Europe to Germany: your eurocrisis 'answers' don't work for us

"If Merkel changes her mind, other things could change," Mr. Fitoussi says. "But I don't think she will. Strengthening the German doctrine is what is making Germany the political leader of Europe … even though in economics, as in politics, might almost never makes right."

Nor has Germany itself held to its own doctrine of austerity in times of crisis. It was not held to such policies by Allied forces after World War II and it did not impose austerity on East Germany after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. 

“If the Allies, and later the government of Germany itself, had practiced what the Germans are now preaching, Germany today would be a much poorer country,” says Robert Kuttner, editor of the American Prospect. He cites the political philosopher Edmund Burke, addressing King George III about the American colonists on the eve of the American Revolution: "The question with me is not whether you have a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make them happy."

Today Germany is a very reluctant leader of Europe, says a Scandinavian diplomat in Berlin. But at the same time, the diplomat adds, “it is too easy, and paradoxical, for Germany to preach austerity. Not everyone can export their way out of debt. Do the math. Not everyone can have surpluses, and demand in Europe is very far down.”

The German model derives from something called ordoliberalism, a German variant of neoliberalism. For Germans, it is responsible for the golden years of growth and recovery after World War II.

“Ordoliberalism is what Angela Merkel wants for the Eurozone as a whole: rigid rules and legal frameworks beyond the reach of democratic decision-making,” writes Princeton’s Jan-Werner Müller in the London Review of Books.

Yet the ordoliberal model comes out of Germany’s specific history; it won’t necessarily work universally, critics say. Austerity has the effect of hammering the European neoliberal system more firmly into place, says Santiago Zabala of the University of Barcelona. It works for the strong. The policies of the IMF, the European Commission, and the European Central Bank are not "racist," he says, but they are "metaphysically violent" since they banish and exclude any other ideas about the market.

"If for the benefit of the Union, we must submit to measures that inflict social injuries upon our weakest citizens," Mr. Zabala says, "it's worth asking whether the euro is worth saving."

German leaders have sold their policies based on Germany’s remarkable export success story, Whyte adds. The argument masks Germany’s own crying need for reform, he says. “Turning the eurozone into a larger version of present-day Germany would have adverse consequences… not just for Germany but also for Europe and the world economy.”

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