Davids Medienkritik has a helpful followup to the story noted below.
I had an extensive interview with a German reporter today on the topic of “capitalism.” It was occasioned by the debate in Germany over the disgusting and despicable remarks of Franz Müntefering, chairman of the ruling Social Democratic Party, who called entrepreneurs “locusts.” To refer to businessmen as vermin and as bloodsuckers is truly shocking and would be so in any country. The depiction of American business people by Müntefering’s union, IG Metall, as long-nosed bloodsucking foreign capitalists is a good example of how the new anti-Semitism in much of Europe is anti-Americanism. (Not that the old anti-Semitism is gone, mind you. And the fact that so many refugees from the old anti-Semitism live in New York makes it no accident that when, for example, central European nationalists refer to “New York financial interests,” nobody should have any illusions about their allusions.)
“To refer to businessmen as vermin and as bloodsuckers is truly shocking.”
I’m sorry, but to me this sounds a lot like Ayn Rand’s absurd notion about American big business being a “persecuted minority.” Certainly there is nothing about business intrinsically which makes those who practice it vermin or bloodsuckers. On the other hand, it is perfectly obvious that there are and always have been businessmen of exactly that kind. Rand herself depicted a number of them in her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. Think of James Taggart, Orren Boyle, etc., etc., etc. In our world think of the “businessmen” who amass fortunes by running to the State for special favors and legal methods of stifling or shutting down their competitors — to say nothing of those “businessmen” who “earn” all their money helping foreign States to set up programs to fleece their citizens. Are not Ross Perot, Larry Ellison, and the like “vermin” and “bloodsuckers”?
JR
Hello and thanks so much for the link. Just to be clear, Muentefering is to my knowledge not a member of IG Metall, but his party, the SPD, is politically very close to IG Metall and both share many of the same ideas and sentiments. In fact, IG Metall’s Chairman is a member of the SPD.
Ray D.
DMK
I don’t think Tom meant to refer to *individual* businessmen as vermin and bloodsuckers is shocking; I’d venture to say he meant wholesale, as a characteristic inherent to each member of the group. It’s the difference between saying, for example, “Ariana Huffington a twit” versus “women are twits.”
Nothing improper about criticising individual people, but to say that being a bloodsucker is something that is part and parcel of being in business is truly vile.
– Adam
Mr. Riggenbach may be quite willing to refer to classes of people as “vermin,” but any decent person would find designating other people in such fashion despicable. No doubt there are individual Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, Buddhists, and literary critics who are horrible and nasty people, but I would not refer to such groups as “locusts” or “blood suckers.” And putting little top hats with the stars and stripes on them is a very clear example of group hatred.
Would it be a defense of a magazine article that depicted Jews as blood sucking mosquitos to point out that some particular Jew was a thief? Maybe in Mr. Riggenbach’s worldview, but not in mine.
How is Larry Ellison a blood sucker?
I don’t know about “blood sucker,” but Ellison’s company is heavily tied to the State, and in unsavory ways. Oracle is all about databases, contracted and subsidized by the government. Ellison has pushed hard for a national ID system and was at the forefront of the federal war on Microsoft. Indeed, a case could be made that the company only is where it is because of the State — not the private sector. Here are just a few interesting links on it:
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47788,00.html
http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/010928-tk.html
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1001/1001ellison.htm
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/05/20/MN209661.DTL
Of course many businessmen are unsavory potentially bad people. But I think Dr Palmer’s point was that group hatred has little to do with individual action and much to do with an assumed set of intrinsic attributes that don’t really apply to any one member all at once. It’s the same kind of thinking that engenders anti-semitism because it equates one member of a group with the whole.
Larry Ellison is no Boy Scout (he got the local airport to ignore the noise rule for late flights so that he and he alone can land his plane), but that bodes nothing on businessmen as a whole.
Well, I think anti-americanism exists but isn’t mainstream in Germany. Many rather simple minded people moreover confound George W. Bush’s policy with all americans and put things in one box that have nothing to do with each other.
Münteferings message has been attacked and critisized by e.g. ArbeitgeberprÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?¤sident Hundt or by Professor Wolfssohn.
Let’s hope that these people that at the moment govern Germany won’t get reelected and long live Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft.
