Germany: Children’s clinics on the brink of collapse while the government procures nuclear bombers

Tino Jacobson & Gregor Link

Germany is currently experiencing a wave of COVID-19 deaths and other severe respiratory illnesses, pushing the country’s children’s hospitals to the brink of collapse. Just before Christmas, the German parliament decided it was better to spend taxpayers’ money on procuring nuclear bombers. The decision throws a spotlight on the criminal policies of the ruling class.

On December 14, the Bundestag budget committee approved the purchase of 35 F-35 II fighter jets at a cost of €10 billion. On the same day, Europe’s largest university hospital, the Charité, announced it would go into emergency operation. The children’s wards were so overloaded that “for weeks doctors and nursing staff had to be withdrawn from normal wards to work the children’s wards,” according to the news outlet Deutsche Welle (DW). Despite “24/7 operation in all paediatric rescue units,” “care could no longer be guaranteed,” declared one Charité paediatrician.

According to a survey by the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), every second hospital in Germany has already had to turn down children for paediatric intensive care. In normal children’s wards, 43 of 110 paediatric clinics did not have a single bed available and ventilators are also in short supply. In addition, the children’s clinics are plagued by a devastating shortage of staff, which means that almost 40 percent of paediatric intensive care beds cannot be operated. DW quotes a senior consultant in paediatric intensive care in Hanover saying, “Children are dying because we can no longer care for them.”

The war-like conditions at German children’s hospitals are the result of the government’s policy of waging war against Russia in Ukraine and its conduct of a class war against its own people at home to finance the bloodshed.

Hospital Diakovere Henriettenstift in Hanover, Germany [Photo by Michał Beim / CC BY 4.0]

Every single one of the 35 stealth bombers—explicitly intended to drop US nuclear weapons already stored in Germany—could finance the complete rebuilding of a state-of-the-art children’s clinic. Instead, the ruling coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the neo-liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), with the consent of all the opposition parties sitting in the Bundestag, have decided to cut the health budget by €40 billion compared to last year—despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The parliament also agreed to purchase an additional 118,000 Heckler & Koch assault rifles.

The renowned Robert Koch Institute reports on its online resource “GrippeWeb” that the number of respiratory infections in Germany is already far above the seasonal level and threatens to rise further. The proportion of people with an acute respiratory illness (ARI) currently exceeds 11 percent, with a “clear upward trend.” This means that about one in nine people in Germany is currently suffering from a respiratory infection. In 2021, the proportion of people with ARI was just under 4 percent. The increase is the result of lifting the most minimal of COVID-19 protection measures.

The RKI assesses the situation as follows: “The current very high value even exceeds the maximum values reached in previous major waves of flu.” The main causes of respiratory infections are influenza and the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which mainly affects infants and young children.

DIVI President Christian Karagiannidis is also very concerned about the current situation, declaring, “I have never experienced anything like this before.” The chronic shortage of nurses is currently compounded by the high level of sick leave among health workers.

Gerald Gaß, head of the board of the German Hospital Association commented on the absences, “We now have around 9 to 10 percent absenteeism among staff.” That is 30 to 40 percent more than normal at this time of year. The precarious staffing situation means that beds in clinics cannot be used or that even entire wards must be closed.

The Charité Clinic in Berlin, for example, has been operating in emergency mode in the run-up to the Christmas holiday. All scheduled operations have been postponed. The children’s clinics are severely affected by staff shortages, where employees are already working at limit. Children sometimes have to spend the night in hospital corridors with their parents forced to wait for hours—or parents must spend hours looking for another children’s hospital with a free intensive care bed.

This situation causes despair not only for children, but also, and especially, for their parents. Staff at the Charité’s Virchow Clinic told WSWS reporters that the children’s clinic was full to capacity. They are angry and desperate about the situation.

“Cases of threats or the actual exercise of psychological and physical violence against health personnel are increasing,” related Gerda Hasselfeldt, president of the German Red Cross.

Heinz Hilgers, president of the Child Protection League, concluded that “it was an indictment of current official policy that there are not even enough medicines and fever-reducing agents for children.”

There are currently considerable supply shortages of certain medicines for children, such as fever-reducing medicines and suppositories, together with a shortage of anticancer drugs and antibiotics for adults. This is due to the high number of respiratory infections in children.

