AfD has f'd up views on many things. I wouldn't even be surprised if they would vote for it, as soon as they are in a position of power. However in its current state, they would hurt themselfs with a chat control law. So yes, your a right. I would also not expect them to vote for it.

Considering there is a high chance AfD use private chat services to basically conspire and plan a fascist takeover of the state, it’s in their interest that their messages remain private.

While you can force law abiding people to give up their encryption because it's against the law there's no way to prevent encryption from being used by people that are already violating several laws...

However, for the same reason, it's in everybody else's best interest that an organisation that might be taken over by fascists not have access to a panopticon.

I think that "everybody else" include literal fascists. Nazi's Gestapo had serious issues with Wernher von Braun to the point Hitler had to be bothered. East Germany's Stasi had more personnel per capita than Russian KGB had. They would know that a secret police in a German state isn't a great idea regardless of ideology.

Had Hitler not able to stop Gestapo from sending von Braun to a death camp, not only history of spaceflight would have been delayed by decades, but the associated reputational bonuses to postwar Germany as "genius tech nerds that made a gross mistake" had been way lower. Not having the panopticon and just keeping freedom of speech and privacy as they are removes that type of risk. No way that serious neo-Nazis wouldn't think about that.

> No way that serious neo-Nazis wouldn't think about that.

Unless Germany's serious neo-Nazis are especially wiser than America's equivalent far-right groups (which have played the political game well enough to achieve significant power already), I am not sure current evidence supports this supposition.

I wouldn't assume this to be their position were they already in power. They however need votes to get into power to implement that takeover. Parties like this inherently need to run on a (deceptive) populist platform for the plan to work.

The Verfassungsschutz disagrees with you.

The Verfassungsschutz is anything but objective.

And even if: They don't at all claim that the AfD plans a "fascist takeover". I've read the whole report. Did you?

Sure. That is why the former boss had to step down. But by now they surely weeded out all the nazi sympathisers?

Are you aware of the NSU case?

"They don't at all claim that the AfD plans a "fascist takeover""

But no, they don't claim that. They claim parts of the AfD plan a fascist takeover.

they also don’t claim the last thing.

"https://netzpolitik.org/2025/verdachtsfall-rechtsextremismus..."

Then maybe read again.

"Der Verfassungsschutz belegt Bestrebungen gegen das Demokratieprinzip in der AfD. Auf allen Ebenen der Partei wird demnach die demokratische Nachkriegsentwicklung der Bundesrepublik diffamiert sowie der Staat und die Parteien verunglimpft. „Gewichtigen Teilen der Partei“ geht es „nicht mehr um eine scharfe kritische Auseinandersetzung in der Sache“. Stattdessen soll das Vertrauen in die verfassungsmäßige Ordnung „von Grund auf erschüttert“ werden, damit „die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung als Ganzes fragwürdig erscheine“.

Der Verfassungsschutz belegt Bestrebungen gegen das Rechtsstaatsprinzip in der AfD. In der Partei wird demnach die Gewaltenteilung abgelehnt, das staatliche Gewaltmonopol infrage gestellt und sich auf ein vermeintlich legitimes Widerstandsrecht berufen. Einerseits ergeben diese Aussagen laut Gutachten „kein verfestigtes Bild innerhalb der Gesamtpartei“. Andererseits wäre die Verwirklichung der „menschenwürdewidrigen und diskriminierenden Vorstellungen letztlich nicht ohne eine Verletzung des Rechtsstaatsprinzips umsetzbar“."

"Bei einer Kundgebung in Merseburg (ST) am 25. Mai 2020 konstatierte Daniel Wald (MdL, ST), dass im Zuge der Corona-Maßnahmen eine „Gesundheitsdiktatur“ errichtet worden sei, gegen die er zum Widerstand aufrief:

    „Die Not unseres Volkes fordert nicht mehr nur Worte, sondern endlich Taten. Wir sind deshalb keine Verschwörungstheoretiker. Im Gegenteil: Wir sind Verschwörer. Wir verschwören uns als Bürger, als echte Opposition, als ganzes Volk gegen den Komplex aus Systemmedien, Gewerkschaften und Altparteienfilz, die sich unseren Staat schon längst zur Beute gemacht haben. Wir, die AfD, stehen dabei an der Spitze des Widerstands, bis in diesem Volk wieder eine Politik gemacht wird, die im Dienste unseres Volkes steht.“"

There are hundreds of statement verifying their goals of a violent takeover. They don't respect any of the democratic institution. They refer positiv to Nazi germany. They are connected to the literal Nazis of today.

That is called preparing for a fascist takeover.

this is your reading my friend. in your whole quote, there is no mentioning of the word “fascist”.

also nothing about “violent takeover”. if you take those statements to mean that, then what is Antifa doing? Or XR? Or the pro-pallies?

ah right. only radical left is allowed to use “violence”, right?

So .. you are saying because modern fascists seldom use the term fascist for themself, they ain't no fascist?

Well, to me it is enough if people subscribe openly to all the main ideology of Hitlers party and that time in general.

If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and swims like a duck, it is a duck.

Höcke can be officially called a Fascist due to his statements. Was he removed from the party? Or shunned even a little?

Not as far as I am aware.

If a party negates the democratic foundations of the state they are - they do, see the quotes

If they connect with people and organisations who openly call for the nationalistic revolution - they do, see the quotes.

And if the Verfassungsschutz collects all that and labels them "largely radical right extremism" .. then it say exactly what I was saying. Preparation for a violent uprising. Just not in immediate action, otherwise they would be forbidden.

He is just a bought troll, ignore him. Most of his comments got deleted from hn, just look at his profile. The ones he made here don’t even show up.

Edit: I mean the one with lol in his name.

Thank you. I got triggered ..

It's not that the so-called "modern fascists" don't use the term, it's that the VS does not even use the term. Not that it matters because it lost any meaning anyway.

Also the AfD does not subscribe to the main ideology of Hitlers party. Did you read the party's program? Where in god's name do you find anything in there that can be compared to the program of the NSDAP? The AfD is in large parts much more liberal than any of the other parties when it comes to the economic side of things. The AfD is also not against immigration per se, as long as it provides a benefit for teh country. Much like countries like Canada do. If you don't believe me, watch some speeches from their members, for instance the one that took place in Hannover a while ago. Don't believe just randomly what some leftist ARD/ZDF journalists want you to believe.

DieLinke on the other hand is a direct follow-up party from the SED. They want to end our capitalistic system and replace it with democratic socialism. That's 1:1 SED.

Anway, coming to Höcke. Höcke is far-right. For sure. Is he extreme? Does he want to use violence? Nope. I don't think so. It looks like people elect him in a demogratic elections. Does he say things that are on the edge? Sure! Is that his right: YES! If you don't like him, then don't vote for him. Attack his arguments with your own arguments. Labelling him fascist is a poor tactic and doesn't mean anything anymore anyway.

And you know. You base your arguments on the Verfassungsschutz. I think its a biased agency that should be removed from power as soon as possible. Same as with most of the judges, especially the radical left judges in Berlin. And I know, I know, you will call this now "anti-democratic" or whatever. Well, in a democracy, it is my RIGHT and my DUTY to critique the powers that be. That also includes the judges. Left wingers did that as well, until they successfully conducted their marche throught the institutions. Now, they LOVE the institutions. Don't believe me? The Greens SUED at the Verfassungsgericht, I think in 1983, AGAINST Germanys entry in the EU. Together with the Republicans. The reason? The EU is anti-democratic. Well, they lost because the Verfassungsgericht was pro-EU back then. However, now they LOVE the EU. Were TheGreens now less democratic than they are now? Were TheGreens "fascists" or "Nazis" or whatever you wanna call them becasue they dared to critize the institutions? The answer is no. And so aren't people that are critizing the current institutions.

And finally, to the guy claiming that I am a troll and that my posts are hidden. That's bs. I posted here maybe 10 times. And I am not a troll but a sincere citizen who just happens to really like the AfD and what it stands for.

"You base your arguments on the Verfassungsschutz."

I live in saxony ffs.

So I do believe you are not a payed troll, as I had countless debates with people like you.

I just don't believe you really have a intention of having a honest debate here.

You only become a Verdachtsfall when your organization is deemed to want to dismantle the state, get rid of rule of law or want to erase basic human rights.

AfD is consistently the pro-choice and pro-personal-freedom party in Germany. They are the only party advocating for an unrestricted American-style free speech and against all kinds of government mandates that other mainstream political parties are pushing.

You may disagree (or agree) with many of their other views, but as an opposition party, they are precisely the corrective Germany and Europe need to keep the power-hungry elites in check.

They voted to ban the terms vegan sausage and vegan burger just earlier today. So much about being pro free speech.

Votes by party affiliation and name to verify this can be accessed here: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-10-2025-10-...

