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Notes -
Does Germany abolish itself? https://grauwacht.substack.com/p/does-germany-abolish-itself
Schafft Deutschland sich ab? https://grauwacht.substack.com/p/schafft-deutschland-sich-ab
I analyze the latest PISA results to figure out why Germany's performance has declined so much in recent years. My focus is on figuring out the extend to which changes in migration patterns can explain the decline. I won't post the entire post here because it has a lot of figures and will be disjointed to read. Remember to subscribe!
Introduction
In 2010, the book "Deutschland schafft sich ab" (Germany Abolishes Itself) was created by Thilo Sarrazin. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. Sarrazin's core thesis on the topic of education can be roughly summarized as follows:
The German birth rate is low, with less than 1.4 children per woman. This is contrasted by a large number of migrants, especially from Muslim countries, who have higher birth rates.
Many migrants have educational deficits compared to the German population.
Even after several generations, these migrants do not catch up with German society. This is due to genetic and cultural inheritance as well as little pressure to integrate.
In the long run, Germany’s educational achievements will deteriorate due to this demographic change.
Sarrazin's critics argued that he was right about some things, but that he painted too bleak a picture and mixed truths with falsehoods. They pointed out, for example, that there had been progress in the area of education among Turks, a large Muslim immigrant group. Against the background of the recently published PISA study, in which Germany performed miserably, it seems appropriate to re-examine Sarrazin's thesis. In particular, I will use the latest PISA study to answer the question of whether, and to what extent, migration aspects play a role in the continuous decline of German education...
It did not abolish itself, it is occupied and the occupiers will ensure that Germany is kept in line with their ideology. The Germans knew full well what would happen if the Americans and Soviets would take over the world and there is a reason why they fought tooth and nail to stop it. The foresight of German thinkers in the 20s and 30s was astonishing and they understood the direction the anglosphere was taking.
Are you trying to defend Nazi Germany here?
They were fighting for a homogenous high trust society that was self-sufficient and built to last. They fought against communists and liberals who wanted a centralized global order with bland global materialism. They defended Europe from Stalin and their loss is turning western Europe into North Africa/middle east. Germany would not be in severe demographic decline with large scale third world immigration if they had won. They wouldn't have suffered the cultural decay that comes with Stalinism and bland American consumerism.
This sort of romantic neo-nazi image is ridiculous. The Nazis were not high trust. In fact they were the total opposite, a heap of the most venal, odious, dishonourable bandits to ever come out of Germany (which is saying something). They had no concerns for honour or trust or mercy, no respect for the traditional religion of Europe, no respect for the ancient peoples of Europe. They started vast wars over money and land, lied habitually, ran a horribly corrupt state built on exploitation and outright slavery, and slaughtered millions.
Nor was their state really ever intended to be self sufficient. From the start, the intention was to loot, conquer and subjugate their neighbours. Indeed, the German nationalist project was mostly complete by 1938 with the annexations of Austria and the Germanized regions of Czechoslovakia, and scarcely a peep from the Allies. But the Nazis dreamed of imperial domination and glory, not self sufficiency. Instead of rallying the nations of Europe against Bolshevism ( an easy task), Hitler squandered his credibility. By the end of WWII even anti communists like Churchill were drinking with Stalin, and it was left to the US to establish an anti communist front in Europe - well, the half of it that was left.
It's interesting because we have a much better example of reactionary "we don't do globalism here"autarky from the 1940s - Franco, who carefully avoided entanglement in either WWII or the postwar international order. That didn't work either, but he failed with more grace and less bloodshed than Hitler.
It's darkly funny that the first thing Franco did after (according to Franco) preventing a communist revolution in Iberia was implement a disastrous, ideologically motivated economic policy, causing a massive famine which killed hundreds of thousands of people and miring Spain in dire poverty for two decades. It's like that Spongebob meme where they're celebrating while the city burns in the background, "we did it, Hitler, we saved Spain from bolshevism!"
I don't know about famine. I knew the autarky years were very rough for Spain, especially coming after years of civil war.
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Franco didn't have that much of a choice after 1945.
The policy discussed was implemented from the late 1930s, not 1945.
Well, yeah, thank you very much, you’re indeed correct that Franco’s austere policy of economic self-reliance and self-reinforcement was akshually implemented from the beginning. I’m no economist, but I’m pretty sure that a liberal economic policy of free trade, foreign investment, wide-ranging reforms and growing interconnectedness isn’t feasible when a) the entire continent is engulfed in all-out war b) you are an isolated and detested pariah in international politics because Hitler and Mussolini militarily assisted in your seizure of power. I didn’t state this in detailed terms because I assumed most visitors here understand this, and I didn’t want to post a verbose reply. Again, excuse the snark please.
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The difference is that Franco learned from his mistake and Spain converged with western standards of living over the latter half of his reign.
So did the Red Chinese but I wouldn't give them props for that.
I would, actually, give deng credit for economic growth, although less than Franco because he never caught up with his neighbors. The gulf between the PRC and Japan/South Korea/Taiwan is much bigger than the pretty small Spain/italy gap.
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