In addition, drug manufacturers are pulling out of the production of less profitable drugs—as is currently the case with 1A Pharma, a subsidiary of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, which had a market share of 30 percent in fever-reducing medicines. In 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, Novartis recorded a profit of US$24 billion worldwide.

“The current bottlenecks are the result of years of pressure on prices and manufacturing costs for generics,” complained the manufacturers’ association Pro Generika. Consequently, more and more generic drug manufacturers are withdrawing from the production of key drugs.

In response, the German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) announced before Christmas, a bill to “overcome supply bottlenecks.” According to the minister, an erroneous pricing policy was responsible for the supply bottlenecks. “Price has played the sole role, availability of medicines has played too small a role. We want to undo that,” Lauterbach said. In other words, the profits of the pharmaceutical companies are to take precedence and prices for medicines will rise further, although this will put an even greater burden on the health system.

For many years now, Germany’s main political parties have been cutting the health system to the bone in order to maximise profits. Currently, the federal budget for health is being cut from €64.3 billion to €24.5 billion. Military spending, on the other hand, is to rise from just under €50 billion to €58.6 billion. In addition, the government announced at the start of the Ukraine war that it intended to invest an extra €100 billion in the Bundeswehr.

The WSWS spoke to workers in front of the Charité. One worker said, “I find this intolerable. This is where the money should go. Everything is being closed down here, and it’s the military that is being funded to finance the war. I agree with you.”

Sabine opposed the purchase of nuclear bombers: “The government finds the money for that, but they don’t have any money for children. There is money made available for so many things. ... I’m lucky, my children are still healthy. But now the teachers are sick! Everyone wins in a war, except the little ones—the little ones have to pay extra. I was a patient in the nephrology department. I noticed that the children’s wards were full—and that’s not just the situation in Berlin, it’s like that everywhere.”

Many others also declared it was “unbelievable” that money was being “wasted” on the nuclear bombers. Instead, one could “hire a lot more people” with that money. In Germany, there is an enormous need for nursing staff. According to conservative estimates, the country lacks a total of 200,000 nurses.

“It’s terrible,” said one nurse in the children’s ward. “I am generally against weapons and arms supplies. The money should be invested in the health system. So many people have to be sent home at the moment, including teachers and ambulance staff.”

“As trainees, we try to help where we can,” related Rani, who works in an interdisciplinary paediatric ward. “The health insurance companies say they made a loss in the pandemic, but I don’t believe it. So many old people have died.”

Natasha from paediatric surgery added, “There are no beds left. There are hardly any nursing services left because staff shortages are so severe and nurses themselves are increasingly sick.” Instead of €100 billion for the military and billions more for imperialist wars, this money should go towards health and education.

Fragile Fiji coalition government installed amid ongoing turmoil

John Braddock

In a hastily-arranged closed session the day before Christmas, Fiji’s parliament voted by a narrow 28-27 margin to install a three-way coalition government led by the People’s Alliance Party (PAP) of former coup leader and ex-Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.

Sitiveni Rambuka [Photo: Facebook]

A previous session on December 21 was deferred when President Wiliame Katonivere failed to issue a proclamation following a crisis inside the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), the minority party that was effectively determining the outcome of the contentious election.

In Saturday’s parliamentary vote, one SODELPA MP did not side with the PAP-National Federation Party (NFP) coalition. A single vote thus installed Rabuka as prime minister and ended ex-coup leader Frank Bainimarama’s 16-year hold on power.

Earlier, an initial coalition deal had almost immediately collapsed. Following a 16-14 vote by SODELPAS’s management board for the Rabuka-led PAP-NFP coalition, the party’s general secretary Lenaitasi Duru resigned, declaring that two attendees were not members in good standing and therefore the meeting was unconstitutional.

SODELPA’s governing body held a second meeting on Friday which reconfirmed its initial decision, this time by a 13-12 margin, after leaders of the PAP and NFP and Bainimarama’s ruling Fiji First Party (FFP) were invited to resubmit their coalition proposals.