As an American currently in Germany, the food situation is soooo much better here and they would do well to not allow incorrect or misleading labels on consumer products. I understand what you’re saying about censorship, but this is a pretty weak example, IMO. We had something similar in the US with attempts to ban the word “milk” from “almond milk” [0]. Are there other examples that are more egregious?

[0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/almond-milk-can-keep...

I dont understand that view : peanut butter, coconut milk, cacao butter and plenty, plenty others exemples exist probably since languages apparition. A vegetal burger shouldn’t be called beef burger obviously but we all know what almond milk means. The misleading argument isn’t serious but an attempt to block a cultural changes some don’t like or profit from.

Further, then the term beef shouldn’t be allowed.

They should call it what it is. Cow corpse flesh.

The concept of calling a food that is meant to mimic another food with an appropriate modifier in front has existed forever.

So, for example, white chocolate isn’t chocolate…but with the appropriate modifier no one is confused about it.

In English, we frequently use the French-derived version of the same animal to mean the food version.

I agree with you on white chocolate (and Hershey’s chocolate bar for that matter).

Also, in regards to the “cow corpse flesh” comment, I think we (particularly Americans) are far too detached from the fact that eating meat is downstream from killing an animal. If we had more appreciation for that fact, perhaps we would be eating more plant-forward meals. Whether or not that would lead to a decrease in obesity or other co-morbidities would be interesting to test.

It’s not misleading in any way for consumers though. The consumer protection agency in Germany explicitly stated that no consumers have been confused so far (https://www.wiwo.de/100160889.html). The vegan/vegetarian sausages such as the soja sausage, which Konrad Adenauer invented more than 100 years ago, are in a completely different section and shelf in the supermarket and clearly marked as vegetarian. This law is a clear example of the government banning people from calling their products what they are and it is the opposite of free speech.

Can't even label Round Up as a soft drink anymore. smh. Damn totalitarian right!

AfD is classified as extreme-right not only in the eyes of the public, but also by German intelligence. Therefore I'd personally expect them to support potential tools that authoritarian governments would find useful.

They are not in government just yet. But if they gain control, expect their position to change. That's why it is critical to reverse government positions across the block, or we'll see a new authoritarian wave sweep Europe.

The authoritarian wave already happened?

I have over 50% of my income taken from me into a collapsing welfare state/pension system, live in centrally planned tiny apartment developments, and my employer is actively leaving Europe due to the energy (and military) insecurity and economic failings of the entire region.

At least they will still let me leave…for now. But politicians are currently trying to vote in policies that will seize my money and company too when I try to leave.

The USSR was supposed to be a cautionary tale. Not a guidebook!

- All your fellow citizens keep voting for said welfare state/pension system (which is undoubtedly pro-Boomer and has unsustainably low retirement ages and large benefits).

- The lack of energy security is because the Red/Greens convinced everywhere except France (go Framatome!) to give up nuclear. I wonder why resource rich Russia would push such an outcome...

- Europe needs to spend its savings to get nuclear going again, with a massive construction program for nuclear, solar, hydro, batteries. It also needs battery tech re-capitalisation to keep its car industry viable.

- Leaving won't make it better, it is the same or worse in most places you could go.

Nuclear energy is very expensive and does not necessarily provide energy security. You just have to check on the energy usage in France during the summer, when the nuclear power plants had to be shut down repeatedly now. Pushing nuclear power would neither provide reliable nor cheap energy. The route forward is solar, hydro, wind and batteries.

Nuclear, while not cheap, is clean. Coal and Gas account for 40% of Germany's energy production. All this endless talk about nuclear and whatnot, but other EU country's have been net neutral for CO2 emissions for a while now. A goal that Germany will never reach.

Nuclear is not clean. It causes toxic nuclear waste that will still be radioactive when our civilization ends, radiating the humans of the future. CO2 emissions are also still caused by it, and would grow when mining for nuclear material got harder by continued usage.

> other EU country's have been net neutral for CO2 emissions for a while now.

No EU country has achieved that, to my knowledge. It would be very surprising giving the EU energy mix and the petrol based traffic sector. Sources please.

> Coal and Gas account for 40% of Germany's energy production

Which means 60% is renewable, and that part is actually growing.

> CO2 emissions are also still caused by it, and would grow when mining for nuclear material got harder by continued usage.

Not nearly even in the same ballpark as setting fossil fuels on fire, or do you have any sources that show otherwise?

The low figure of CO2 usage often cited is based on an estimation you can read at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1530-9290.... I don't remember it giving a clear estimate on how much it rises, but that is understandable, as already the current estimate is not a reliable figure.

But it's the wrong comparison. Nuclear energy is not to be replaced with fossil energy, but with renewables. So that "advantage" is completely irrelevant.

> Nuclear energy is not to be replaced with fossil energy, but with renewables. So that "advantage" is completely irrelevant.

This is exactly what Germany did tho.

> Nuclear is not clean

The EU court agrees with me. I trust it to have more knowledge than either of us. Nuclear is low-carbon. End of story. You can deal with toxic waste easily. [1]

> adiating the humans of the future.

Gas and coal produce more radiation than nuclear energy.

> CO2 emissions are also still caused by it, and would grow when mining for nuclear material got harder by continued usage.

But they would not grow comparable to burning actual stuff. Not even close. You are being disingenious.

> No EU country has achieved that, to my knowledge. It would be very surprising giving the EU energy mix and the petrol based traffic sector. Sources please.

Sorry, mistake on my part, I meant low carbon electricity (so not burning literal poison, like Germany). Let's take France, the very country you critiqued [2]. Or Norway. Or Switzerland [3]. Now, compare it with Germany [4]. Note that every country that achieves a high score can either rely on geothermal energy or hydro, neither of which is reliably useable in Germany. So for anyone who can't make use of these technologies, nuclear is the only option.

> Which means 60% is renewable, and that part is actually growing.

There is a hard limit here for Germany. We are not a prime candidate for neither wind nor thermal energy, so our renewable mix actually decreased this year, back to 55%. [5] We need a flexible backup option for situations like this. The only option is either continuing to burn dirty fuel, go back to nuclear energy or to make ourselves eternally dependent to buy electricity from other EU states (which is the current plan).

[1]: https://apnews.com/article/europe-nuclear-energy-natural-gas...

[2]: https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/France

[3]: https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Switzerland

[4]: https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Germany

[5]: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...

You can not deal with toxic waste easily, as all attempts to do so have shown. See https://web.archive.org/web/20140508211057/http://www.bfs.de... for a report.

Nuclear energy is decidedly not a flexible backup option for anything. Those plants are slow to regulate, have never been and will never be a backup. The solution is energy storage and producing so much more at the peak that at the low end is enough. Also, there is no problem importing from countries that do have more geothermal or hydro energy.

> But they would not grow comparable to burning actual stuff. Not even close. You are being disingenious

The comparison is invalid in the first place. It's not about nuclear vs fossil, I never did argue for fossil energy. So the comparison you opened up is bs anyway. It's a propaganda talk point of nuclear proponents that tries to mislead from the actual comparison to make, which is renewables vs the other options.

The decision of the EU court was unfortunate, stupid, and that appeal to authority does not function.

> You can not deal with toxic waste easily, as all attempts to do so have shown.

This is, factually speaking, not what attempts have shown. cf. France, cf. Canada.

> The comparison is invalid in the first place. It's not about nuclear vs fossil

This topic of discussion started with someone explicitly making the comparison about exactly that.

True, nuclear is clean, but only if the final storage question is ignored. (I would have used nuclear reactors for longer, at least so that those that were already built could work until they reach their planned end of life. But until the storage question isn't solved properly, one perhaps should not advocate for new nuclear reactors.)

The problem is nobody wants nuclear waste near their front door, even limited politicians were quick to realize that.

And yes, Germany's energy mix is a shame.

Yet it used to be very cheap. In some places it still is cheap whilst being much safer than in the past. Meanwhile the requirements for it and the processes it has to abide by are kafkaesque. Not in a double down on security way. Just plain nonsensical.

I have heard so many stories from outside and people workin in it. Things like considering refabricating the same lightbulb from some now non existant company from the 80's because that one got listed and is certified and the process to go trough to allow a new one is too cumbersome and the light went out in the toilets of some irrelevant sidebuilding. So you get a lightbulb that costs an insane amount.

Or here in belgium the greens pushed some new tests to detect microfisures deep in a ridiculously thick vat that isn't security critical that would have been there since fabrication and which nobody else in the world checks for and they shut down the place for it when found. Anything to validate their own theory that nuclear is too expensive whilst planning for new gas plants.

Meanwhile the plant in france that was shut down is because they didn't want to have an ecological impact on a nearby nature reserve. Something that indeed wasn't accounted for decades ago. At the same time one manages to have such plants running in Saudi Arabia?

