, made it abundantly clear how powerful the financial markets have now become over the state: although they caused this fiasco, they were not held accountable; It was not they who bore the losses that piled up because they simply declared themselves “systemically important,” but rather the public; It was not the financial sector that took responsibility for its irresponsible actions, but rather the state. But that's not all: this financial sector, which was just rescued by the states, is now benefiting from its own rescue in several ways: on the one hand, it finances the loans that the states have to take out to overcome the financial crisis. On the other hand, it creates a national debt crisis out of public debt, which causes loan interest rates for indebted states to rise. Since it was not possible to keep the financial markets on a leash even slightly shorter than before, which is a further indication of their power, derivatives are now being created on a large scale using government securities, as was the case with mortgages from the US real estate business, from which speculative profits are in turn made. If there was a “real estate bubble” at that time, a “government securities bubble” will arise here, which will end in a second financial crisis. Then the states will be asked again to eat up the soup that the financial sector has brought upon itself. But this time the financial crisis and the national debt crisis are colliding. The states cannot save the financial sector again and it will no longer grant loans to distressed states. Financial institutions are at risk of going bankrupt, just like states. The fact that the state cannot declare itself to be "systemically important", that is "too big to fail" and that therefore needs to be protected and saved, means nothing other than that politics is even more powerless in relation to the financial economy than in relation to the real economy. It is impressive and frightening at the same time to see how easily the financial markets play with the fate of entire countries. This also includes the monstrosity that states have to prove that they deserve the trust of the financial markets and not the other way around. Even managers of large industrial companies are starting to feel uneasy: "Franz Fehrenbach: I was just in Japan and China. On the flight back I read about a recommendation from a US bank whose customers should now bet on the decline of Europe… ZEIT: You mean Goldman Sachs. Fehrenbach: Yes.

If I bet on the decline of Europe in order to achieve a high return, I find it intolerable and immoral. Such behavior makes my stomach turn, to say the least." (Bosch boss Franz Fehrenbach on unbridled financial markets, political failure and corporate responsibility in an interview: DIE ZEIT, "My stomach turns", No. 39 / September 22, 2011, page 31). Who would have thought that an industrial manager would one day be morally outraged by capitalism in the way that only "leftists" usually do. But the economy is not the same now only powerful in the sense that it can easily assert its interests against politics, more and more areas of life (education, culture and social affairs) are being economized and political decisions are dictated by the economy. Or as the cultural scientist Vogl puts it: "It's not just about overcoming economic problems, there is more of a fight over the place and distribution of political decision-making power (ZEIT ONLINE: Interview with Joseph Vogl: "What we have to learn now"). August 14, 2011, page 8, www.zeit.de/2011/33/Finanzkritik-Interview-Vogl). The power of the economy is also manifested in the fact that it can privatize its profits and socialize its losses – most recently practiced on a large scale after the financial crisis leaves him alone to deal with it. Just as, for example, nuclear waste is disposed of at the expense of the general public, superfluous employees are “disposed of” on the labor market, the costs of which also have to be borne by the general public. In this role as a landfill, the state is similar to the environment. The environment and the state are equally "polluted" by the economy: what is environmental pollution here is national debt there. By the way, there is another parallel: Both are “used” equally as quarries by the economy: what the environment is the exploitation of raw materials, the state is the tapping of subsidies, aid, tax gifts and economic stimulus funds. Crises in the state and the environment are therefore no wonder. The power of the economy can also be seen in the fact that it can engage the state as a savior in times of need. In terms of market logic, this is of course extremely inconsistent, because the advocates of the market point out that it will sort things out on its own, that it is equipped with self-healing powers and that the state should therefore fundamentally stay out of it.