In the December 14 general election, SODELPA gained just 5.2 percent of the vote but secured the balance of power with three seats in the hung parliament. The FFP won 26 seats with the PAP on 21 seats, while the PAP’s coalition partner, the NFP obtained 5.

Parliament’s recall took place after days of turmoil, with the threat of another coup in the air. Refusing to concede defeat, Bainimarama had convened a meeting with Policing Minister Inia Seruiratu, Military Commander Major General Jone Kalouniwai and Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho, and mobilised the military to assist police with “the maintenance of security and stability.”

Qiliho, a former army officer who runs a notoriously brutal police force, has a murky past with links to previous coups. The army’s involvement came despite Kalouniwai earlier promising the military would “respect” the electoral process. Amid escalating tensions, Assistant Police Commissioner Abdul Khan resigned for “personal reasons” the next day.

The pretext for the military operation were unverified reports of stonings targeting the homes and businesses of Fijians of Indian descent. NFP leader Biman Prasad, whose party represents the Indo-Fijian business elite, accused the government of holding the country to “ransom,” while Rabuka said Bainimarama was “sowing fear and chaos” and “trying to set the nation alight along racial lines.”

The description could equally be applied to Rabuka. The 74-year-old ruled as prime minister from 1992 to 1999 after leading two military coups in 1987 to boost the position of ethnic Fijians against Indo-Fijians, many of whom fled the country.

Speaking outside parliament after Saturday’s vote, Bainimarama addressed the media and appeared to accept defeat, saying he “hoped” to be the leader of the opposition. He declared “this is democracy” and, referring to his 2013 constitution, boasted “this is my legacy.”

Rabuka announced he would give the former government time for “a comfortable move-out.” He proclaimed that his Christmas message to people was “democracy works.”

In fact, following Rabuka’s earlier coups, Bainimarama ruled the country with an iron fist after seizing power in 2006. He “legitimised” his rule with bogus elections in 2014, which were falsely declared “democratic” by the regional imperialist powers, Australia and New Zealand. His authoritarian constitution entrenched the role of the military as responsible for the “safety and security of the country,” giving it broad anti-democratic powers.

The installation of a new government does nothing to resolve the ongoing crisis. The hung parliament was the product of a sham election between two parties led by former military strongmen, carried out under conditions of tight media censorship, heavy political restrictions and accusations of government intimidation. The credibility of the counting process was questioned after the official election app crashed.

With Fiji’s ruling elite sharply divided, the coalition government, propped up by an unpopular minor party which is sharply factionalised, will be highly unstable. In the event of a crisis, another coup cannot be ruled out. State and security officials, promoted and trained under previous rulers, would be ready to respond to any demand to do away again with the fig-leaf of democracy. 

No details of the PAP-NFP-SODELPA coalition agreement have yet been released. SODELPA vice-president Anare Jale said work on the document would take place during the holidays and “hopefully” something would be signed this Wednesday.

Whatever emerges, SODELPA will seek to shift the already autocratic regime even further to the right, using its position to advance the interests of the iTaukei Fijian chiefly elite, at the expense of ordinary ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijian members of the population.

SODELPA and the PAP share the same history regarding indigenous issues. Rabuka formed the PAP in a split from SODELPA two years ago after losing a bitter leadership spill against current leader Viliame Gavoka. He has since publicly moderated his stance, apologising for his 1987 coups and declaring that Indo-Fijians would be treated fairly by the PAP.

In the election none of the parties campaigned with policies to address the burning questions facing the working class and rural poor—a deepening social crisis with massive job losses, escalating poverty and widespread hunger.

SODELPA campaigned on “uplifting socio-economic development” for the narrow i-Taukei, layer while the PAP manifesto promised amendments to the constitution, wiping student debt, reinstating the Fijian elite’s Great Council of Chiefs, and repealing “all decrees that suppress basic human rights.”

The NFP, formed in 1963 out of the cane farmers’ associations, represents Indo-Fijian business interests. While professing concerns about the cost of living and promising to restore the rights of trade unions, the NFP election manifesto targeted government spending and “wastage,” and promised an “audit” of the troubled economy within the first 100 days.

Inauspiciously for ordinary people, the new Attorney-General Siromi Turaga, as a magistrate, ruled that Bainimarama did not have powers to make COVID-related orders under the Public Health Act early on during the pandemic. COVID infections are currently rising again. Over the past three years, there have been 68,702 cases and 881 deaths from the disease among a population of just 900,000.

