What makes Angela Merkel and her crazy austerity policies tick?

Eckhart Fuhr in the conservative Springer paper Die Welt looks at German Chancellor Merkel's seeming dogmatism on economic matters, Merkels Hochleistungsgermanen einsam in Europa 01.06.2012:

Merkel erweckt zwar den Anschein, dass es in der Bewältigung der Euro-Krise so etwas wie den Standpunkt einer objektiven Vernunft gebe, den sie vertrete. Wahrscheinlich glaubt sie das auch selbst, allerdings kaum so inbrünstig, dass man sie als ordnungspolitische Glaubenskriegerin bezeichnen könnte. Ihre Weltanschauung ist der Sachzwang. Es mag etwas gut, wahr oder schön sein, politisch relevant wird es erst, wenn es "alternativlos" ist.

[Merkel even awakens the appearance that in the management of the euro crisis, there is something like a standpoint of an objective reason, which she represents. Probably she even believes that herself, although hardly so ardently that one could describe her as an Ordnungs-political holy warrior. Her worldview is that of factual constraints. It may be something good, true or beautiful, but {for her} it only becomes politically relevant if there is "no alternative".]

I've wondered if part of Angie's approach to economics has to do with some rigid notion of natural science that she is trying to apply to economics. She was a chemist in the former East Germany until she went into politics during the transition from the Communist regime to a unified Germany. Fuhr's comment there may be suggesting something along those lines.

Doch das Denken in Alternativen greift in Europa gefährlich um sich. Die deutsche Deutungsmacht über das, was man die wirtschaftlichen Realitäten nennt, schwindet von Tag zu Tag. Kein Staat ist zu sanieren, keine Volkswirtschaft auf die Beine zu bringen, wenn die Völker kein Geld in der Tasche haben. Bald wird die deutsche "Stabilitätskultur" nicht nur bei linksradikalen Griechen als Marotte einer größenwahnsinnigen germanischen Minorität in Europa verschrien sein.

[But {her} thinking in alternatives is singling itself out in a dangerous way. The German power to interpret those things which one calls economic realities is disappearing from day to day. No state can be reformed, no economy can be put on its feet, if the people have no money in their pockets. Soon it won't be only the radical left Greeks who will be denouncing the German "stability culture" as the idée fixe of a megalomaniacal Germanic minority in Europe.]

That reminds me of the official slogan of Charlie Pierce's blog: "Fk The Deficit. People Got No Jobs. People Got No Money." It applies to most of Europe, as well.

I think the concluding paragraph immediately following the last one quoted is meant to be ironic. I think.

Das hätte ich nicht gedacht, dass der Graben zwischen Nord und Süd noch einmal so tief werden könnte. Als protestantische Hochleistungsgermanen sind wir Deutsche bald ganz allein in Europa. Das haben wir Angela Merkel zu verdanken.

[I hadn't though that the trench between north and south {Europe} could ever become so wide. As high-performance Protestant Germanics, we Germans are suddenly completely alone in Germany. For that we have Angela Merkel to think.]

The irony here is that Angie and her party have encouraged the notion among the German public that Germany is doing so much better than Greece or Spain because Germans are just so much more responsible and efficient. Certainly not because they are, say, free-riding on the advantages for their foreign trade in Europe that the euro provides them. He also seems to be making a dig at Angie's background in the Protestant Church in East Germany. Her father was a strict Protestant minister. And it's been a part of the speculation about Angie's fixation on austerity and discipline (for other countries, for Germany not so such) that it comes in part from her particular religious upbringing.

Tags: angela merkel, austerity economics, eu, euro, european union, greece