Between Frustration and Politicisation – The Situation of Young People in Germany

(IMAGE: Bernd Schwabe in Hannover, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The following article first appeared in ‘Sozialismus Heute’, the theoretical magazine of the ‘Sozialistische Organisation – Solidarität’ (German section of the CWI). We are publishing a translated version here. Slight changes have also been made to make it easier to understand for readers outside Germany, as well as minor political additions. The article was written against the backdrop of an ongoing debate in the bourgeois media in Germany about whether the youth in Germany are moving to the right. This debate is mainly based on the growing approval ratings for the right-wing ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD) party among young people. As the article explains, this phenomenon is not one-sided and is not evidence of a generalised shift to the right

The economic crisis, the pandemic, political polarisation and the overarching climate crisis are hitting young people particularly hard. Now more than ever, capitalism has become a threat to the future of young people. Since 2019, there have been a variety of processes within the youth that have partly accelerated politicisation and partly led to uncertainty and frustration. This article will therefore take a closer look at the situation of young people and the perspectives for resistance and new protest movements.

Marxists view society from a class perspective. If you look at capitalist society, there is a small layer of super-rich people who own the means of production and large parts of society’s wealth. On the other hand, there is the vast majority of society that is part of the working class, for they do not own any means of production or noteworthy capital. They are forced to work for companies and enterprises owned by the capitalists.

In this sense, youth is not a class, it is made up of members of all classes, and yet it is important to take a closer look at young people. However, the class affiliation of young people with a (petit) bourgeois home does not necessarily characterise their political awareness and activity to the same extent as it does for adults. This is because young people are often not yet fully integrated into the day to day capitalist working life, for example by holding a management role in a company. As pupils and students they have similar interests to their fellow pupils and students from a working class background, namely to have a dignified and secure future. What’s more, young people still have their whole lives ahead of them. Outrage about social grievances can therefore often be particularly strong among young people. Nowadays, the multiple crises of capitalism are also jeopardising the future of many young people as a whole, including those with a petty-bourgeois background. Thus, even these parts of the youth can feel alienated from capitalism and its class structure.

In many mass movements, young people have therefore also provided the initial spark. In 2019, it was mainly pupils and students in Chile who sparked a mass revolt against thirty years of neoliberal privatisation policies by protesting against public transport fare rises. In France, it was the students who organised the first protests in 1968 that triggered the largest general strike of the working class in the country’s history. In 2009, the occupation of the Tory party headquarters by students in England sparked a nationwide student movement against the government’s plan to triple tuition fees, cut education spending and abolish an important education grant for students from poorer backgrounds. In 2003, it was students who demonstrated in the hundred thousands against the war in Iraq on D-Day (the day the US military invaded Iraq), which was an important factor in the mass demonstrations on 15 February 2003.

It was also often the youth who participated most fiercely and resolutely in these revolts. In Chile, many young people fought in the front line against the repression of the police, who tried to stifle the mass revolt.

At the same time, the ideological triumph of capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union and the decline of the organised labour movement had a significant impact on the consciousness and politicisation of many young people and thus also on their role within movements. Due to the weakening of the organisations and parties of the workers’ movement, many young people have no idea what achievements the working class had fought for in the past that have since been reversed. How many young people today can imagine that there was a time before Hartz IV (a highly unpopular German unemployment benefit system  which was introduced in the 2000s and cuts benefits when people turn down jobs, no matter how badly paid they are) and “Bürgergeld” (today’s name for Hartz IV)? Or that the postal service and Deutsche Telekom (telecommunications company) were once completely nationalised, just like the railways? Hardly any young people have experience of factory occupations or wildcat strikes.

Young people often unload their frustrations in spontaneous movements and protests instead of channelling them into trade unions and political parties. One in three 16 to 20-year-olds has already taken part in a demonstration, but only around one in ten has ever been active in a political party.

Nowadays, the systemic causes of many crises, such as the climate crisis, are also obvious. ‘System change not climate change’ has become a slogan of the climate movement. However, what exactly is meant by ‘the system’ and to what extent there is an idea of a systemic alternative is another matter. Without a strong labour movement that explains capitalism as a systemic cause and presents a socialist alternative, the conclusions of many young people often remain abstract.