The incoming parties will embark on an authoritarian program to impose the dictates of international finance capital, with even greater austerity measures against the working class. As internationally, the revival and promotion of racial ethnic politics will be used as a battering ram against the emerging struggles of the working class.

Governments in Australia, New Zealand and the US have been closely watching developments. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted his congratulations to Rabuka, declaring that the US “looks forward to deepening our relationship for the benefit of the people of Fiji, the US, and the broader Indo-Pacific.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomed Fiji’s “democratic process” and said he was “ready to work” with whoever formed government. His New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern acknowledged Bainimarama’s “important legacy for Fiji” and as a “regional leader.”

New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said her government had been “encouraging all parties to allow the constitutional process to play out.”

The imperialist powers, who regard the Pacific as their own “backyard,” are concerned solely with their geostrategic interests against Beijing. After the 2006 coup Canberra and Wellington initially imposed trade and diplomatic sanctions. These backfired with Bainimarama’s “Look North” policy toward China prompting Washington to demand a new strategy aimed at bringing the dictator into the fold.

Fiji’s new government is falling into line. In August, Rabuka ruled out signing a bilateral security pact with Beijing if elected. SODELPA leader Gavoka confirmed last week that foreign affairs will be aligned closely to “traditional partners,” Australia, New Zealand and the members of the Pacific Islands Forum, not China.

Australian poverty report reveals impact of COVID austerity drive

Sofia Devetzi

New research by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) has revealed the devastating consequences of the Australian government’s decision to withdraw pandemic income support payments.

Stood down or unemployed workers lining up for welfare at inner-west Sydney Centrelink in early 2020. [Photo: WSWS]

This was detailed in two reports—“Poverty in Australia 2022,” which was based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data and released in October, and “Australian experiences of poverty: risk precarity and uncertainty during COVID-19,” released on December 2. They showed that one in eight people in Australia, and one in six children, are now living below the poverty line as cost-of-living pressures increase.

Professor Carla Treloar, director of the Social Policy Research Centre at UNSW Sydney, said the reports highlighted unacceptable levels of poverty. “There are 3.3 million people in Australia desperately struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table,” she said. “There are 761,000 children who are denied a good start to life.”

In addition to the record number of people living under the poverty line, the reports found that the severity or “depth” of poverty has steadily increased over the last two decades. Average weekly incomes of impoverished people have dropped to $304 below the poverty line, indicating that they are falling further and further behind.

Percentage of all people in poverty from 1999-2020 [Photo: UNSW-ACOSS]

The poverty line itself represents an underestimate. In the UNSW-ACOSS reports, this is defined as 50 percent of median income, adjusted for household size; the authors suggest that people living below this poverty line are likely to miss out on essentials such as housing and food. Other organisations use a more expansive definition. The European Commission, for example, uses a higher poverty line based on 60 percent of median income.

However, even on the definition of poverty used, the UNSW-ACOSS reports are damning. In examining poverty data from the past few years, the effect of introducing small pandemic support payments—and then taking them away—is starkly seen.

At the outset of the pandemic in March 2020, social security payments were significantly below the poverty line; successive Labor and Liberal governments refused to increase payments beyond movements in the Consumer Price Index. This saw people receiving payments such as unemployment, disability, carer, and old age pension supports falling further behind community living standards.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a unified class response by the federal Liberal-National government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and various Labor and Liberal state premiers, which coordinated their actions via the unconstitutional and secretive “National Cabinet.” Billions of dollars in public funds were poured into big business interests, ensuring that initial public health measures including lockdowns did not affect profits.

The federal government also enacted stimulus spending measures, to offset negative economic effects of rising joblessness and declining retail and hospitality spending. These measures included boosting income support payments from June 2020. People on any type of welfare allowance received a meagre $750 Economic Support Payment, while people on unemployment-related payments received a $275 per week Coronavirus Supplement. Despite the limited character of these payments, they represented a near doubling of unemployed workers’ incomes.