We could see how resilient these insurance policies were during the financial crisis: there was no trace of self-healing power; Rather, the self-destruction of the markets was so enormous that the high song of “laissez-faire” was no longer sung, but the song seamlessly transitioned into a cry for help from the state to prevent the worst. The economy is, by its very nature, deeply selfish and this is how it behaves towards the state. This fact alone is enough to put the state in distress. But what makes things even more difficult is that not only the economy, but large parts of society now "think and act economically" and in turn behave selfishly towards the state: private individuals, civil servants and the public sector, poor and rich alike. Entitlement and provision mentality, complacency and self-righteousness, insincerity and irresponsibility, undeclared work, corruption and tax evasion milk the state like a cow. Greece, the tip of the iceberg, shows what happens when general egoism goes too far. Independence from the prevailing economic system
Limiting growth is not a solution, as we have seen. Tweaking other adjustment screws in the economic system is also not enough: it would simply be a cure for symptoms that would soon reappear or that would be replaced by others. If we want to free ourselves from the grip of the economic system, we have to become independent of it. Independence needs an alternative that replaces the previous one. To demonstrate this with a current example: We couldn't "get out" of nuclear power if we didn't know how to generate electricity alternatively. Consequently, we need an alternative economic system so that we can break free from the current one. This alternative requires a willingness to change. Because it requires us to do business differently in the future, work differently, follow different values, i.e. live differently. This is an imposition for many. On the one hand, we would have to give up what we are used to and what we are familiar with, and we would have to forego advantages and conveniences as well as demands and security. On the other hand, new territory would have to be entered: new forms of business and work would have to be learned, implemented and practiced. An imposition that we don't want to know anything about at the moment. We'd rather carry on as before and hope that everything turns out well.

Or we give ourselves the illusion that we can somehow organize the advantages of a flourishing, competitive, effective and efficient economy without having to accept its disadvantages for people, society and the environment any longer: the national economy should forgo growth, companies should forego competition and profit maximization, managers and entrepreneurs should forego immoral behavior, and the economy in general should refrain from its selfish interests and serve society kindly and obediently. The proposals for “limiting” the economy of all the supposed pioneers and would-be visionaries are of exactly this quality: People actually believe that they can have the economic system with its advantages but without its disadvantages. What a comfortable way of thinking, what a misunderstanding, to fantasize about capitalism as a system that could give us a future in which peace, joy and pancakes reign. No, it's not that simple. The challenge is that we have to give ourselves a new economic system that requires us to make major changes. Because there is no getting around the realization that the prevailing economic system has outlived its usefulness. Its expansion, especially so-called globalization, should be understood less as a triumph than as the beginning of its end, as a late stage of development that will be followed by decline. Like a star whose life cycle is coming to an end, the economic system expands and becomes a white giant. But the time is approaching when the greatest expansion is reached and overturns: then the collapse of the prevailing economy is inevitable. Therefore: there is no alternative to an alternative; Even if neoliberalism, i.e. the radicalization of economic thinking, constantly tries to convince us that there is no alternative to it. We need a new star – we need a new economic system. II Why we need a new work system
Abuses in the prevailing work system
The prevailing work system is characterized by many grievances. The first is unemployment; It accompanies us for so long that we have almost gotten used to it like a chronic illness. It is often equated with what is called the crisis of work. In reality, it is just the tip of the iceberg, most of which lies beneath the surface of the sea. Less visible, but clearly a trend, is the deterioration in working conditions. This primarily refers to precarious employment relationships.

These are poorly paid, insecure jobs that are easy to terminate and often have a limited time period. These include involuntary part-time work, temporary and temporary work, fixed-term or marginal employment right up to the “working poor” and, in a broader sense, starting up businesses out of necessity, from which one can make more of a living. Overtime is another form of this deterioration. On the one hand, individual productivity increases, and on the other hand, employees' overtime hours increase. One would think that in times of unemployment overtime would decrease and tend to zero in favor of additional employment. But that's far from the case – it's the other way around: the people who are in the job system are working themselves half to death, while those who are outside are dying of boredom. Incidentally, this leads to the seemingly paradoxical phenomenon that those who don't have a job are just as dissatisfied as those who are employed. Especially since job dissatisfaction can be exacerbated by over- or under-challenging, pressure to succeed and increased performance demands. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to develop a professional identity. We still speak and act as if this were the case, but we are stuck in a habit of thinking. In reality, identity formation through work is denied because in the working world there is usually no longer a profession, but a job to be done (see: Gerd B. Achenbach: “The money, the profession, the individualism. Why people are looking for work”, keynote speech at the anniversary congress 40 years of the German Association of Career Counseling in Bad Godesberg on October 5, 1996). A job, however, is the exercise of a function in a production process that utilizes human labor for this purpose. In addition, identity formation is prevented because many people simply cannot work due to unemployment, and the possible loss of a job replaces identity with fear of losing one's job. The precarious labor market situation brings with it fierce competition for jobs, especially for the scarce full-time jobs. Free choice of career has been replaced by a cut-throat competition about whether you have a job or not, whether you are “inside” or “outside”. In view of the flood of applications, it is not the employee but the employer who has the choice, which allows him to place higher demands: he demands higher educational qualifications, better certificates, additional qualifications, more motivation and the like.