In numerous movements in recent years, there has also been a strong rejection of established parties and the idea of organising under a concrete programme in the long term. In Chile, the slogan from the time of the Popular Front government before the 1973 coup, ‘The people united can never be defeated’, was transformed into ‘The people without a party can never be defeated’. Socialists reported something similar about the great people’s uprising in Sri Lanka in 2022.

The youth alone are not able to unhinge capitalism. This is because strikes and protests by pupils and students do not hit capital where it really hurts – profits. The mass movement in France in 1968 only took on a revolutionary character when workers went on strike and occupied their factories. In doing so, they challenged capitalism as a whole and robbed the government and the ruling class of their economic power.

In some sense the relationship between youth and the working class can be imagined as the relationship between a flame and a steam engine. The flame sets the steam engine in motion, but the engine and the pistons create the drive. Of course revolutions and uprisings don’t always need an initial ‘spark’ by young people and history also shows examples of the youth only entering the stage later, themselves inspired by working class struggle.

 

Pupils

The effects of the multiple crises of capitalism start with the youngest. A DAK (health insurance company) study revealed that three quarters of schoolchildren are plagued by anxiety about the crisis. Many fear that the war in Ukraine or the climate crisis will continue for a long time or that their family’s financial situation will deteriorate. The general fear of crisis is intensified by pressure to perform and stress. Many also suffer from health problems as a result of this pressure. More than half of fifth to tenth graders are exhausted (55 per cent). More than a third sleep badly (37 per cent).

Added to this is the lack of investments that affects many schools and therefore also the learning environment of many pupils. Cities and municipalities estimate that schools would need to be refurbished at a cost of around 54.8 billion euros.

However, protests by pupils against the pressure to perform and, in some cases, dilapidated schools have largely failed to materialise in recent years. The pandemic has certainly played a part in this. But the downturn of education protests had already begun earlier. The last major education protests took place in the early 2010s and were part of a global wave of protests at the time. Since then, calls for education protests have attracted little attention among students, with the ‘Bildungswende JETZT!’ (Education Change NOW!) initiative mobilising just 15,000 people nationwide in 2024. This contrasts with the 200,000 students who went on strike against the Bologna reform in 2009. Since then, parts of the youth have come to terms with the reforms, partly because past struggles did not prevent them. As a result of this process, fewer and fewer young people have had real experiences of school strikes and are less aware of, or rather have been taught less about, the deteriorations of recent decades. The emergence of influencers who propagate self-optimisation and neoliberal performance principles has certainly also had an influence on this.

At the same time, fears of military conflicts, the economic crisis and global uncertainty since 2020 have also had a paralysing effect and led to a temporary retreat into the private sphere. In a representative survey conducted in Halle (Saale), forty per cent of pupils in the fifth grade said they spent their free time alone every day or several times a week, compared to 26 per cent in the previous study from 2018.

 

Effects of the pandemic

The impact of the pandemic on the awareness of many young people should not be underestimated. Not only did isolation lead to a lack of socialising with peers, but it also increased the pressure in the form of beauty ideals etc on many young people through the consumption of social media. As a result, the pandemic also had a massive impact on the mental health of many young people. One year after the start of the pandemic, the demand for treatment from child and adolescent psychotherapists rose by sixty per cent. At the same time, this demand was met with a lack of adequate care. Waiting times for outpatient therapists doubled during the pandemic and have not decreased significantly to date.

 

More students than apprentices

Since the 1950s, the ratio of students to apprentices in Germany has shifted significantly. While there were 75.5 apprentices for every ten students in 1950, there are now twice as many students as apprentices.