As a result of these increases—a drop in the bucket when compared with the corporate handouts during the pandemic—within three months, the official poverty rate had dropped to a 17-year low of 12 percent. The effect on children was even more dramatic, with the child poverty rate falling to a two-decade low of 13.7 per cent. The increased welfare payments pulled 646,000 people, including 245,000 children, above the poverty line.

Comparison of poverty lines with pension and Newstart [unemployment] payments [Photo: UNSW-ACOSS]

The bare-minimum payment rises dictated by the pro-business stimulus advocates proved sufficient to provide to many individuals three full meals a day. Others found that they could pay their rent and utility bills on time for the first time since they started receiving income support. Some debts were paid off, and unexpected expenses including medical bills were able to be managed.

In a calculated act of class warfare, the government progressively reduced the Coronavirus Supplement from September 2020, and fully abolished it in April 2021. In its place, unemployment-related payments—such as JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and Parenting Payment—were increased by just $25 per week. This meant a net $250 per week cut in income support payments for those affected ($500 per week in the case of couples). Researchers now expect poverty to rise above pre-pandemic levels.

This impoverishment is also being compounded by the cost-of-living crisis: prices for essential items have risen by around 8 percent annually, mortgage payments have increased by thousands of dollars per month, and electricity bills are expected to jump 47 percent over the next two years. Meanwhile, real wages are 4 percent lower than before the pandemic hit in March 2020.

The UNSW-ACOSS report, “Australian experiences of poverty: risk precarity and uncertainty during COVID-19,” detailed the devastating impact of the elimination of the Coronavirus Supplement. It explained: “The reduction and then termination of the supplement had a pernicious effect. Financially, participants found themselves back to the stresses of having to live on very low incomes, prioritising basic needs and maintaining very frugal lifestyles. Emotionally, the experience was destabilising, with participants often describing the effects in terms of closing down a world that had been briefly open to them.”

One unemployed worker interviewed by the researchers, Katie, explained the impact on her: “I can pay the rent, but other things have to go by the wayside—getting the medications and basic food shop. Now I’m in a bit of debt because I had to ask family members for help, so I can go and do a grocery shop. So the stress has sort of increased. Suicidal at times, it’s just, it’s not good, not good at all.”

The Labor Party when it was in opposition supported the Morrison government’s welfare payment cuts. Now in office, it has confirmed that it has no intention of reversing these measures—on the contrary, Labor is intensifying the offensive against the social conditions of the working class. Labor’s federal budget detailed the deepest cut to workers’ living standards since World War II, with real wages continuing to fall for at least the next two years while electricity and gas prices soar. In his budget speech, Treasurer Jim Chalmers promised financial markets that now begins that much sought-after era of “budget repair,” while simultaneously warning workers of “hard days to come.”

The UNSW-ACOSS research underscores that poverty in advanced capitalist countries is deliberately engineered by governments beholden to business interests. While there are more than enough resources for everyone to live a comfortable life—as pointed to by the sharp reduction in poverty brought about by the small Coronavirus Supplement—capitalism requires the impoverishment of those unable to work in order to “incentivise” people to remain in low paid and oppressive jobs.

Malaysian parliament endorses unstable new government

Kurt Brown & Clay Robinson

In its first sitting since the national election on November 19, the Dewan Rakyat, the lower house of the Malaysian parliament, passed a motion of confidence last week in the coalition government formed by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

The confidence motion followed the appointment of a new cabinet the previous week. The process to fill 28 cabinet posts took place behind closed doors, doubtless involving haggling over the conflicting interests of the ruling class parties that form the “Unity Government” coalition and provide around 148 votes in the 222-seat Dewan Rakyat.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim shows his ballot during the election at a polling station in Seberang Perai, Penang state, Malaysia, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2022. [AP Photo/Vincent Thian]

The heterogeneous nature of the cabinet that Anwar has cobbled together is a product and reflection of a deep crisis of capitalist rule in Malaysia. Its “unity” is based on the political quicksand of a temporary truce of rival bourgeois factions with conflicting economic perspectives and entrenched interests.

The United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which ruled Malaysia for more than six decades since formal independence from British imperialism in 1957, has collapsed, giving way to a fragmented political establishment. All of the political parties are mired in communal politics and none offers any solution to the growing economic and social crisis facing working people.