The labor market is also increasingly affecting future employees and job seekers more and more quickly than before: the long arm of the labor market already extends well into school. Education and training are gearing their content more towards this and students learn early on to orient themselves to the requirements of the labor market. The effort that has to be made to get a job increases, while the job you land less and less delivers what it promises. Factors that lead to the grievances
Streamlining work
Technological and economic development is enabling an increasing rationalization of work, especially in developed industrial nations. Each new generation of technology penetrates deeper into areas of work previously reserved for human work. Rationalization requires human labor to be replaced by technological labor. The result is that more and more economic wealth can be produced with fewer and fewer people. Globalization of work
In the course of the globalization of the economy, a global labor market is emerging that brings the grievances of the job system into the world: internationally active companies produce and work all over the world. This allows them to outsource previous areas of operation or to relocate entire production facilities from one country to another – as Nokia did some time ago, for example, by breaking up its tents in Germany and setting up again in Romania. New workers are recruited wherever the multinational companies set up shop. Where they leave, the existing workers are released, but do not disappear from the labor market, but transform into job seekers. Working in one country means unemployment in another. The multinational companies select their locations based on the most favorable production conditions for them. Since personnel costs are an important, if not decisive, selection criterion, low-wage countries have an irresistible advantage. Production and employment are moving from high-wage countries to low-wage countries. But even the country that won the contract cannot be sure of this in the long term: if it turns out that labor costs in any country are even cheaper than in it, the "mobile factory" will be dismantled again. So the caravan of the global economy moves further and further, because somewhere in the world there is always someone who offers their labor even cheaper. Wages and salaries are gradually being pushed down globally.

This precarization of work is reinforced by the fact that many countries are forced to attract companies with employer-friendly labor and social legislation. Rural exodus
More than one cause robs life in rural areas of the world of perspective and pulls the ground from under its feet: whether it is the agricultural industry or the globally active agricultural corporations that make life difficult for local agriculture; whether it is the speculation on food that is plunging masses of small farmers in the so-called developing countries into poverty; be it the compulsion to grow impoverished, which many farms find themselves in and which means the end for small businesses, or the resignation in the fight for market shares against all too powerful market participants. The fact is that there is a massive rural exodus underway around the world, driving people to cities in the hope of a better life. Millions upon millions of migrant workers are flocking to the world's megacities, where they are expanding the army of job seekers in the growing slums, ghettos and corrugated iron housing under the most deplorable living conditions. They are forced to do any job, no matter how shabby, for which the term "precarious employment" is nothing more than an outrageous euphemism. No economist in the world can answer the question of how jobs, let alone secure, well-paid, full-time jobs, can be created for these masses. This does not yet take into account the fact that the majority of the rural population, which accounts for up to half of the world's population, has not yet started moving. But this is only a matter of time if there is no perspective for people in rural areas that would enable them to stay. Population growth
To get an idea of the sheer magnitude of the increase in the world's population, remember that it grew from around 1.5 billion people at the beginning of the 20th century to around 6 billion people by the end of the 20th century. By 2050 there will probably be 9 billion people on earth. (Source: Atlas of Globalization, Le Monde diplomatique publisher, page 52, 2003, Berlin). One consequence is that global population growth is throwing people onto the global labor market every day, which already has far too many workers. The number of job seekers is skyrocketing; The demand for labor cannot cope with this onslaught and is helpless in the face of it.

Hoimar von Ditfurth once illustrated this situation years ago for the year 2000, according to which we would have to create "almost a billion additional jobs worldwide by this point alone if we want to prevent the two billion people from simply existing without any hope. We, and therefore one of the richest countries on earth, have only been able to accommodate even 200,000 young people in additional jobs every year with great effort for several years. Anyone who thinks about this for comparison is an expression of the hopelessness of the undertaking of providing the same opportunities to a group of people who are at least 4,000 times (!) as large and most of whom live in the poorest areas of the world." (Hoimar v. Ditfurth, So let's plant an apple tree: the time has come, Rasch and Röhring Verlag, Hamburg-Zurich, 1985, page 156). Of course, this fundamental problem has not changed since then. Conclusion
The dysfunctionalities of the job system are increasing; Some conditions and constraints are already actually unreasonable and untenable. But most of us rely on a job to earn a living. That's why we have no choice but to grudgingly accept these deteriorations. What applies to the individual applies to society as a whole. The linchpin of developed and developing industrial societies is job work. If jobs are rare, socially marginalized and at-risk groups are formed, parts of the population become impoverished, and social division and the gap between rich and poor increases. Job work is the glue that holds society together. If this crumbles, it will be put to the test. The state, especially the welfare state, also depends on the job system. Because the social security systems are fed by contributions and taxes from work: the fewer jobs and the more precarious employment relationships, the more deficits the social security funds become. Since social security contributions cannot be increased arbitrarily, the welfare state is forced to compensate for the deficits. At the same time, it loses out on wage and income tax, which is a main source of public revenue in countries like Germany. The gap between public spending and revenue is constantly widening. Given the social importance and dependence on the job system, the state is doing everything it can to secure employment, reduce unemployment and create new jobs. This is not possible without economic growth.

