It's hilarious to me that most people in European countries will think this about their own country. I should know, as a Belgian having lived in Sweden with friends all over.
A 40% overall tax rate is among the highest, but about the same level as Belgium or Denmark as far as I understand. 4900€ gross as an average definitely isn't bad, though - that would probably be more like 3500€ here.
As to your conclusion of a "failed state": am I correct in assuming that like in Belgium, France, Holland and to a minor degree Sweden, the valuation of management types is much higher than any technical functions (i.e. engineers, programmers, devops) in Germany?
AND, these day jobs are fluid, just because someone works a mundane job does not mean that's their only job/contribution to society. In fact, the fact that they work a low demand job can enables them to be more entrepreneurial/creative/commit to their community/family, as opposed to some devs who spend every awaking moment perfecting their craft, only to use that skill to help some corporate sell people things they don't need.
AND, you're paying taxes for all the social services/safety net you're entitled, so you don't have to live in constant fear and save like crazy like people from Ukraine or Asia where I'm from.
Central European companies seem to outsource so much development work to Barcelona. You'd think that salaries would start increasing there by now.
The average salary is 4900 Euro and after tax this will be 2900 Euro !!! Even software engineers in a poor country like Ukraine make more money after tax than that and they also have much lower expenses comparing to Germany.
So why someone living in Germany will spend a lot of time for study, learning all the technologies etc if you will only earn 15% more money than a cleaning guy without any education and who can spend all his free time with friends instead of improving qualification?
So Germany is a failed state for software developers.