UMNO based its rule on police-state measures, a gerrymander favouring ethnic Malays at the expense of substantial ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities, and political domination of the state apparatus, the judiciary and the media. It ruled on behalf of crony Malay capitalists cultivated through a system of entrenched racial discrimination giving preference to Malays in education, public sector jobs and business.

UMNO suffered a devastating defeat at the 2018 election and the monolith split apart. Anwar however has brought the main UMNO rump, which lost further seats at the November election, into major cabinet positions. Anwar did this at the expense of the ethnic Chinese-based Democratic Action Party (DAP)—the major partner of his Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) in his Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition. The PKR’s main support base is largely among urban Malays.

UMNO, reduced by the election to just 30 seats, was given six cabinet posts including the powerful portfolios of Defence, Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Industry. In addition, UMNO president, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who faces 47 corruption charges, was made one of the two deputy prime ministers.

The PKR with 31 seats holds eight posts including Finance (held by Anwar), Economy and Home Affairs, which controls the police. By contrast, DAP with 40 seats was given only four less important posts.

Underscoring his orientation to Malay communal parties, Anwar handed the other post of deputy prime minister to Fadillah Yusof from the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), a coalition largely formed from former politicians from UMNO or UMNO coalition partners in Sarawak.

Anwar is clearly concerned at the electoral gains made by the Islamist Parti Islam se Malaysia (PAS)—the only party to make any significant gains in the November election. It shot from 17 to 49, making it the largest party in the Dewan Rakyat. It won seats not only in its strongholds on the undeveloped east coast but also in the cosmopolitan city of Penang.

PAS made gains by appealing to the alienation of Malays from the political establishment with a combination Malay communalism and Islamic fundamentalism based on sharia law. According to the Malaysian press, Anwar made an offer to PAS to join the government, but it refused.

Anwar’s “unity” government will be no more stable that the previous three governments that came and went over the past four years. The government is riven with divisions not only over communal politics but associated differences over basic economic issues and orientation.

Anwar was expelled from UMNO in 1998, amid the 1997–1998 Asian financial crisis, while serving as deputy prime minister and finance minister to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled for over two decades, until 2002, with an iron fist.

Anwar was thrown out of UMNO by Mahathir, not because he opposed its authoritarian rule or racial policies, but because he sought to implement the International Monetary Fund’s demands for opening up the Malaysian economy, threatening the party’s crony capitalist backers. When Anwar launched anti-corruption rallies across the country, Mahathir had him arrested, beaten and eventually jailed on bogus charges of corruption and sodomy.

Anwar was eventually released but Mahathir’s successor, Najib Razak, jailed him a second time on similar trumped-up charges. However, his electoral alliance—consisting of PKR, DAP and Amanah, a breakaway from PAS—joined forces with Mahathir who had split with UMNO to form the Bersatu party and capitalised on widespread disaffection to win the 2018 election.

Anwar cut a deal with his former jailer Mahathir on the basis that Mahathir would pardon him and make Anwar prime minister after Mahathir served the initial term. While Anwar was pardoned, Mahathir was never going to fulfill the second half of the bargain as their fundamental differences on economic policy remained. Mahathir refused to step aside and ultimately broke with Bersatu.

What followed, as COVID-19 hit the population and work force, were two unstable governments, amid the health crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic and junking of public health measures at the behest of big business. The first was formed by Bersatu’s new leader Muhyiddin Yassin with PAS and UMNO. The second led by UMNO’s Ismail Sabri Yaakob was propped up by Anwar’s coalition.

Amid the worsening global crisis of capitalism, the new government will seek to impose new burdens on working people. Food inflation is already hitting the poorest layers of the population. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), food inflation in the 12 months to September hit 15 percent. Some analysts warn it could hit between 17 and 19 percent next year.

Prices are increasing sharply for basic foods that are widely used. The subgroup of milk, cheese and eggs showed the highest increase among all food subgroups, recording an 8.8 percent increase in October. The previous government imposed a price ceiling on eggs but that simply restricted supplies.

Food inflation and shortages will inevitably fuel social unrest. The current government, however, will be just as ruthless as the previous UMNO regimes in cracking down on protests and strikes as it seeks to impose the demands of business.