The dependence on the job system therefore increases the pressure for economic growth and thus deepens the dependence on the economic system. But as we know, the results of the growth policy are more than meager. The government measures that are being taken have far less impact on employment than before. How is this explained? New jobs are created through investments. But creating an additional job costs incomparably more today than it used to. The state would have to provide the economy with a multiple of the previous subsidies in order to achieve the same employment effect as before. But he simply does not have the appropriate resources to launch such complex investment programs. The next problem is that much of the investment in the economy goes into technologies that streamline work and eliminate the need for workers. That is why investments today go hand in hand with job cuts. In other words: growth accelerates the rationalization of work, so that its negative employment effects relativize, if not neutralize, the positive effects of growth. What's more: economic growth and unemployment are becoming simultaneous phenomena. Almost every day you can read reports in the newspaper about economic growth, increases in sales, increases in profits, alongside reports about staff cuts, rationalization measures and cost savings in the personnel area: the relationship between economic growth and employment has been reversed – and where not, it is not so much full-time jobs that are created, but predominantly atypical employment relationships. The state cannot significantly reduce mass unemployment through growth policies. The government's employment policy of "deregulation and flexibilization of work" may create more jobs, but many of them are precarious and can easily be taken back if the economy declines. This policy does not defuse the employment crisis; it simply replaces one crisis phenomenon with another. The grievances in the job system are increasing worldwide. Globalization, rural exodus and population growth are causing countless people to flood into the labor market around the world. At the same time, a rationalization of work is increasing on a large scale, freeing up workers and throwing them additionally onto the labor market, so that there are a dime a dozen workers. There is unprecedented unemployment, mass precarious employment and a deterioration in working conditions.

Business and the state are unable to remedy these problems. On the contrary: despite all efforts, they are increasing. If we don't want to make even more sacrifices for an increasingly poorly functioning job system whose damage is irreparable, then we need an alternative. We need a new work system to replace the old job system. III Conditions for an alternative economic and work system
Hardly any country can escape the globalization of the Western economic and work system. This fact requires that a new economic and work system, if it is to be a real alternative, be neither exclusive (for example for the rich industrialized countries) nor limited (for "the developing countries"), but rather that it can be applied worldwide from the outset. A new economic and work system must be characterized by the fact that it manages without growth, but also without competition, without the dominance of the markets, without profit maximization, without mass production and mass consumption and without job work as the dominant form of work. Only then can it overcome the constraints, problems and distortions that we are currently confronted with. A new economic and work system to be introduced worldwide must be such that, above all, the environmental impact is significantly reduced; that resources are managed much more sparingly than before; that in principle all people have the opportunity to provide themselves adequately materially through decent work; that, on the one hand, the rural exodus is counteracted and, on the other hand, that life in the megacities with their growing slums and ghettos is managed in such a way that it is more than just enough to survive. In other words: that it really deserves the name sustainability. This would already have achieved a lot, but one crucial condition is missing: If the new economic and work system were only different in the sense that we were able to make a living differently than before, but our lives were largely dominated by “necessity” just as before, then ultimately little would be gained. We would continue to be caught between production and consumption, economic activity would not be a means to an end, but an end in itself, and excesses and degenerations would soon appear again, albeit of a different kind. Producing, accumulating or consuming more and more material goods is not a goal in itself. Economics is simply a means of satisfying necessary material needs. Neither more nor less. Our economic and working society, on the other hand, only knows “necessity”.