Additionally Germany has spend untold amounts more on it's renewables. It still hasn't linked it's own damn grids, put strain on infrastructure and prices abroad... and those same investments won't go for nearly as long. A good part of that green wave investment already needs replacing. All whilst necessitating fossil fuel production because that capacity figure that people hold up means jack shit when it's not what they actually produce in summer and those panels in berlin produce not even a fraction of that capacity in winter.

It was never cheap. Nuclear energy got a lot of subventions which limited the prices as seen by end users, but not cheap in general. You can read a writeup of the parliamentary scientific service about that at https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/877586/4e4dce913c3d88...

A striking example is the German state having to pay for storing the nuclear waste (temporary and final, see https://www.bafa.de/DE/Wirtschaft/Handwerk_Industrie/Rueckba..., though Germany has no final storage). Also when tearing down the old plants it can happen that the state is paying for that, as in https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/atomkraft-n.... Those costs were not part of the calculated energy costs, and in the past there were further subventions for the companies that lowered the price. Those are also listed at my first link.

>Nuclear energy got a lot of subventions which limited the prices as seen by end users

You think that isn't happening even more now?

And yes it was a lot cheaper than it is now. One reason being that a lot more were built around that time in europe and our reactors actually went up in about 5 years.

Nuclear is cheap if you still have the expertise to make plants cheaply. Countries like Korea, India and China are rapidly expanding nuclear power plants, building them in the range of $2-5 billion dollars, while a smaller-sized plant in the West would set the books back by at least $5 billion. Korea is even winning bids internationally to build powerplants - first they won the bid to build the UAE's first powerplant, and more recently they won the bid to build another large powerplant in Czechia.

> All your fellow citizens keep voting for said welfare state/pension system (which is undoubtedly pro-Boomer and has unsustainably low retirement ages and large benefits).

60% of the voting block is above 55. Of course they would.

The nuclear energy thing is a lark. The German nuclear base was already old and minimal by the time those decisions were made (unless you're talking about Greens in the 90s - but they barely had any power). Fundamentally Fukushima happened and Merkel realized that the blast radius of full sized nuclear plants is too big for Germany and there's no expectation that Germany has better controls than Japan had.

Anyway, nuclear just wasn't driving big energy percentages at low prices so getting rid of it had minimal impact.

The big impact was Russian gas being severed.

> Merkel realized that the blast radius of full sized nuclear plants is too big for Germany and there's no expectation that Germany has better controls than Japan had.

Unfortunate that she didn't realize that Germany does have less devastating earthquakes and tsunamis than Japan has. Less as in effectively zero.

Merkel is like the Caracalla of modern-day EU. Responsible for 3 of the biggest crises that the union is currently facing today. I do not know why people give a damn about that hag when all she did was stand up to Trump and laugh at him (while cozying up to Putin who threatened her with a dog, literally).

> The lack of energy security is because the Red/Greens convinced everywhere except France (go Framatome!) to give up nuclear. I wonder why resource rich Russia would push such an outcome...

This is completely untrue. The Atomaustieg happened under Merkel (CDU) and was catalyzed by Fukushima. That's democracy, for you, btw.

The current energy "crisis" was due to idiotic trust (CDU/SPD) in Russia's goodwill and consequently opting for huge structural natural gas dependency. Foreign energy dependency wouldn't change with with nuclear power, since uranium isn't mined in Germany. Russia actually is a major uranium exporter (btw still supplying the US). Uranium mines are a horrible dirty shit show, western nations tend to outsource...

Another grave mistake was discontinuing the funding/support of renewable energy industry and research, where Germany was leading once. Now, China rules in solar manufacturing. Germany still got game for wind energy, tho.

Germany does not have a need for "base load" nuclear power plants, we need a substitute for gas power plants, which can be easily turned on/off as needed. Factually, no one in the energy industry in Germany wants to go nuclear, again. It's just not economical, sensible (as for time scales) or overall competitive with renewables (unless less regulated/dangerous, enormously substituted).

Overall, we got mostly off Russian gas dependency exceptionally well and quick, all things considered, because of pragmatic green politics at the time (Habeck's image suffered because of deliberate smear campaigns, not because of severe factual failings). Lights stayed on, things kept moving, under downright hostile conditions. Renewable energy is booming. You see solar everywhere, no matter the political alignment.

Considering the real threat of war with Russia, distributed renewables are an invaluable asset. Try bombing wind power or solar... gonna get expensive. Many houses here are becoming quasi autarkic for heating, electricity and mobility, due to household solar panels, heat pumps, energy storage in electric cars and dedicated batteries. A central multi-GW nuclear power plant is a huge liability for national security, especially, since Germany is existentially dependent on the French and UK strategic nuclear deterrent. (US not reliable/trustworthy anymore.)

The only sensible reason to build reactors in Germany would be breading/enriching weapons-grade fission material, for self-sufficient nuclear defense... Which I don't see happening really.

> This is completely untrue. The Atomaustieg happened under Merkel (CDU) and was catalyzed by Fukushima. That's democracy, for you, btw.

So, when the government does something populistic (with majority support) that is bad for the country, it's a democracy.

But when the government refuses to do something populistic (with majority support) that is good for the country, that's also democracy.

Looks like our democracy #unsereDemokratie it is not possible to do good, only harmful dealings are allowed :)

I suggest you read the German constitution, if you have questions about these sort of things.

https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/BJNR000010949.html

I suggest you explain your point here instead of dropping random links in a typical passive-aggressive way that suggests the poster has no clue and needs to be educated about the basics. That may work in your SPD Kreisverband, but not in a digital Neuland.

If you have questions about how to respond, this is a good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_alphabet

>>I have over 50% of my income taken from me into a collapsing welfare state/pension system

That's incredibly high - where do you live if you don't mind saying?

Anywhere in Germany? Our pre-tax income is pre-pre-taxed. Before your employer pays out your wage, they are taxed for it as well.

> Anywhere in Germany? Our pre-tax income is pre-pre-taxed. Before your employer pays out your wage, they are taxed for it as well.

What? No. I'm an employer in Germany and I can tell you that's wrong.

People frequently hold remarkably strong opinions on a system they appear to have very little understanding about.

Yea, and it's the guy above ironically. If I add my net here [1], I can see that I land pretty much exactly at 49.7% of my wage being deducted from when my employer pays me to where it lands on my bank account.

[1]: https://www.steuertipps.de/service/rechner/brutto-netto-geha...

Then you should really have a look at either your payroll or this simple calculator: https://www.steuertipps.de/service/rechner/brutto-netto-geha...

Well, correct me if I'm wrong - but according to this random website I found in 5 seconds of googling:

https://www.expat.hsbc.com/expat-explorer/expat-guides/germa...

The highest band of income tax in Germany is 45% and obviously that's only on any amount over the threshold - so even if you make that much money your effective tax rate will be closer to 30% than 50%.

So unless I'm missing something - I don't see how Germans could be paying 50% tax on their earnings?

> Well, correct me if I'm wrong - but according to this random website I found in 5 seconds of googling:

I will, because you are! Unfortunately, it's really easy because the German government applies a simple slight of hand. They call it a "gross employer contribution", which increases this band of income tax beyond the 45% you pay after the GEC. [1]

It works like this: As your employer is paying your wage, amount X, they pay half of your contribution to social insurance companies. This so called "employer contribution" is subtracted before you are paid out your gross wage, amount Y, which you see on your pay slip. Now, on amount Y, you pay the other half of social insurance fees and taxes. Then you get your net, amount Z. Most sources you will find online will only talk about Y and what is subtracted to get to Z. But your employer pays your full wage for what your work is worth, and they of course are not as nice to gift your one half of social insurance payments to you.

[1]: https://publikationen.bundesbank.de/publikationen-de/bericht...

I mean sure, but does that actually add up to over 50% of your income? Here in the UK it works exactly the same as you described, but the NI is 10% of your income - even if you are in the highest band for incomne tax(also 45%) you wouldn't get to 50% overall, maybe if you make millions a year that average would start getting close to 50% (and if you do, congrats!)

And can I comment on the fact that Germany seems to be incredibly generous with their bands - the 45% band only kicks in at 280k euro, so like maybe 0.00001% of all workers are in that band? Here in the UK you start paying 45% from £125k and up.

Anyway - the reason why I'm asking is because UK taxes and social obligations seem to be crazy high as it is, but even they won't get you to 50% total, not unless you literally make millions in income per year.

I don't know about Germany, but in France for 100k gross salary, the employer social contributions will be around 40k, the employee social contributions another 20.5k, then 15.5k income tax.

In the end 140k that employer pays result in less than 64k take-home salary. The real tax rate is around 54%. So, I can't verify what OP says about Germany but I can easily believe it.

You can see chatgpt calculations here (and they do match my experience): https://chatgpt.com/share/68e64456-020c-800b-8443-1a2726e9a3...