In his first speech, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi indicated the class interests that Anwar’s cabinet will serve, saying international investors should be reassured by the new government’s appointment.

The Curse of the Algorithm

Thomas Klikauer

Photo by and machines

Increasingly – and often by stealth as they work inside your innocent-looking search engine – algorithms have entered not just our computers and working lives. They also govern more and more eventualities of life in so-called advanced societies and elsewhere.

The existence of algorithms might be a sign of civilization, but it might also be a sign of what French philosopher Foucault calls madness. As human decision-making is handed over to machines, these machines can make rather irrational, discriminatory, and outright mad decisions.

Long gone is the time when algorithms were only used in mathematics, IT, software, and computer science. Historically, the word “algorithm” is an Arabic term meaning a decimal notation of numbers, while in Greek, arithmos is simply a number. Our modern-day arithmos or algorithm came to us via Latin’s algorismus.

In any case, an algorithm is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions. These are used to solve a class of specific problems. Algorithms can also be used to perform computations with feedback loops. Often, they are applied to complete calculations and data processing. More advanced algorithms can even execute automated reasoning.

They are also used in mathematical and logical tests for corporate recruitment purposes. None other than Alan Turing relied on the human-like characteristics as descriptors of a machine that cracked the Nazi code. Later he was driven to suicide by the English establishment, after, of course, he had deciphered the Enigma code, saving thousands of lives.

One of the best and most current definitions of algorithms comes from Cathy O’Neil, who noted that algorithms are opinions put into a mathematical formula. In other words, there is a person who sets up the algorithm for a specific purpose.

It remains imperative to remember that virtually all – rather scientific-looking – algorithms are plagued by hidden interests – often the interest of the users who usually asked an algorithm to be created, e.g., a company like Amazon. In other words, in many cases it is capitalism that drives the design of algorithms.

As a consequence of all this, algorithms increasingly sidestep the role of the subject and even human subjectivity when constructing knowledge, the automatic data analysis based on a mathematical formula. This chisels away the humanist project of the self. Philosophy calls this personhood.

In short, the application of algorithms weakens our ability to form and articulate what we think (e.g., search engine algorithms), what we like (Facebook algorithms), and what we want (Amazon’s algorithms).

Worse, this version of algorithmic knowledge destabilizes a core process in the construction of subjectivity. It eliminates self-reflection by deducing – or even eliminating – the active participation of the individual in the creation of knowledge. Beyond that, algorithms also endeavor to create positivistic and even behavior-manipulating knowledge. Algorithms can eradicate nearly all self-reflective and communicative facets of knowledge creation.

As algorithms are becoming more sophisticated – and are spiced up by artificial intelligence – they have the true potential of becoming independent agents in the formation of our social – and more importantly – our democratic and political society.

It may well be almost inevitable that algorithmic knowledge will attempt to compete with and potentially even bypass, a particular and above all – still! – the unique aspect of being human: our individuality, agency, and subjectivity.

Most deceptively, the apostles of algorithm assure the user that algorithms will grow the realm of personal freedom as these systems offer a richer, much more truthful, and much more precise form of knowledge. The positivist ideology of neutrality is always a helpful vehicle when  corporate interests need to be camouflaged through engineering-like “techno-solutionism” – they misbelieve that all problems have a technical solution.

Essentially algorithms contain the deeply ideological promise to make our workplace and society freer, filled with more emancipated human beings. In reality, algorithms can very easily do the exact opposite. Algorithms – mostly automatically – order data and things. They create a new, and most importantly automated, order of things – the order of the automatic algorithm. Potentially, this might be even worse than what French philosopher Foucault outlined in his seminal masterpiece “The Order of Things”.

In other words, algorithms establish – if not cement and solidify – an existing social and economic order. For algorithms to work, it requires no subjects at all. Instead, human subjects are turned into objects of power, as outlined by the Polish-British philosopher Bauman, though they do not live up to Wittgenstein’s dream of leaving everything as it is.

Wittgenstein may not like it, but algorithmic computer systems do constitute an entirely new regime of knowledge  based on opinions turned into mathematical equations. And these new systems have – and will continue to have – a huge impact on contemporary work, management as well as social and, of course, consumer life. While gaining increasing importance, the world of algorithms remains largely unregulated and exists outside of the domain of democratically assured regulation.