Originally intended to free people from “necessity”, it has made it absolute. To put it bluntly: our prevailing economic and work system is the epitome of necessity. Higher goals such as freedom are alien to her. However, freedom only begins where necessity ends. Liberalism once set out to realize personal freedom, but in fact it replaced personal dependencies and constraints with dependence and coercion on anonymous structures and systems (be it the economic system, the education system, the health system, the job system and so on). It is not personal freedom that has been established, but rather the freedom of structures and systems that have been established. Economic liberalism aims at the freedom of the markets. Then, the reasoning goes, they would work best. This thinking has now become radicalized: so-called neoliberalism wants absolutely free markets. This means: The market should be completely free from external interference; the state should never interfere in market events; People should adapt completely to market conditions, submit to market laws and act in accordance with them. The freedom of the markets requires the bondage of people. If we don't want to accept that, we have to emancipate ourselves from liberalism and especially from neoliberalism. A new economic and work system has to fulfill the promise that the old one did not keep: to create a material basis of life for a limited period of time on which a "higher, free life" can develop. In addition to “necessary work,” there is also a need for “free work,” which, to stick with the terminology, leads people from the “realm of necessity” to the “realm of freedom.” The transition from the old to the new economic and work system cannot happen abruptly. So-called “shock therapies” always cause major disruptions, if not collapses. Transformation processes of this magnitude are best achieved on a sliding scale. To take a current example from energy policy: the exit from nuclear energy does not happen overnight in order not to endanger the energy supply, but rather gradually: as alternative energy is produced, one nuclear power plant after the other is shut down. The same applies here: Just as the elements of the new economic and work system are introduced, those of the old one are relativized, weakened, limited and gradually pushed back until they become irrelevant or are still retained where they are considered appropriate.

With regard to job work, this means that it will not be abolished immediately, but rather that job working hours will be gradually reduced. Frithjof Bergmann's concept of "New Work" meets these conditions like no other approach. That is why the “New Work” is presented as an alternative economic and work system in the next chapter: IV The contours of the new economic and work system –
a plea for the concept of “New Work – New Culture”
Community production
Community production is a form of local economy in which people produce goods themselves using adequate production technology. In particular, fabricators and automatons that are easy to handle, powerful and multifunctional make it possible to be self-sufficient: “We could develop a range of devices, apparatus, materials, machines and methods of production that would enable us or a not very large group of people to produce 60 to 80 percent of what we need to live ourselves.” (The New Work Era, interview with Frithjof Bergmann, Focus, No. 24/1999, page 140). The application of production technology for an economy based on self-sufficiency enables "individual production": "Instead of huge production halls with many robots, there are more versatile individual robots that allow individual production. They make chairs and tables according to our designs and ideas, sew clothes or cut car parts." (The New Work Era, interview with Frithjof Bergmann, Focus, No. 24/1999, page 140). Individual production means that each person produces what they need for themselves. This means that production and consumption are determined by people themselves. This means that community production differs from both traditional self-sufficiency and the prevailing economy with its industrial mass production. Traditional self-sufficiency is “naturally” limited in scope. It has to be based on what can be wrested from nature. It is nature that ultimately dictates what and how much can be produced and consumed. In this respect, conventional self-sufficiency always means a relatively modest material standard of living. Community production does not recognize this type of self-sufficiency: rather, it is the individual needs of the respective person that determines production, i.e. it serves to satisfy individual needs. Community production ensures production that is independent of natural production factors. What can be produced does not depend on nature, but on technology.

Thanks to technological developments, community production enables incomparably more versatile and sophisticated self-sufficiency than conventional production: fabricators and networked computer-machine systems enable the production of everyday objects such as clothes, shoes, dishes, household appliances and furniture, as well as non-everyday things such as jewelry and works of art. “Food houses” and practices such as permaculture enable food production in the city. This means people can easily provide themselves with food and, above all, inexpensively. New construction methods will make it possible for many more people to build houses than is currently the case. Now your own four walls have become so expensive that fewer and fewer people can afford them; Those who afford it are burdening themselves with a decades-long financial burden that becomes a millstone around the necks of many people. Housing, which is a basic human need, should be affordable for everyone. This is achieved when you can easily build on your own. The use of “high-tech” implies that community production is not a return to nature and therefore not a return to heavy physical work or muscle power. Rather, community production uses the most modern, advanced technology in such a way that it is not people who bear the brunt of the work, but rather machines. In contrast to traditional self-sufficiency, community production is not laborious, exhausting and energy-sapping, but rather creative, creative, stimulating and self-determined. It is not human labor that is required, but rather the human spirit that makes use of technology. While self-sufficiency in earlier times had to get by without a lot of technology or, because of their self-image, embraced technology less than they could, community production relies on it. You can also put it this way: what labor is to classic self-sufficiency, technology is to community production. This leads to a further distinction: While traditional self-sufficiency was time-consuming and left little time for other things, community production aims to limit the time required to produce what is necessary. An example to illustrate what has just been said is the automatic washing machine. While washing used to be a laborious task that often took several days, especially in winter, today washing has become so child's play that it is hardly perceived as a hassle anymore. The washing machine has largely taken over the work of washing and freed us from it.