There are various reasons for this development. In part, reforms by social democratic governments, such as the introduction of BAföG (Federal Program to support youth from low income homes to visit university), made it easier for young people from the working class to attend university. On the other hand, technological developments, such as increasing digitalisation in the automotive industry, have led to a growing demand for skilled workers with a degree. Last year alone, there were 149,000 unfilled IT positions in German companies. On the other hand, constantly falling real wages have led to young people trying to secure a better income with higher qualifications. From the 1950s to the 1970s, real wages rose every year. The average was four per cent per year from 1970 to 1979. Since the 1990s, however, this trend has reversed. Between 1990 and 2010, real wages in many occupations fell by fifty per cent. This development particularly affected apprenticeships.

For many young people, the path to an apprenticeship is therefore no longer a promise of a sufficient financial livelihood. DGB-Jugend, the youth wing of the German Trade Union Confederation, publishes an annual study on the satisfaction of apprentices in Germany. Every year, the study comes to similar conclusions: Apprentices continue to work a lot of unpaid overtime, are often not properly trained by their instructors and do not know whether they will have a job in the company after their training. This year, a third said they regularly worked overtime, while 15 per cent said they always or frequently did work that had nothing to do with their apprenticeship. Instead, many young people are trying to secure a better start to their careers through academic education.

However, similar to the situation among school students, the constant deterioration in apprenticeship conditions has not led to any significant protests. The last major apprentice strikes were decades ago. The decline of left-wing forces in the trade unions and socialist youth organisations certainly plays a role here.

 

Poverty among students

However, going to university is not a step away from poverty. 77 per cent of students who live alone or in a shared flat with other students or apprentices are at risk of poverty. The reason for this is often the high rents in university cities. The cost of rooms in shared flats has risen continuously in recent years. A room in a shared flat in a university city now costs an average of 500 euros. In Munich, students even pay an average of 807 euros. No wonder that the majority of students are financially overwhelmed by their housing costs. Students pay an average of 54 per cent of their household income on rent. That is more than twice the national average. For apprentices, the proportion is 42 per cent.

 

Bafög and part-time jobs

Poverty among students is also due to the decreasing proportion of BAföG recipients and the falling real rates. In 1973, 47 per cent of all students in Germany received BAföG. Since then, there has been a steady deterioration in student support. In 1982, Helmut Kohl’s Bafög cuts introduced Bafög only as a full loan, meaning that the subsidised amount had to be paid back in full. As a result, the number of subsidised students fell to 18.3 per cent by 1989. In the 1990s, this step was partially reversed, with a partial loan that now only amounted fifty per cent. Nevertheless, the only hesitantly adjusted income allowances, which did not fully take into account the rising cost of living, led to a declining number of recipients. In addition, processing times are getting longer and longer due to staff shortages and high bureaucratic hurdles for students who, for example, have little or no contact with one of their parents. As a result of all this, the proportion of students receiving BAföG fell to 12.6 per cent in 2023. Yet just 16.4 per cent of those entitled to BAföG receive it.

In contrast, the proportion of students with part-time jobs has risen to two thirds. Students are therefore increasingly reliant on financial support from their parents or part-time income. This leads to more and more stress and strain, especially for students from the working class. In a survey conducted by insurance company Techniker Krankenkasse, two out of three students stated that they had been ‘exhausted by stress’ in the past twelve months. The causes of stress cited by respondents included exams, the multiple demands of studying and working and the fear of poor grades.

Many student part-time jobs are often very precarious. Even student assistants (except in Berlin) do not even have a collective labour agreement and are therefore often subject to the arbitrariness of their professors. The situation is similar in restaurants and cafés, where unpaid overtime and labour law violations are commonplace.

For many young people, studying is therefore not a way out of poverty, but a step into precarious living conditions. The general decline in quality of life since the pandemic has hit students particularly hard and has also brought the issue of social concerns back to the foreground. So far, this change has not directly led to any protests or movements. Sooner or later, that will change.

 

A shift to the right among young people?