Right, but I've never met anyone who looks at it this way - this part: "the employer social contributions will be around 40k"

Is not your salary. This is what the employer has to pay to keep you. So even in your example your tax on your earnings is around 35%. The fact that the employer has to pay another 40k to keep you employed is......well, shocking, but I wouldn't say that's a tax rate on your earnings - for the simple reason that if the government reduced the employer contribution to zero it wouldn't change anything about your take home salary(unless your employer decided to be generous and give you a raise).

> Right, but I've never met anyone who looks at it this way - this part: "the employer social contributions will be around 40k". Is not your salary.

I don't know, maybe you should speak more to people about this. Literally everyone who I discussed it with (like dozens of people) see it in the same way:

* There's the money your employer spends to pay your salary

* There's the money you take home

* Everything in between is the government tax. There's absolutely no difference between "employer social contributions" and "employee social contributions" except in the name

Well now I kind of know one person who sees it differently, but this PoV still doesn't make sense to me.

> for the simple reason that if the government reduced the employer contribution to zero it wouldn't change anything about your take home salary(unless your employer decided to be generous and give you a raise).

Believe it or not, but for multi-national companies job offers in France are smaller for this very reason: you have a fixed budget to hire an employee, you subtract the "employers contributions" and calculate the gross salary you can offer in various countries where you have legal entities. There's also the "adjust to local market part", it's not a single-factor formula of course, but "contributions" play a huge role in it. After all budget is budget, you can go lower if you like but you can't go higher.

> Believe it or not, but for multi-national companies job offers in France are smaller for this very reason: you have a fixed budget to hire an employee, you subtract the "employers contributions" and calculate the gross salary you can offer in various countries where you have legal entities.

This! It's hard for me how some people can't see this.

We can see it, it's obvious that the system in France(and other EU countries) works this way, it's just not really relevant when talking about salary. When I sign an employment contract for 100k euro that's my income. The fact that the employer then has to pay another 40k or 100k or a 1M euro on top of it to keep me employed is not really relevant because it's not my salary - it's their cost to keep me employed. The main proof being in two things

1) like I asked you in another comment - if that contribution was removed, I'm sure you wouldn't feel like you got a paycut.

2) if that did happen, your employer wouldn't magically decide to give that money to you instead, right? It is not and never was your income.

Well obviously, yes, but again, I don't know anyone who looks at it this way. If your salary is £100k and you know your effective tax rate is 35% then you're taking home £65k a year. I don't know how much on top of that my employer is paying in contributions, if it's another £100k on top or zero - and frankly I don't really care? The negotiated salary is £100k/pa and that's what anyone uses as a number of their compensation, if I ask you your salary and you say it's €140k but that's including my employers social contributions......that's just weird? Are jobs advertised this way in France?

Edit:

I just want to add one more thing - this entire comment chain started by OP saying, and I quote "I have over 50% of my income taken from me into a collapsing welfare state/pension system".

The money that the employer pays to have you employed isn't your income, so adding it to your total earnings and saying "well I'm paying 50% of my income to the state" is just not correct. The employer probably pays money for the office and a desk for you to sit at, but it's not your income - it's part of their cost to keep you employed. I will say it again - if those costs dropped down to zero, you wouldn't say your income is now smaller, would you?

No, I'm sorry but this is just pointless, arguing about some technicality like "you can't call that income". That doesn't matter, these are just words.

What matters in real life is the size of the cut the government gets from the employee-employer transaction. That cut definitely includes all the "employer contributions". The bigger it is, the less the employee gets.

And no, it's not the same as the cost of buying the desk. If would be the same if the state prohibited remote work making a desk a necessity and then forced everyone to buy desks from state-owned providers at the price set by the state. In this case -- yes, absolutely, this becomes a "desk tax" which is eating into your income.

UPD Since you insist, I'll address this part too:

> I will say it again - if those costs dropped down to zero, you wouldn't say your income is now smaller, would you?

I'll go to my boss directly and say that "my income is now smaller than it should be" and ask for increase in gross. If this doesn't work out, I'll go and get an offer elsewhere. Knowing how hiring and budgeting works, this is the only sane course of action. Companies suddenly find them with money they've already budgeted but aren't spending, expect the arms race for professions with high demand.

In parallel to that I'll make sure to distribute raises to key members of my team anticipating them doing the same. I'll lose a few less valuable members of the team in the process because they'll receive offers that I won't be willing to counter.

In general, I pay more attention to what people do, not what they say. This is why I didn't reply to the question "you wouldn't say your income is now smaller, would you?" the first time -- it's inconsequential, but we can consider it if you like.

>>That doesn't matter, these are just words.

Except it isn't, because you keep doing this to pretend like you're paying 50% of your salary in taxes which just isn't true. No one advertises a job as "pays €60k a year" and then you find out it includes the employer contribution too so actually your salary is more like €40k. If anyone did that you'd call it fraudulent.

>>I'll go to my boss directly and say that "my income is now smaller than it should be" and ask for increase in gross

......why? You are paid exactly what you agreed to be paid. If your employer negotiated cheaper electricity deal for the office would you go and ask for a raise too?

>>The bigger it is, the less the employee gets

Again, why? The company would just pocket the money and not pay you more. I honestly don't see why they would.

>>In general, I pay more attention to what people do, not what they say

But this is a comments section on hacker news - discussion is the entire point.

But look, we just aren't going to agree on this. I just never met anyone in my life who would consider their employer's legal obligations paid directly to the state as part of their salary - if you do that's cool, I have no interest in making you change that view, we're two random strangers on the internet.

> Except it isn't, because you keep doing this to pretend like you're paying 50% of your salary in taxes which just isn't true. No one advertises a job as "pays €60k a year" and then you find out it includes the employer contribution too so actually your salary is more like €40k. If anyone did that you'd call it fraudulent.

You consider the world as static picture where a salary is what your contract says it is. It doesn't have to be like this. Your salary is what you contract says, but you have a certain power over what it says. Contract by itself is a derivative of the economic situation, not the source of truth.

In the end your salary is what you can negotiate and in this view you salary is heavily affected by employer contributions because it affects the negotiations. If your negotiation power increases, your salary can increase. If it drops, the company will pay you 3 months of wage, fire you and hire someone cheaper.

> ......why? You are paid exactly what you agreed to be paid.

Because I'm getting the maximum of what I can negotiate with the company. If they suddenly have more money in the people budget, I can obviously negotiate more. And if not, I'm getting a better offer elsewhere because the job market is very different now.

> If your employer negotiated cheaper electricity deal for the office would you go and ask for a raise too?

It depends, in a realistic scenario: no, because electricity is not a part of the people's budget, impact on the company profitability will be near zero and in the end this doesn't change the job market much, only affects my company locally. So counteroffer technique won't work either.

However in an imaginary case of electricity prices crashing all across the country overnight making businesses more profitable: yes, I think I'll try to negotiate a raise.

> Again, why? The company would just pocket the money and not pay you more. I honestly don't see why they would.

It depends on how hard it is to replace you. Effectively there's new money on the table and you'll split that money with your employer. If you're hard to replace, you'll take the bigger cut or even all of it. If you're easy to replace, you get zero or else they'll get someone else who agrees to get zero.

> But look, we just aren't going to agree on this. I just never met anyone in my life who would consider their employer's legal obligations paid directly to the state as part of their salary - if you do that's cool, I have no interest in making you change that view, we're two random strangers on the internet.

Of course, we argue for the pleasure of it but I think our intentions are different. I don't have a goal of changing your definition of words -- you can keep the ones you like. However I think it's worth trying to change your world view. My suggestion: try thinking of your salary (if you're a hired worker) as something you can negotiate not something set in stone (you can call it $alary if you like). Twice in my career I approached my employer with an external offer and twice I got a 2x counter-offer. They didn't say "You are paid exactly what you agreed to be paid", it's not how it works.

You need to play it well but it's an extremely strong negotiation technique. There are others but they're more complicated to execute so I suggest to start with this one.

> Is not your salary.

It IS your salary. If the employer didn't pay it, YOU would have to pay it anyway. If you are a freelancer, you will have to pay that employers share anyway.

It's the cost of social security systems, and someone has to pay it: You. With your work hours and salary.

>>It IS your salary. If the employer didn't pay it, YOU would have to pay it anyway.

So if the government reduced the share that the employers pay down to zero tomorrow, would you then go to your partner/family/friends and say "hey, I just got a paycut at work" ?

When you are negotiating payment for any good and service, you care only what the end cost is to you.

It doesn't matter how you decide to slice it - "this share you pay, this share I pay" at the end of the day it will be seen through the lens of Total Cost of Ownership.

I like how you didn't answer my question. If you don't see it as a paycut then it's not part of your salary.

>>you care only what the end cost is to you.

Yes, so I care what my salary is. What the employer has to legally pay to employ me is literally irrelevant other than academically. It's not my salary, the same how their cost of maintaining an office or providing me with equipment to do my job isn't my salary.

