Chancellor Olaf Scholz sees no threat to the future of the former SPD workers’ party, despite its shrinking core electorate. “The SPD is the inventor of the mass party, the democratic party in Germany,” said Scholz at a performance at the Phil.Cologne philosophy festival in Cologne.
It is true that the SPD was initially purely a workers’ party, but then opened up to other sections of the population. In doing so, she has stuck to her values such as fairness and respect for the working population.
It was the first time that a Federal Chancellor appeared at the Phil.Cologne. There, Scholz discussed “work and democracy” with the work philosopher Axel Honneth. The key question was how to prevent disenchantment with politics from increasing and more and more people withdrawing into the echo chambers of social networks.
No reason for cultural pessimism
Scholz emphasized that people with a low level of education could have just as good political judgment as a university teacher. That is also very important in a democracy. Incidentally, the level of information among citizens is often higher today than it used to be, and there is no reason for cultural pessimism. He himself knows many people who pursue a rather monotonous job and yet actively participate in democratic co-determination. The academic middle class often underestimates the abilities of these people and wrongly considers their views irrelevant.
One problem, of course, is that many people move in the echo chambers of social networks and are only ever confirmed in their preconceived notions. When you read a daily newspaper, you are always confronted with surprising information and different opinions, and that is very important.
He doesn’t believe in theories that human work will eventually become superfluous, for example through artificial intelligence, said Scholz. Already 100 years ago there were forecasts that machines would soon make human work superfluous. That didn’t happen. Therefore, he believes “that we can actually be confident”. Nor can he see that work is no longer important for the next generation.
Many of the almost 40 events of the week-long Phil.Cologne festival this year focus on socio-political issues. Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) was a guest on Friday.
