My employer the Hans-Böckler-Foundation interviewed me on the current Corona situation in Germany and the potential for societal conflict. In short, I see the situation as potentially explosive. The crisis has put a lot of people in existential worries and brought rapid social change. Many people have suffered income loss and many perceive the burden sharing as unjust, while we could in fact show that particularly already disadvantaged groups carried most of the burden. As right-wing populist and extremist groups offer visible alternative myths and “explanations” in their growing protests, there is a big risk that many lose trust in political institutions and might eventually turn their backs on democratic dialogue. With that said, it seems even more important to properly explain the restrictions and the aspect of a just distribution of burden sharing should become the focus of attention.
Here is my thread on this with additional calculations and figures (in German only). Here are the tweets of Hans-Böckler-Foundation.