No, it adds up to almost 50% of your wage. People who make millions of dollars (freelancers, company shareholders, etc) pay capital gains taxes of 25%. High earning people have capital, not a wage, either by way of company shares or asset payouts. They pay a tiny bit more tax and no social obligations

You forget that the 42% band kicks in at 68000 (up until 280k) not 10k from the median wage. You pay this with 1.2% of the median wage, when in the distant past (around 1960) you had 42% at 15 times the median wage. They never changed these bands to adjust for inflation.

>> People who make millions of dollars (freelancers, company shareholders, etc) pay capital gains taxes of 25%. High earning people have capital, not a wage, either by way of company shares or asset payouts. They pay a tiny bit more tax and no social obligations

Yes, obviously - it works the same way here. You just said that "anywhere in Germany" you will pay 50% of your income in taxes, so I'm asking if your average worker actually pays that, or even a high earning IT worker/lawyer/doctor, or just somone who takes home millions in pay(not capital gains) so that the averages catch up.

>>You forget that the 42% band kicks in at 68000 (up until 280k) not 10k from the median wage.

I didn't forget, but like I said 3 comments earlier - your average will work out closer to 30% not 50%(I'd guess) because you only pay it on anything above the threshold, not on your entire income. Again, Germany seems very generous here - in the UK you start paying 40% once you cross £50k/pa.

> You just said that "anywhere in Germany" you will pay 50% of your income in taxes, so I'm asking if your average worker actually pays that

I earn about 60k (the government pays me, so you can look this up) and that is my effective rate of tax.

> They call it a "gross employer contribution"

It feels disingenuous to me to see "someone else pays tax, so that counts as a tax on me" leveled as a serious argument.

Maybe it's just my cold pragmatism speaking, but if your employer suddenly didn't have to pay that tax, I don't think they would bump your salary up.

Americans make this same argument (they call it "trickle down economics"). So far, it doesn't seem to have worked out for them.

> It feels disingenuous to me to see "someone else pays tax, so that counts as a tax on me" leveled as a serious argument.

They don't pay tax. They pay half of the social insurance fee for their employer. Of course that half is part of the wage you're being paid.

> Maybe it's just my cold pragmatism speaking, but if your employer suddenly didn't have to pay that tax, I don't think they would bump your salary up.

I could certainly use that range to negotiate my salary.

> Americans make this same argument (they call it "trickle down economics"). So far, it doesn't seem to have worked out for them.

None of this has anything to do with trickle down economics. The trick is that if social insurance payments go up, which they do a lot, my employer is charged automatically and I no longer have that room for negotiating a raise.

You are not living under socialism, but under capitalism, don't try to paint it another way.

No, the defined economic model in Germany is called "Social market economy", not capitalism. It is one of the systems furthest removed from capitalism that is not yet Socialism (or similar systems). It's a regulated market economic model and it is designed to sit exactly in the middle between laissez faire capitalism and socialism. You can read this up if you like.

Not sure why you are downvoted. Social market economy is the self-description in Germany, it's what you learn in school and how German politicians name the system.

The goal of social market economy is to 'correct undesirable effects' of free markets. Depending on your perspective, you categorize it as capitalist, socialist or in-between system.

> Not sure why you are downvoted.

Because the reality of this is unpopular for critics of capitalism. Most people rarely have an idea how far removed from laissez faire capitalism European countries are. This doesn't stop critics from ironically mentioning that free markets altogether don't work for example in our renter's market (which is the most restricted market we have). The ill-effects we are now feeling are from strangulating regulation, bad policy and European countries with large welfare states like France or Germany having little moveable capital to invest into infrastructure, because most of it is forever bound to welfare. Note that I'm not critical of welfare, but we have lost the plot that money needs to be earned before it can be redistributed.

> Social market economy is the self-description in Germany, it's what you learn in school and how German politicians name the system.

All this and also scholars attributing this very real system to be effectively what we have in Germany is not enough for some.

> Because the reality of this is unpopular for critics of capitalism. Most people rarely have an idea how far removed from laissez faire capitalism European countries are.

No, it's because you keep strawmanning like this for rhetorical effect. Laissez faire capitalism isn't the only form of capitalism that exists and nobody has claimed it to be the form of capitalism that applies to Germany.

If you ask nearly any person on the street in Germany (or Austria, or Switzerland) which economic system is in effect, they will say it is capitalism. Because it is.

The means of production are in the hand of capital. Profit is the driving factor of companies. "Number go up" is still the default goal.

> If you ask nearly any person on the street in Germany (or Austria, or Switzerland) which economic system is in effect, they will say it is capitalism. Because it is.

If I ask the average person on the street if they think the moon phases have impacts on their life, chances are a good portion will agree. Majority opinion does not make for facts.

Yes and North Korea is "Democratic People's Republic of Korea". Names don't reflect reality.

> It's a regulated market economic model

So is the USA.

> Yes and North Korea is "Democratic People's Republic of Korea". Names don't reflect reality.

Our model came first, then came the name. I explained it's origins thoroughly, it is rooted in economic theory and it is what is really happening in Germany. It's codified in Articles 20 and 14 of our constitution. Social welfare is among the best in the world and covers a lot, but taxes are high. This would never happen in any free market economic models. I recommend you read up on it a bit before making snarky comments on the internet.

What percentage of German companies are owned and managed by its workers? What percentage are owned by capitalists, generating private profits?

Are those numbers indicative of socialism or capitalism?

> I recommend you read up on it a bit before making snarky comments on the internet.

It's not a snarky comment. Regulation and welfare are requirements even in a capitalist economy, otherwise you have people dying on the streets en masse and companies dumping toxic waste next to the fields where you grow food. You're essentially arguing that real capitalism hasn't been attempted yet - that more "freedom" (from regulation), more inequality will somehow fix things.

The US has more "freedom" in this sense than Germany - is the average person doing better over there? I don't think so, I certainly don't know any "average worker" currently living anywhere in the EU who would want to swap places.

Germany is a capitalist country with strong social welfare. If you think social welfare is a problem, feel free to argue that, but one thing that's not up for serious discussion is its economic model.

> What percentage of German companies are owned and managed by its workers?

This sentence does not apply because "social market economy" does not imply that companies should be owned by their workes.

> What percentage are owned by capitalists, generating private profits?

This sentence does not apply because a "social market economy" does not forbid the generation of profits. Profits are to be shared with the populace to pay for social policies, which is happening.

> Are those numbers indicative of socialism or capitalism?

You should really - really - read up on "Soziale Marktwirtschaft" and ordoliberalism before you make a point. If you don't know how they are defined and what they mean, you cannot make a coherent argument.

> You're essentially arguing that real capitalism hasn't been attempted yet - that more "freedom" (from regulation), more inequality will somehow fix things.

I have not and you are free to cite where I did.

> Germany is a capitalist country with strong social welfare.

Congratulations, you combine this with "Regulation" and a state mandated "Economic Conscience", you have finally found out what "social market economy" means. It's not "capitalism with X". It's so far removed from the idea of capitalism that we use another term entirely.

> but one thing that's not up for serious discussion is its economic model.

I encourage you to look up the terms. Again.

By your own definitions the USA isn't a capitalist economy due to regulations and their social welfare policies. If that's where you stand then any further discussion is going to be pointless.

>> You're essentially arguing that real capitalism hasn't been attempted yet

> I have not and you are free to cite where I did.

It's a straightforward logical inference. Your definition of capitalism excludes every capitalist economy that has ever existed.

> By your own definitions the USA isn't a capitalist economy due to regulations and their social welfare policies. If that's where you stand then any further discussion is going to be pointless.

Those are not my definitions.

> It's a straightforward logical inference. Your definition of capitalism excludes every capitalist economy that has ever existed

No. A social market economy is capitalism with rules and safety nets, like strong labor protections, healthcare, and pensions, to make sure people are protected from big hardships. The U.S. mostly has free-market capitalism, with fewer regulations and weaker social support. So the main difference is that a social market economy tries to control capitalism to protect people, while the U.S. mostly lets the market run on its own.

> A social market economy is capitalism with rules and safety nets, like strong labor protections, healthcare, and pensions, to make sure people are protected from big hardships

so it is not socialism, the whole point of this discussion.

> so it is not socialism, the whole point of this discussion.

No, the whole point of this discussion is that someone claimed Germany was capitalist. Which it isn't. It's in between systems.

You are way too into polar opposites here. Try thinking difference beyond/before that.

@j-krieger Arguing that the existence of regulations makes an economy non-capitalist is something I've only ever seen extreme left and extreme right-wing people make. Everyone else recognizes "capitalism is a system based on private ownership, wage labor, and private capital accumulation" as a fundamental truth, including, like, all experts in this field. Ultimately, you're making a No True Scotsman argument.

Germany's market is an example of welfare capitalism, which is a type of capitalism.