That's why it's simply impossible to imagine everyday life without it – even the biggest enemy of technology has it in the basement and wouldn't want to be without it. The automatic heavy-duty washing machine shows what is important when it comes to technology: namely, to make the necessary work easier for us in a practical and useful, effective and efficient way and, where possible, to make it easier for us. Community production and the prevailing economic system differ fundamentally and in every respect: community production, like any self-sufficiency, achieves the unity of production and consumption; Our economic system, on the other hand, separates these two areas, which makes mediation through markets necessary. In such a market economy system, no one is self-sufficient, but everyone depends on everyone else and especially on the market. Community production aims at the economic self-sufficiency of the individual. This means that the dependence on the markets is eliminated and with it their dominance and the constraints they exert on us. The current economic form is a private economy, while community production is a “public economy”. Because here the means of production are public or quasi-public goods in appropriate institutions. Only then can it be guaranteed that they are accessible to everyone and that their use is affordable for everyone. In the private sector, however, the means of production are privately owned. This makes the mass of people without property in this sense doubly dependent: on the one hand, they are dependent on what is produced for consumption. You yourself cannot decide what is produced and what is not. On the other hand, their work depends on production, which is why they are also referred to as “dependent employees”. Without production there is no work; without an employer, there are no employees. It goes without saying that work in both economies differs significantly. In the private sector, people work for a third party: for the employer, for the market, for production, for money, etc. Community production, on the other hand, means working for yourself. Community production takes place in self-sufficiency centers, which are small in contrast to our current companies or factories. On the one hand, this is because there is no mass production in these centers, but individual production takes place; On the other hand, the production technology required for this is multifunctional, so that only a few machines are required. Market economies inevitably bring with them competition: just as companies compete with each other for market share, people compete for jobs.

The globalization of the economy intensifies this competition, whose constraints people have to submit to. This competition does not apply to community production, as each person produces their own basic material needs – and is not in competition with others. Our current economic system is growth-oriented or growth-driven and therefore limitless. Community production not only eliminates the separation between production and consumption, but also limits it. While our economy wants to produce the largest possible quantities, “individual production” is oriented towards small quantities, which prevents excesses. Self-sufficiency knows no overproduction, no bubbles and the resulting financial and economic crises that are currently shaking our economic system. Mass production and mass consumption have a significant impact on the environment; every ecological improvement of a product is neutralized by its increased production, which economic growth demands; The globalization of the economy wants to spread the Western material lifestyle across the earth, which far exceeds its burden. Community production, on the other hand, is characterized by limiting the variety of ways that benefit the environment: it replaces industrial mass production with individual production; Mass consumption gives way to individual satisfaction of needs; Economic growth is a foreign concept for community production: it is not the absurdly artificially exaggerated material lifestyle of the West, nor its consumer frenzy that is brought into the world, but rather a basic supply that can be designed individually. Since community production is a local economy, on the one hand the immense global freight traffic, which contributes significantly to environmental pollution, is significantly reduced. On the other hand, it abolishes the separation between life and work that now prevails, which spread with the economic and job system. This will reduce the unfortunate mass commuting to and from work worldwide, which also means less pollution. Apart from that, thousands and thousands of traffic jams are avoided in which we waste our time and nerves pointlessly. Community production is based on individually limited needs, so production and consumption are too. In contrast, the prevailing economic system propagates limitless needs that can be met through constantly increasing production and consumption. The only thing that curbs or limits mass production and mass consumption is money. It is the money we have available that determines what we can buy and therefore consume.