Martin
Wow, I didnt know about his support for a national I.D. but I still wouldnt call him a “blood sucker”. The airport thing I know about because its in San Carlos where I live. I agree hes no boyscout but is it wrong to be aggressive in the business world?
I wouldn’t say Ellison’s a bloodsucker either. But asking for special favors from a city government (San Jose) that isn’t keen on letting up for ordinary citizens isn’t being aggressive. Pushing for stricter anti-trust laws that just happen to benefit his sagging company isn’t aggressiveness either.
Of course that’s not the point with anti-Americanism, but it’s still something to look after.
I guess I just blame government for giving him those favors.
My favorite response to the anti-Jewish notion that “Jews control the world economy for their own ends” was when one of my Jewish friends asked, “Where the hell is MY CUT OF THE ACTION?”
What about the possibility that when someone complains about “New York financial interests” he means just that — you know, Wall Street, the banks, the Federal Reserve and other elements of the world’s financial capital?
Trust me, Anthony, when people in central Europe speak of “New York Financial Interests” they mean “the Jews.” It’s a code term for Jews. And when giant mosquitos wearing top hats with stars and stripes on them appear on German trade union magazines, it’s a none-too-subtle code for “rapacious Americans.”
It’s possible that people can mean whatever they want to mean when they say things, but nonetheless, terms have meanings that are not merely the subjective states of the speakers. But let’s even posit that someone might mean “Wall Street, the banks, the Federal Reserve and other elements of the world’s financial capital.” That would show a pretty primitive understanding of how those institutions work together, since they hardly have the same interests and rarely if ever act together as a unified actor. Serious political science doesn’t start with “New York Financial Interests” as a class actor, but with individuals and their interests and then shows how they interact in complex ways. At times some libertarians have written in a cartoonish style that mimicks the Marxists, but that is not a high standard for serious political or class analysis. “Financial interests” are rarely in the kind of alignment that a term such as “New York Financial Interests” would imply.
By the hermeneutical standard set in the first comment above, the spider depicted in the Nazi cartoon at the top of this page wouldn’t be anti-Semitic, since surely there were some cases in which some Jews engaged in bad (“bloodsucking”) behavior. In fact, it is categorizing Jews as “bloodsuckers” per se, just as the IG Metall magazine was depicting “American businesses” as bloodsuckers per se.
Regarding Ray D.’s comment above, my colleague David Jenniches points out that Müntefering’s biography on the Budestag web site states “Member of the SPD since 1966; Member of the IG-MEtall since 1967” (Seit 1966 Mitglied der SPD; Mitglied der IG-Metall seit 1967).
http://www.bundestag.de/mdb15/bio/M/muentfr0.html
Tom,
Why the *new* antisemitism? The beginning and (unfortunately never to come) end of antisemitism is eras and worlds away from anti-Americanism.
It depends on what one denotes by the term anti-semitism. If one has in mind the holocaust and pogroms, then LB is certainly right. But anti-semitism takes other, milder forms, as well, forms that arguably contributed greatly to the holocaust and to pogroms. One problem when one mentions the term anti-semitism is that some people assume that it refers only to the holocaust and then dismiss it as nonexistent. But anti-semitism takes much milder forms, as well, from “They wouldn’t be comfortable in our club; they have their own” to claims that “All they care about is money” and “They’re so pushy and always try to cheat you.” Anti-Americanism is very popular among both left and right intellectuals in Europe and it has adopted many of the claims traditionally associated with anti-semitism. It does not follow that Americans are threatened with the fate of European Jews.
Similar claims also have been and are used about a number of groups other than Jews throughout the world. But there is a reason why a specific word, “antisemitism”, to do with the treatment of Jews, originated.
I don’t follow LB’s remark. There has also been terrifying persecution of the Roma people (also known as “Gypsies”). One can speak of anti-Roma persecution. The same goes for other groups. I was pointing to similarities between anti-semitism and anti-Americanism (and acknowledging differences). The similarities include “money grubbing,” “run the world behind the scenes,” “have no culture,” etc. In the case at hand, Franz Müntefering has referred to entrepreneurs (with Americans cast as the villains) as vermin and his union, IG Metall, has depicted them as blood sucking bugs, both remarkably redolent of the anti-semitic literature of the 1930s.
Tom, you are absolutely right. I stand corrected: Muentefering has been a member of IG Metall for nearly 40 years. I appreciate your looking into it. That is what makes blogs so wonderful.