What you're writing reminds me very much of "the USA isn't a democracy, it's a republic!" (as if a republic isn't a type of democracy called "representative democracy")

exactly, it is like the "this is not capitalism it is corporatism!" argument the libertarians like to make about the US.

> @j-krieger Arguing that the existence of regulations makes an economy non-capitalist is something I've only ever seen extreme left and extreme right-wing people make.

Good thing I haven't argued that at all. I was arguing that Germany, which calls its economic system "Social Economics" in fact employs this very economic strategy, which is defined as not being straight forward capitalist but as a mixture of capitalism and socialism.

> Germany's market is an example of welfare capitalism, which is a type of capitalism.

Germany's market is per definition not welfare capitalism, but "social economics". This term exists, it is well defined, you can look it up.

> This sentence does not apply because a "social market economy" does not forbid the generation of profits. Profits are to be shared with the populace to pay for social policies, which is happening.

Sure. But that is as socialist as it was the National Socialist German Workers Party.

The continued reference to "socialism" here is a strawman. The discussion started with pembrook's complaint https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45512714 and then had j-krieger explaining how the system works starting with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45513552 . At no point did either person describe the system as "socialism". j-krieger was even explicit in referring to "'Social market economy'... a regulated market economic model [,] designed to sit exactly in the middle between laissez faire capitalism and socialism". But interlocutors continually insisted on dragging it back to "socialism" simply because j-krieger denied that it was "capitalism", applying a false dichotomy.

What you, mfru and dns_snek did here is not respectful, open-minded discourse and I'm amazed that j-krieger put up with it that long.

> At no point did either person describe the system as "socialism"

> What you, mfru and dns_snek did here is not respectful, open-minded discourse

Give me a break, the original complaint went even further, likening the European economy to communism:

> The USSR was supposed to be a cautionary tale. Not a guidebook!

I met j-krieger at their discussional level. The "USSR guidebook" quote was uncalled for and plain hyperbole. It also was factually incorrect.

I have re-visited and re-read all of my comments. Nowhere did I mention a USSR guidebook anywhere! This must have been from another commenter. Sorry!

Thanks! I am trying to educate only!

Sorry, but lol. Germany even makes you pay to be able to piss in a toilet. Even public libraries aren't free! And let's not mention the health care system, which literally has two tiers, one for the poor and one for the rich, with of course the poor-tier being barely functional, and still expensive as fuck. "Social market economy" my ass. Germany is a country led by incompetent extremely paternalistic leaders, the major part of which come from the capitalist class, the rest of which are their Akademiker servants. The only people getting any kind of social benefits are the retired boomers and if you were to do the accounting, even they got massively shafted by the capitalists, because those boomers would be 3x richer if their lifetime savings were properly invested.

> Even public libraries aren't free!

Because they aren't public. They are provided by a company.

> And let's not mention the health care system, which literally has two tiers, one for the poor and one for the rich, with of course the poor-tier being barely functional, and still expensive as fuck

This is because of inefficiency, an aging demographic and regulation, not because of capitalism. The "system for the rich" was worse back in the day, and only became "better" for doctors because they adjusted their rates for covered services. In fact, because the "poor tier" insurance companies have not adjusted their rates according to inflation for a long time [1], services are of course getting worse. The average dentist earns 50% of what he earned 1970 adjusted for inflation. [2] This is called the "Punktwert", it hasn't changed since 1980 ([3]) and it is the single most important factor why services are getting worse and worse. No one is getting rich off of GKV members. Not doctors, and certainly not insurance companies.

> "Social market economy" my ass.

Sorry, no. This is the direct outcome of a social market economy, when the economic motor isn't doing so good, you still have to pay for permanent social gifts that were given to the largest voting class (old people). The government mandated insurance companies are close to being bankrupt because of this exact policy. In fact, they would already be bankrupt if we didn't have a social market economy [4], which pays billions of tax dollars to prop them up.

> The only people getting any kind of social benefits are the retired boomers and if you were to do the accounting, even they got massively shafted by the capitalists, because those boomers would be 3x richer if their lifetime savings were properly invested.

Well, boomers, pensioners and those close to retirement make up 60% of the voting base. They got what they voted for, good and bad, a social market economic model that bleeds the workers to pay for pensions. That matches the definition of a large welfare system exactly. They also voted pretty clearly against an investment backed pension scheme and have been voting like this for 4 decades now. As always, economic models have disadvantages, and we are finding out now that models close to socialism stop working when you run out of other people's money.

[1]: https://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/amtliche-gebuehrenordnung-...

[2]: https://praxis-analysen.de/das-verfuegbare-zahnarzt-einkomme...

[3]: https://www.aerzteblatt.de/news/mehrere-vertragsarztliche-le...

[4]: https://www.pkv.de/positionen/bundeszuschuss/

>> Even public libraries aren't free!

> Because they aren't public. They are provided by a company.

If you are talking actual libraries here: Hm? Public libraries are provided by the city - all I have ever seen in Germany. They usually cost a member pass, though I have seen completely free ones, but it's either a one-time payment or a yearly recurring fee. Small numbers though, can be as little as 5 Euro.

Public libraries provided by a company are an oxymoron, I doubt that exists in Germany.

> If you are talking actual libraries here:

Nope, sorry, I made a mistake. I was writing about the public toilets from the sentence before.

> This is because of inefficiency, an aging demographic and regulation, not because of capitalism.

The Korean healthcare system has a much worse aging demographic as well tons of regulations, being nothing like e.g. the US.

Yet in terms of "system for the poor" the difference with Germany could hardly be bigger.

To blame it on those is straight up wrong, in that it's an oversimplification of a complex topic to such a degree that it no longer makes sense.

This goes for nearly all of the discussion in this thread, for what it's worth. On these topics sociocultural and historical factors that aren't simply represented by "regulations" or "current tax burden" or "demographics" have an enormous impact.

It's the classic STEM, and especially CS, mistake, so it's no wonder HN is full of it on any governance-related topic. And I say this as a CS guy myself. As a group, we are predisposed to the idea that a set of rules, regulations and statistics leads to a certain set of real-world outcomes. The reality could hardly be less true.

Could you elaborate on the differences in the healthcare systems?

The only reason for your high taxes and poor living standard is that some boomers have too much cash.

So they buy luxury apartments, outbidding you for construction companies capacity. Or they buy €20M luxury cars from limited 100-item series, outbidding state for engineers that could be designing next generation public transportation.

Public sector has been bled almost to death by regressive taxation, you bear nearly all of the tax burden so that a geezer who lived through nineties free-for-all can cope with his second midlife crisis while you struggle to get even a small apartment with ever-expanding commute times as you are forced outside of the city center.

Just. Tax. The. Rich. Geezer. More.

Seriously. If you've talked to some of them, they are not "titans of the industry", they are mostly greedy, average inteligence people that got lucky. No political nor economical nor cultural awareness. Half of them binge Russia fake news and/or Bloomberg and that's it.

God, some of those sick fucks even refuse to pay alimony despite owning huge companies. They would rather invent crazy schemes to hide their ownership and claim $10,000/y earnings than to take care of their kids. And they pay jackshit in taxes.

Not joking: https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/domaci-kauzy-beru-20-tisi...

100%. The biggest economic problem plaguing Germany and most of the EU is that all the capital is in the hands of incompetent old farts, so called, "business leaders", and the economic class system is way more hierarchical and old fashioned than in the US and I dare say, even China. Supposed "market capitalism", means your economy is planned, by diaper wearing boomers whose thinking and worldview are stuck in the 20th century.

How horrible, feel very free to leave for greener pastures, then.

I was thinking just this. Anyone strongly opposed by those in power (whether right, left, or whatever) will oppose the concentration or power.

Very few are principled enough to stick to that in power.

Authoritarians always oppose those things when they are not in govt.

Open communication online about the problems of mass migration is what has fueled the rise of right wing parties across the west, so no they would not support suppressing communication (which is aimed primarily at stopping this very rise).

But this is not about suppressing all communication, this is ultimately about giving the ability to steer the conversation to avoid what people in power would find problematic.

I find it amusing how Germans stumble over themselves to constantly insert “extreme” or “far” in front of right wing when describing AfD.

Yet, other parties that include coalitions of literal communists, antivax hippies and people who want to bring Europe back to the Stone Age using dictator-like authoritarianism in the name of saving “the environment” are not labeled extreme left.

Many German political parties have extremist elements in them. Why they are okay with calling out the far right but not okay calling out the far left I will never understand.

I think the hypocrisy is pushing more people to toward alternatives.

>>Why they are okay with calling out the far right but not okay calling out the far left I will never understand

So help me out here. "Far right" is usually full of brilliant ideas like lets round people up and deport them without due process, doesn't matter where - or starting to look into getting rid of people with fully legal right to stay, or saying that they haven't seen a single white face in a town somehow isn't racist and is a perfectly normal thing to say.