Without money we would not be able to satisfy our needs, we would not be able to indulge in consumption, which would immediately affect production. It is therefore crucial that producers and consumers have enough money or can access additional money in the form of credit, then nothing stands in the way of increasing production and consumption from a monetary perspective. While the prevailing economic system is entirely dependent on money, community production significantly reduces this dependence: the more people support themselves, the fewer goods they have to buy; the less money the individual needs to make a living. In-house production takes the place of earning and spending money. For the sake of contrast, Frithjof Bergmann therefore describes the economy of “New Work” as an “economy of minimal buying” in contrast to the prevailing economy, which he characterizes as an “economy of maximum buying” (Frithjof Bergmann, New Work-New Culture, Arbor-Verlag, 2004, p. 316). By the way, self-sufficiency is cheaper than buying goods: it is often claimed that mass production is cheaper than individual production. But that is a "myth": The majority of the price of a product is often not the manufacturing costs, but other costs such as transport, advertising, packaging, storage, distribution structure, intermediaries and all kinds of overhead costs. These are all omitted when producing in-house. However, in-house production is also advantageous where production costs are high. Anyone who has ever bought a house knows how expensive it is. On the other hand, if you can build your house in an effective and efficient way, and that is exactly the aim of community production, you will massively reduce the costs of owning your own home. In any case, the cost reduction or the value that he creates through his own work will amount to more than an average earner can earn through his paid work in the same time. At the same time, the self-catering person saves on a number of additional costs, of which the outrageously high brokerage fees are the most annoying and unnecessary. Community production is an economic approach that can be used worldwide, especially since it offers solutions to problems that conventional economics has no answer to: Community production can counteract the global rural exodus because such a self-sufficiency center can be implemented in every village; it can provide basic services in the world's expanding slums, where regular jobs are in short supply;

and community production can provide work for the masses who are flooding into the labor market as the global population increases and cannot find jobs there. Assuming that community production were to become established and the world population could provide itself with sufficient material supplies through it; Assuming that individually determinable self-sufficiency could be achieved with limited effort: the economy would no longer be an end in itself, but a means to an end. Specifically: their function would be to create the necessary conditions for “free labor”. Calling
A necessary condition for free work is that the material basis of life is secured. As long as you work or have to work exclusively for them, you remain stuck in “necessity”. The New Work guarantees this material independence through community production. However, sufficient conditions for free work are only met when a person follows up on a call. That is, when a person identifies with a thing or a topic that the person makes the object of their work. This identification reflects a personal concern, an interest, a desire, a passion for a cause. Calling is therefore based on a personal relationship between a person and their work, which attaches great value to it. Anyone who identifies with their work experiences freedom. According to Bergmann, freedom is a function of identity – and that requires relationships and commitment, responsibility and loyalty, dedication and care. In doing so, Bergmann vehemently contradicts the common understanding of freedom, according to which it requires absolute independence, freedom from ties, a life without limits and obstacles or is expressed in being different from the others. Freedom also does not mean freedom of choice, which is characterized, among other things, by the fact that one can choose between many jobs, but not between jobs and freelance work. According to Bergmann, this prevailing concept of freedom leads to the void. Freedom, as it is understood here, is not an absolute value or an end in itself, but rather serves self-development. Just as freedom is a function of identity, our self is a function of freedom or free work: the more we do what we identify with, the more we come into our own, the more we develop a self. Anyone who “works” wants to make something of themselves; Anyone who “jobs” will be made into something. The writer Joseph Conrad once aptly said about free work:

"I like what's in the work, the opportunity to find yourself, your own reality, as you can only experience it yourself and that no one else experiences."
In order to characterize “free work” even better, it is worth comparing it with “necessary work”. For the sake of clarity, the differences are presented in an ideal manner, knowing full well that mixed forms occur in practice. Bergmann sometimes speaks of the “polarity of work”: one pole represents work in its highest form, calling; while the other pole is work in its lowest form, job work: Anyone who comes to their work through identification and not by selling their labor on the labor market, for them their work will be more than just a job or an occupation: it will become a task in which they can contribute themselves as a person, to which they can dedicate themselves as a person. The person thrives in free work, but often drowns in the job. While the job requires people as workers and this is instrumentalized for the production process and its goals, calling demands and promotes the person as such. This means: their talents, skills, abilities and characteristics are aligned towards a self-determined task; The person as such is developed, strengthened and has the chance to grow beyond themselves through free work. Calling means expressing yourself, reflecting on yourself, experiencing yourself and coming to yourself. Those who “do what they really, really want,” as Bergmann typically puts it, work for their own sake. The job, on the other hand, is characterized by the fact that it is work for others and for something else: you work for an employer, for money, for a career, for the market, for pensions, for personal prosperity, for consumption and for security. Job work, like any form of necessary work, is an expression of concern for one's material existence, of securing one's existence or, as one would put it scientifically: a function of the reproduction of life. Anyone who only knows job work is completely immersed in the necessity. Like any form of necessary work, job work is a function of something and therefore dependent on it. Just as housework, for example, is a function of what the house demands, job work is a function of what the company's work or production process, the labor market or the employer demands. Calling is an autonomous work that is committed only to itself. Calling means being your own boss, while at work you always have a “master” over you. Consequently, we do what we have to do at work;