Particularly after the elections to the EU Parliament and in eastern Germany, where the proportion of young AfD (‘Alternative for Germany’; far-right party) voters rose again, there was a broad media debate about whether young people are shifting to the right. However, the Shell Youth Survey, which has since been published and is considered representative due to its scope and long-term approach, paints a different picture. According to the survey, significantly more young people are afraid of anti-immigrant sentiment (58 per cent) than of further immigration (34 per cent). What has increased, however, is the polarisation that can also be observed in society as a whole. According to the researchers, significantly fewer young people (just ten per cent) than in the past reject being categorised as right-wing or left-wing. As a result, the proportion of young people who categorise themselves as clearly left-wing but also right-wing has risen, with only the proportion of women who see themselves as right-wing remaining the same. Overall, 25 per cent of young men see themselves on the right or more to the right. The percentage of women is eleven per cent. In contrast, 46 per cent of young men and women see themselves as left-wing or rather left-wing.

At the same time, the politicisation of young men in particular to the right should not be underestimated, even if they do not form a majority. The images of recent fascist rallies against Christopher Street Days in Bautzen, Halle, Leipzig and Magdeburg, for example, show that fascist organisations benefit from polarisation. At all these anti-LGBTQ-rallies, the young age of many participants was striking.

If there is no strong left-wing alternative, right-wing thugs in particular can exploit the insecurity and frustration of young people. This in turn will have effects on migrant youth who are confronted with a growing number of racist attacks.

 

Instability leads to politicisation

However, the greatest fear of young people is the fear of war in Europe. In the Shell Youth Survey mentioned above, 81 per cent of respondents cited this threat as their main concern. The increasing geopolitical instability is also having an impact on young people’s consciousness here. However, this growing sense of crisis does not directly translate into support for left-wing and socialist positions. Particularly when it comes to war, uncertainty can also lead to temporary support for government policy in the hope of guaranteeing a perceived sense of security. As a result, few young people were involved in anti-war protests. Demonstrations were often mainly characterised by older people who had already been active against wars and armament in the past. Half of all young people are still of the opinion that Germany should continue to support Ukraine militarily. In the population as a whole, the proportion is 38 per cent.

One exception is Israel’s war against Gaza. Here, just over half of all young people say that Germany must show more recognition for the suffering of the Palestinians. Demonstrations against Israel’s war were also characterised by a higher number of young people, especially young migrants. However, in this case too, rejection of the war does not automatically lead to support for socialist positions. Once again, socialists need to engage in programmatic debate instead of just running after the movement. The debates among some young people about the German government’s continued military support for Israel provide a good opportunity to put forward socialist ideas.

 

Movements since 2019

Since the climate protests of the Fridays for Future movement in 2019, there has been an increasing differentiation among politicised young people. The movement, which had initially staged impressive mobilisations, increasingly reached a dead end, mainly due to the very limited demands that the movement’s leadership addressed to the German government. The lack of actual success led to a large part of the movement withdrawing again and was no longer able to be mobilised.

A smaller section remained active and sought new approaches. Some, who were mainly in the leadership of the movement, switched to ‘realpolitik’ and joined the Greens. Others came to the conclusion that the form of protest had to be more radical in order to achieve the goals and joined the Last Generation. However, another group drew the political conclusion that the lack of progress in dealing with the climate crisis has a systemic cause. This has allowed some left-wing youth groups to grow in recent years. The departure of many activists from the Green Youth is a continuation of this development. Many of those who have now left have been politicised by the climate crisis and the movements against it, but their political activism led them to the conclusion that change is not possible within the pro-capitalist Greens.

 

Opportunities for new movements

It is difficult to predict when and what will spark new youth movements. However, the objective crisis of capitalism, the attempt by the ruling class to improve their conditions of profit by cutting public spending and increasing work pressure, global instability leading to more wars and military conflicts, the climate crisis, as well as the rise of racism and right-wing parties, will inevitably lead to new movements and protests. Many young people will come to the conclusion that these problems have a systemic cause and look back on the experiences of past movements. The social question will once again come to the fore as a result of the economic crisis, as has already happened recently with the protests against increasing prices and in the wage negotiations. As a result, parts of the youth will draw anti-capitalist and socialist conclusions.

The task of socialists is to reach these layers and connect their struggles with those of the working class and the labour movement.

This also requires a socialist youth organisation. Therefore Sol is involved in building Youth for Socialism as a base for such a youth organization.

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