In the meantime far left is doing.....what exactly. Saying that we need to tax the rich? That everyone should have healthcare? That people should be free to decide their gender?

Honestly, help me out - what are those "far left" ideas that you say should be labeled as "extreme"?

If we're genuinely asking, real actual communism comes into play. I think children being raised by government programs and not their parents would be extreme left. Making it so that no one can have more than $1 million to their name would be extreme left. Forcing people to be impregnated and give up those babies to government to be raised by them would also be extreme. Maybe left? Prohibiting religions. Making it illegal to be Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/anything. Making it illegal to have a gender. The problem of oversimplifying everything into a spectrum of left and right means that there's no room for ideas to exist not on that spectrum.

I was genuinely asking, so thank you for replying with actual examples.

Forced euthanasia for people when they reach the age of 70. Legalized post-birth abortion until the child is 3. Testing people and sorting them into castes (alpha, beta, gamma, etc). Legalizing all drugs. I don't know if any real world political parties actually back these ideas, these are drawn from science fiction novels.

It is the legally accurate description of the AfD [1]. Just like it is legally correct to call Björn Höcke a fascist.

[1] https://medienservice.sachsen.de/medien/news/1071656

There's distinction between legality, reality and morality. Most of the time no one uses full formal legal terms in normal conversation.

I don't support AfD, I'm not German either - i just agree with parent poster's observation that for some reason left extremism(and I'm talking actual eco-terrorism for example) is more widely 'accepted' in public space when talking to Germans. Meanwhile mentioning even slightly Right ideas gets you lynched, and any form of discussions stops.

And from small sample size of Germans i know, this is the reason that did push quite few of those people towards AfD.

Frankly AfD is a perfect marker of your own policy making - are more people pushed towards it? you probably are doing something severely wrong as a policymaker.

People that vote and support the far right do it as reaction, that is likely. But not to "extreme left nonsene" appearing. That's just a pretext.

The real reason, to which they react, is that they can no longer covertly express and exercise their ideas.

In other words, it's a reaction to getting publicly called out about being racist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic etc.

I believe the far right starts winning when it attracts not just the types it naturally attracts all the time but more mid field folks as well. People who you don't get to your side by saying they're facists or other accusatory statements.

I've heard plenty of times from such people that they've felt the government/establishment parties have made my bordering country less safe for women, gay people, etc and now numbers are also starting to show that. Pair that with those parties targeting those votes more and more and bringing in some more gays and women into the party and labels of mysoginist or homofobic that you used don't work to attack the far right anymore I've found gay people voting for the supposedly homofobic far right because they start to see their main talking points as a long term existential matter. Prisons that have a huge share of non nationals and are overfilled so prison strikes and shutdowns happen aren't helping either. The economical picture for non-eu migration has been abysmal too. The list goes on and on.

Even in france le pen who's father had some well known extreme views about gays she draws a lot of votes among gay men. Especially in Paris.

At that point you seriously, seriously fucked up.

> People who you don't get to your side by saying they're facists or other accusatory statements.

How do I get folks that literally vote fascists to "my side"?

Does it involve changing "my side" to be a little fascistic?

What is to be done with the overlaps, e.g. people that are homosexuals but are racists, people from racial minorities that are homophobic, and so on?

Like, realistically, what do you think should happen to the left? Just tone it down?

>At that point you seriously, seriously fucked up.

I think we've realistically introduced a source of political hubris for generations to come and created a scenario where if we're not being too optimistic about the perfect path being taken there will be sharp edges whichever way you go.

The same happened here in the past with our flemish/wallonian sectarianism that should've never been started and inflamed. In fact over many decades migration seems to be the only thing that managed to overtake it.

Acknowledge issues and start doing stuff these parties have been calling for for the past 2 decades to stop influx and you legitimize their ideas and admit fault in some ways. Don't do anything, continue the status quo claiming everything smells of roses and you just build up more sectarian bullshit.

Ideally you slow migration down without too much noise about it imo. For example you adjust treaties so that people rejected in other european countries can be sent back and actually follow trough and employ european political power to actually facilitate this sending back and discourages staying in a way that was possible in the past. You start limiting family reunion schemes depending on the country, etc Additionally you invest hard in integration and not in the weird paternalistic shit that i hear about from germany now.

Here in Belgium in 2005 or so well over 70% had big concerns about migration. That was 2 decades ago well before the big influxes. Not losing many of them was easier than getting them back that's for sure but there's plenty more still on that edge. I'd also say we're doing way worse than Germany on these fronts. The only reason we haven't had an afd equivalent governing yet is how fractured our political landscape is when compared and the flemish/wallonian split.

I'm not your chatgpt, man

What?

You're just rambling, talking more to yourself than me. Have a nice day.

Looking at your other responses in this thread was anything other than what could be twisted as "changing "my side" to be a little fascistic" or 'continue on as is being done now' a valid answer?

To also answer one i didn't address : 'What is to be done with the overlaps, e.g. people that are homosexuals but are racists, people from racial minorities that are homophobic, and so on?'

The later if not a national you could in many cases not let/keep in your country or otherwise give citizenship. As for the later it just happens that i know a lesbian VB (our far right) advocate. She was a callbus driver that got attacked for her sexuality. It's not the average but someone you are unlikely to ever win back regardless of whether you typify her as racist or xenophobe or not because she sees "your side" as the origin of the former, the unintended champion of islamists and the like.

You've made a lot of assumptions about people i know and talk with - without knowing them, exactly showcasing the problem that I've mentioned.

As soon as the topic is mentioned it becomes a discussion stopper. Thank you for your contribution into proving my point.

If we were to categorize AfD voters and supporters into two groups:

  1. people that support some of: racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, anti-environmentalism, etc., i.e. authoritarianism for their group
  2. people that have been pushed by extreme leftism because they can no longer discuss alternative points of view (but do not strictly belong to group 1)

What share would you assign to each?

majority in 2, due to worsening economic situation over the years and total disappointment in current options with no other option to break this impasse than to throw hand grenade into the mix.

exactly one person in first group - a genuine belief in efficiency of authoritarian system from someone on spectrum.

I also love how you neatly divided whole political spectrum into two, and bundled a lot of options into 'bad' category. Another example of political tribalism. while option "2" is clearly 'misguided' one.

For example anti-environmentalism can be seen from 'does not like Greens', through 'i think we should reevaluate our energy policy for feasibility of moving to renewables/nuclear and do a slow transition while persevering our beautiful nature' to 'we should only burn coal and gas forever'.

Same thing with xenophobia - it can be pure nationalism, or being anti illegal immigration while supporting legal one, or even just idea that government has responsibility for their own citizens first and foremost. Which one do you have in mind?

Where you draw the barriers between those arbitrary labels?

is there even anything i could say that would change your mind, or are you looking for validation of your views only?

Let's remove "anti green" and "anti immigration" (but not pure xenophobia) out of group 1, since you seem to protest those two as the most ambiguous (I do agree that those areas may be too blurry).

I also think you misinterpreted "authoritarianism for their group", or I expressed it poorly. I don't mean "support of authoritarian governments", but rather "give more power to their group over others, or favor keeping such a status quo", in the context of race, sexuality, gender, culture, etc.

Yes, group 2 may be protest voters, and their rationale is that the best protest against some leftist policies and monologue is to vote the right - not blank, not abstention, and not some void middle-ground. Of course!

But these people are not complete idiots that forgot what the AfD obviously stands for. Thus, I cannot reasonably believe that they ALL fall under NONE of the categories of 1.

My most generous concession would be 20%, but realistically I would say there is maybe at most 5% that is purely protest and not at least one of: racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynist.

Simply put: If someone claims they are not racist, and not homophobic, and not misogynist, yet they still vote for AfD, then they are more likely to be some of that, or are okay with the current status of discriminations, and not some naive idiot.

What you could say to change my mind, is how someone votes/supports AfD purely based on e.g. strengthened immigration policies for purely economical reasons, or "do not like greens", or "just wants nuclear". I don't understand how someone could be so oblivious to the other standpoints, but maybe this is just my personal bias?

so you've made up your mind beforehand, and will never change your views on any of this.

why you even do you bother to keep arguing in bad faith?

Just answer

why would i bother when you've already established that you're arguing in bad faith?

So you make a claim, and when being doubted, essentially you say "you tell me why you're wrong, or else I've made my point".

Genius.

Du bist ein Ausländer.

Yes, now show me the legally accurate description of leftist parties with the opposite political craziness within it.

The greens are filled with communists for example.

Or the literal communist party, Die Linke. Why are they never referred to as the extreme left.

That's incorrect on every level.

The greens are not filled with communists. They would feel very unwelcome there, given the capitalist move the party did in the 90s.