while free labor consists in doing what we want to do. Perhaps the clearest difference between free and necessary work lies in how each affects people themselves. Calling can have a wide variety of positive effects on people. In his publications, Bergmann states, among other things, that calling is work that makes us more alive, that can unleash more strength and energy in us than we believe we have, that inspires us, that we can pursue with dedication and passion, and that fills us with joy and pride. The necessary work, on the other hand, usually has a negative impact on people. No wonder, because she shows little or no consideration for the person. Just as Bergmann lists the positive aspects of freelance work in his articles and books, he also lists the negative aspects of job work. It can then shame, exhaust, depress, drain, depress, tire, under- or over-tax the person; it can be energy-sapping and harmful to health. Decreasing job work
During the transition from the old to the new economic and work system, job work will still be needed, but to a decreasing extent. Just as community production and calling are introduced, job work can be reduced accordingly until it becomes so insignificant that it no longer matters or disappears completely. The reduction in job work is favored and reinforced by the need for a long-overdue general reduction in working hours. Only this can overcome the lack of jobs or the structural unemployment that results from the fact that job work is being rationalized more and more and more and more goods and services can be produced with less and less human labor. If there is a lack of jobs or new ones cannot be sufficiently created, then unemployment is countered by redistributing the available job work. By the way, reductions in working hours are nothing new in industrial society. On the contrary: a closer look reveals a historical trend. During the founding period, working hours were between 12 and 16 hours with a 6-day week and were then gradually reduced to 8-hour days with a 5-day week. The introduction and increase of vacation days and other free periods such as “sabbaticals” have further reduced working lives. Basically, the “New Work” only consistently continues this historical trend. A general reduction in working hours also benefits the economy:

On the one hand, it would be free of the social pressure to ensure full employment, which is beyond its ability anyway. On the other hand, new, individually designed working time models fit into the economy's current efforts to make existing employment relationships more flexible. Last but not least, the increasing work demands speak for shorter working hours: high levels of performance, which are increasingly required in everyday work, cannot be achieved permanently for 40 hours a week; If you try to do it anyway, as is currently the case, it will have a counterproductive effect – work performance and work success are counteracted by excessive demands and are therefore suboptimal. On the philosophical-cultural dimension of New Work
From the perspective of New Work, our lives are dominated by an economic and work system that does not promote people's freedom, but rather functionalizes, normalizes and adapts them. It makes people dependent on itself and subordinates them to the constraints that it increasingly produces. At the same time, people themselves are becoming “smaller”, “more powerless”, “poorer” and “weaker”. Our economic and work system devalues ​​the higher goals of life and turns the mere means of life into absolute ends. To paraphrase Nietzsche, we are nihilistic. This implies, among other things, that we have become strangers to each other. This phenomenon of self-forgetfulness goes back to what Bergmann calls self-ignorance (or in the popular form: people don't know “what they really, really want”). He means the fundamental difficulty that life presents to each of us and the associated challenge that each and every one of us has to master: namely, to know ourselves. This applies to the important issues in your own life as well as to everyday life. The same applies to the question of which work suits us and which serves us best. Where self-ignorance dominates people's lives, life in the true sense is not lived. Nothing is easier than wasting your life, losing your bearings, losing your way, becoming distracted, making trivial things the main thing and losing yourself more and more in the process. For many people it seems as if their lives have been put on stand-by: they muster just enough energy to function, but the actual life energy does not ignite. You live from day to day without knowing exactly what and for what; you are busy; you make sure you are always busy; you do and do, run and run – and yet you don't move.

Whenever you look back on your life and judge yourself honestly enough, you will find that there was little or nothing of significance or importance. Many people's motto in life could be: Much ado about nothing. The “New Work” wants to reverse this situation: that is its crucial concern. Bergmann writes in his book: "It is not possible to understand the New Work until one has understood and accepted the omnipresence of unlived life." (Frithjof Bergmann, New Work-New Culture, Arbor Verlag, Freiburg, 2004, page 284). The New Work wants to help people to live a truly lived life, to live a free life – and work is the vehicle for this (see ibid. page 376 f). Anyone who follows the call of the "New Work" (do what you really, really want) will gradually learn to desire in the true sense; he will put his self-ignorance into perspective, at least with regard to work, and shed some light on the darkness of his existence; he will bring himself into being what he is capable of being and finally experience what a fulfilling life can be. This is the deeper reason or the high claim of New Work: it wants to initiate a new economic and work system that overcomes the old one, including the crises and upheavals that it produces, and at the same time it wants to be the nucleus for a new culture in which people can come to themselves.