Almost inherently, many – if not most – algorithms are, in fact, future-oriented. They are designed to predict future behavior and worse, control and manipulate human behavior. One of the most sophisticated uses of algorithms can be found in Amazon. Some might be tempted to claim that Amazon knows that you will buy condoms or diapers before you do!

To do that, the people behind algorithms need to construct a particular type of a human being. This is a human being that is predictable – and hopefully controllable. In turn, these data produced by human beings and collected, analyzed, and used against human beings can be used to refine the algorithm further.

This is done in the hope that all this will lead to, among other things, improved crime fighting, euphemistically known as predictive policing, that often replicates entrenched prejudice. Algorithms are also used to improve corporate profits, as in the case of Amazon.

For algorithms to deliver on this, corporations like Amazon need to know who we are, where we live, what we like and don’t like, and what we want and buy. Beyond that, algorithms also like to assume a dormant subjectivity, a subject that is really more of an object – the hidden object inside us – that can be commercialized and turned into something useful to corporations.

Such an individual becomes structured within the contours of a mathematical formula that is used in an algorithmic environment. Worse, such an individual whose behavior can be predicted, measured, controlled, and ideally manipulated can rather easily become an Uber-engineered human being. This algorithm-driven individual is imagined to be radically different from the way an individual was once imagined under modernity.

Since the people who set up algorithms create a kind of knowledge-making machine, they see human reality in a very particular way. This reality is radically different from the who and what we are today. This represents an entirely new Malaise of Modernity.

Of course, such algorithms have already become a new form of a kind of non-democratic – and, if you will, corporate-driven – governing agent that predicts, manages, controls, and even manipulates human life, consumers, and perhaps even entire populations.

This can be done without the need for any form of what might be called knowledge of critical subjectivity. This is what German philosopher Adorno calls the mündige individual, a self-reflective, self-critical, mature, and autonomously acting individual.

Almost necessarily, algorithms need to work behind the backs of those “for” (or better “against”) whom they are designed. These systems remain opaque while their invisible script runs behind a colorful computer screen.

Meanwhile, their ramifications are increasingly apparent to all of us. Algorithms already make not just an aesthetic judgment for you but also hiring decisions for the human resource manager, among others.

Perhaps even more damaging is the fact that algorithms make those decisions not “with” you but “for” or, in many cases, “against” you. Consequently, algorithms promote a mode of non-communicative knowledge. This is the utter destruction of what German philosopher Habermas calls communicative action and ideal speech.

A world where Habermas’ ideal speech hardly exists but which is increasingly governed by algorithms is the world of corporate management. Overall, one might say that the level of algorithmic management differs from company to company, perhaps with  bottle-peeing Amazon on the “full-scale” end of the spectrum.

The Society of Automotive Engineers has introduced a useful categorisation of algorithmic management (AlgoM). They note six levels:

While it might be hard to predict where management is going even in the near future, one might like to argue that management’s self-interest is not to move to level 6 of full AlgoM. This might render a large section – or even management as such – obsolete.

On the other hand, corporate accounting demands greatest profits with the least people, so revenue goes up. Hence, Musk fired 5,000 Twitter workers very recently.

And for that, top management might replace middle management and workers by moving towards full AlgoM. At this level, algorithms define virtually all performance, evaluation, and control functions “without” the involvement of real managers.

Whether in management as AlgoM, at the police, or in corporations such as Amazon, algorithms offer a radically new and very different way of knowing, understanding, shaping, and manipulating the world and – worse – the individual.

Algorithms have the power to change the very foundations of what it means to know, to understand, and to reach decisions. Yet, it remains imperative that these algorithms and the purpose-built knowledge they create are not solely understood in mathematical, engineering, and technical terms. As opinions are placed in mathematical formulas, algorithms increasingly underwrite many operations in business and in society.

Algorithms provide a very different conception of what it means to be human. Algorithms break the human-knowledge link as they seek – and, in fact, do – create knowledge that is gradually disconnected from subjective individuals.

As a consequence of all this, algorithms need to be understood not just as one of the most recent, but also as perhaps the most severe threat to human life as we know it.