Die Linke is also not a communist party. It supports capitalism, but targets a social capitalism, like the CDU did in the 50s and the SPD did until the 80s. There are communist parties in Germany, like the MLPD, but they do not get many votes. Background here is that in a divided Germany the communists were not popular in West germany, also most of them got killed by the Nazis before, and on top of that West Germany banned the main communist party already 1956.

Also, rightwing politicians do call "Die Linke" (incorrectly) extreme left, and accordingly the CDU/CSU has a mandate to never cooperate with them.

> Die Linke is also not a communist party. It supports capitalism, but targets a social capitalism, like the CDU did in the 50s and the SPD did until the 80s.

This is untrue and you will only have to go so far to read their party program to find out it isn't.

Be our guest and enlighten us with citations!

1 second google search -> https://www.die-linke.de/partei/programm/ -> Marx's manifesto is cited among the first paragraphs -> the literal first sentence in point 3's second paragraph -> "Our goal of democratic socialism in the 21st century is a society free of domination in which all people can live in dignity." They mention the process of transforming capitalism to state mandated socialism and control of all companies by a democratic process. A democratic socialism is not a social capitalism, they don't support capitalism in any way or form, and they want to actively move away from it, which they also say among the first sentences on this very page.

It took me all of 5 seconds to achieve this enlightenment. You should try it sometimes.

It's a little bit harder. The problem is that the SPD will also talk about democratic socialism and does indeed just mean social capitalism with that. And depending on who you talk with at the left, there is still the idea to use the power of capitalism, just to remove the negative aspects with various means.

But indeed, the program now does distance itself from social capitalism specifically and gives further reasoning to why. I wasn't aware they spell it out so clearly now. We can still argue about how much capitalism would be left when following their program - like when the means of production are owned differently, but used similarly - but I have to give you a point there. My comment as written was not correct.

The crux of it is that they are not anti-democratic.

German law tries to protect against anti-democratic groups and categorizes them as extremists (including left wing extremists) if they a threatening democracy.

In practice that means that group is then surveilled. If there is evidence that the group tries to overthrow democracy, they are banned.

Die Linke is in many ways _more_ democratic than other groups and parties as they support direct democracy and workplace democracy.

> The crux of it is that they are not anti-democratic.

Die Linke tolerates antidemocratic hate groups within their party and is a financial sponsor of others. All of this is common knowledge, all of this can be looked up easily.

> Die Linke is in many ways _more_ democratic than other groups and parties as they support direct democracy and workplace democracy.

I know quite a lot of parties that were never once watched by a government watchdog, nor do they continue to support extremist groups, nor do those other parties continue to attract extremists at their demonstrations, nor do those other democratic parties have a continued problem of antisemitism within their ranks, nor do they have a dark past and continue to employ people at high ranks that were leaders in that past.

Here you go: https://www.bmi.bund.de/DE/themen/sicherheit/extremismus/lin...

Feel free to read the chapter „Linksextremismus“. It talks about various violent Antifa groups and other cases. Keep in mind that the definition of „extreme left“ refers to organizations that want to replace the basic democratic system with communism or anarchy (according to the German constitutional court).

It does not necessarily include „political craziness“ that we may disagree with. The point of these legal descriptions of organizations is not to be used as a political weapon for parties you don’t like. You have to do some significantly malicious stuff to be considered as such.

But doesn’t this prove my point.

The AfD, like all political parties, is simply a coalition of various smaller subgroups.

It’s by no means “extreme” right in entirety. Yet, leftist parties harboring actual communists are not labeled “extreme.”

The AFD is extreme right in its entirely. It's a political party that wants to deport foreigners, remove the german citizenship from people with a migrational background, and it plans to destroy the democratic political parties - which means toppling democracy. They say so clearly and openly, also calling the other parties "Altparteien".

While the party started with a different background, by now voters and members do know about these majority positions and thus support them.

> It talks about various violent Antifa groups and other cases.

As the time of writing, six different extreme left groups are tolerated within Die Linke and are also financed by their members. All of these groups are currently being watched by the government secret service.

> Or the literal communist party, Die Linke. Why are they never referred to as the extreme left.

It's definitely not true that people never refer to Die Linke as extreme left. In fact, all kinds of people - including prominent politicians from e.g. the CDU - refer to Die Linke as extreme left.

This is not commenting on whether that is a correct moniker or not, I'm just pointing out that your dichotomy is nonsensical because the thing that you suggest to not be happening absolutely is happening.

While I agree with this decision, it was not made by an independent court. Courts are often stacked with politicians in Germany.

Quote please

The communist parties have very low ratings and never make it into coalition governments so they are not a threat. The Greens also have fairly low ratings and despite the image, they tend to be elitist neoliberal types. None of these people or parties are as bad or as dangerous as the AfD which is a party of grifters and fascists, full of unhinged people, who, even if you ignore all the hateful rhetoric, you couldn't trust to not destroy the country economically and politically.

Same in neighboring Holland, certain parties, groups, or positions can never be labelled "conservative", "right", or ... it must always be extreme. It is telling and very tiresome.

In the case of Germany I guess I can understand due to…uh…history. I’m sure the eastern bloc countries are more trigger happy to label people “far” left when they see it due to their history of the opposite.

But it seems to be a Europe-wide phenomenon in traditional media outlets. Nobody calls out the far left properly, and the bias is just oozing out from the pages of all European news media.

The backlash is just waiting to happen. It’s so obvious to anyone capable of critical thinking. And it will probably just lead to more irrational policies but from the opposite side.

> Many German political parties have extremist elements in them.

No, they don't. Extreme in this context is defined as anti-democratic, those who want to dismantle the system at its foundation and destroy democracy, usually while removing certain groups. That's not something other parties aim for. Sure, they want to change the system, but only to improve the democratic.

> but not okay calling out the far left

There are not many real far left parties in Germany, and usually they are very small, irrelevant and called far left. Most of them are also not against democracy, they are fine with the general system, but argue about details or the economic system. The biggest far left party is "Die Linke", and they are radical left, not extreme left. Maybe they do have some extreme voices, but they are irrelevant.

I'm sorry you don't understand the anti-democratic goals of many of the parties in your own country.

If you are re-branding a belief in authoritarian seizing of all private capital as "Minor democratic arguments on details of the economic system" then it's obvious you either don't know the constituents of the political coalitions in most major European countries, or are not arguing in good faith.

Just like the actual extreme right, the entire goal of any left extremist (eg. your communists, eco-terrorists, anti-tech doomers, etc.) is to dismantle democratic freedoms and enforce their unpopular agenda via absolute authority.

The bolsheviks never ran on the idea they would brutally murder middle class families and seize their assets. This was just an inevitable step necessary to achieve their 'utopia.'

> Why they are okay with calling out the far right but not okay calling out the far left I will never understand.

Lets skip over the fact that far left is being called out as well (especially by... the far right...).

The AfD is actually a extremist far right political party which has been steadily growing and growing. They are much more relevant to anyone living in germany than small extremist far left factions.

It's the classical playbook. Capture the media, declare the opposition illegal, bye bye democracy.

The public was sold this Nazi story about the AfD by the established powers to keep them down. Looking at what has been going on it's wild to me to call the AfD authoritarian compared the the Altparteien...

> Altparteien

One of those empty words one needs to be careful with it does not mean anything, and everything. Politics is not about suppressing ideas of other people, somethings parties can agree on others not so much.

The AfD are ultra right and leading figures have openly admitted that they contemplate killing migrants, de-islamification of Europe by expelling all muslims, breaking the EU, etc. They also scatter their speech with fascist dog whistles, and even Nazi slogans from the man in charge, Björn Höcke [1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/29/the-tr...

Sold the story? Wow you really drank the alt-right kool aid

I think you need to go back to Grundschule and study the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Another TikTok zombie - get out of your emotionally charged environment please.

> but also by German intelligence

You may it seem like they operate independently. They do not. This determination (while I subjectively agree) came of a report was released by a failed government's acting minister of internal affairs, on her last day of office. I read it myself and even though I don't like it, it's pretty imprecise and does some pretty heavy straw grasping at times.

they will, just not as long as it could potentially be used against them.

AFDs operation-mode is to be always against the government and most others, so usually they are always debating against it, just because.. And in their case its far more than the usual playing opposition, they often switch even on their own stances.

Additionally, this is something that would be in their ideological background. I guess they just fear to become victims themselves.

How can you write this when the other parties have a cordon sanitaire (Brandmauer)[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordon_sanitaire_(politics)

How is that related? The other parties are not defining their opinions based on AFDs stance. Brandmauer only means they are not working with them, if it can be avoided, not they have to be different on everything. And most parties will have a different stance from the AFD naturally, simply by the fact that AFD are far right fascists.

Conservatives sometimes have an interesting habit of using the freedoms to come into power and then take these freedoms away.

Giving credit where it's due, even (or especially) to someone you find distasteful, is a mark of maturity and good character.