This just means they are more interconnected than I had previously imagined…
Thank you,
Ray D.
Dehumanizing opponents seems to be a tactic of American unions, too. When I walked around in downtown DC today somebody handed me a leaflet. It’s titled:
Shame on Tricon Construction, Inc. for Desecration of the American Way of Life
Beneath the title you see a rat (maybe with a human face or just badly drawn) gnawing on the US flag.
First paragraph:
“A rat is a contractor that does not pay all of its employees prevailing wages, including either providing or making payments for family health and pension benefits.”
Last sentence of second paragraph:
” Tricon Construction does not meet area standards, including providing or fully paying for family health care and pension for all of its carpenter craft employees.”
Therefore, Tricon Construction is a rat as defined in paragraph one. Responsible for the leaflet is the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters.
I’ll send the leaflet to Tom to verify my statement or to put it on his blog (if he wants to).
I hope this comes across as a little clearer. (I found some more time to write):
I wouldn’t have had too many problems if the title of “some parallels between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism” was the extent of any comparison. However, the adoption of the catchphrase “the new anti-Semitism in much of Europe is anti-Americanism”, I couldn’t let pass. It may make some sense on a superficial level, but makes much less real sense if you dig a little deeper. After all, if Tom “was pointing to similarities between anti-semitism and anti-Americanism (and acknowledging differences)” why the inclusion of the definite article, as in “the new”, then; I presume the term “definite” article means just that.
It gives the impression that the “old” has been surpassed, watered down; hence Tom’s need for parentheses to clarify. (The catchphrase doesn’t usually come with parentheses attached).
It makes little sense; is poor use of the english language. Antisemitism according to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary is “hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.” Does the following really make sense? “The new hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group in much of Europe is anti-Americanism.”
As I said before: “The beginning and (unfortunately never to come) end of antisemitism is eras and worlds away from anti-Americanism.” Why conflate the two; it is not helpful. As I also said, lots of groups have been and are targets. There has been plenty of persecution. Also think of Chinese minorities in SE Asia, Indian minorities in parts of Africa, the fear of those Japanese corporations taking over America, etc. There were/are similar claims to what Tom was referring to. Why not the new anti-Japanese(ism?)? – besides the fact that the correct suffix is hard to think of.
And on my last unfollowable remark (“Similar claims also have been and are used about a number of groups other than Jews throughout the world. But there is a reason why a specific word, “antisemitism”, to do with the treatment of Jews, originated.”)…I’ve tried to answer it above but will add that while persecution will always be with us, and even though it may ebb and flow between the various victims of it in terms of its prominence, antisemitism will always be the most lasting and prominent form of it, no matter what Jews try and do about it; hence the specific term (antisemitism).
Thanks to LB for the clarification; I understand his or her point better.
It seems that the objection is a matter of style, then, and not one that I’d invest much energy in defending. To say that “X is the new Y” is not literally to say that X and Y are indistinguishable; it’s a way of pointing to similiarities between them. Since the bulk of Europe’s Jews were either murdered or driven out in the mid-twentieth century, it’s striking when some of the same rhetorical attacks are emerging again, not directed against Jews, but against another group. (The old anti-semitism, i.e., the use of charges of greediness, rootlessness, etc., is still there, but most of the targets aren’t.)
I’d be happy to amend the title in the manner that LB suggests. If LB worries that it implies that hatred of Jews has now vanished, that certainly wasn’t my intention. Rather, it was to point out how anti-Americanism both deploys charges similar to (or identical to) those of traditional anti-semitism, and how it seems to fulfill a similar function. As Professor Wasserstein pointed out in the article to which I linked in the post:
“Psychologically, it fulfills some of the same functions as anti-Semitism. It gives vent to a hatred of the successful, and is fueled by envy and frustration. It attributes responsibility for all the ills of the world to one primary source. It ascribes to a supposed ruling clique of the despised group an ambition to control and exploit humanity. This new conspiracy theory has been embraced by large sections of the thinking classes in many countries. Like historical anti-Semitism, it transcends ideological boundaries and brings together economic, social, religious, and national animosities in a murderous brew.”
Disturbing. I wonder if Germany will ever learn? What does the press there say about this???
http://veraciraptor.blogspot.com