Mayers of the world economy: Europe in the crisis of confidence

trust is good, control is better, to have said of the Russian revolutionary Lenin. But, as with many other things, he had also not right. Without trust, it’s not a human community, because complete control is impossible. Just as we have to our family members trust, that you will not betray us, we can’t even trust the people that you lie to us and cheat.

confidence grows best in the liberal state of law. Because there are rules that determine the social interaction, which can be accepted by all, because they do not oblige anyone to specific objectives. No wonder, then, that the liberal rule of law the most successful order of society, and the greatest economic prosperity ever could. But trust does not fall from the sky, but always in the “fair” – it could also be a rule saying normal – people dealing with each other. Negligence and selfishness have destroyed in the recent past, however, a lot of trust.

The big Bang of the loss of Confidence by the financial crisis of 2007/2008. The of the responsible in the area of Finance, politics and in the media in front of it the promise of economic growth and social security, it burst like a soap bubble. Instead of profitable investments, many financial instruments proved to be scrap, and seemingly world-controlling banks had to be bailed out by the taxpayer, so they created the Bank dissolved the money in the air. The D-Mark’s successor-praised the Euro proved to be a wobbly construction, which could only be to Break through the construction of promises and contracts saved. It can be surprised if after so many not-held promise of trust in those fades that you had given?

The European Commission has regularly asked a representative sample of EU citizens about their confidence in major institutions. The results show a significant loss of confidence in the European Union, the national parliaments and the press in the first half of 2007 and the second half of 2013. Among the large EU countries, the loss of confidence is particularly low in Italy, France and the UK, but relatively moderate in Germany. With the economic recovery after 2013, the trust in Germany and the UK increased again, but remained in Italy and France pressed. After the election, Emmanuel Macrons confidence in France jumped in early 2017 in the amount, since then. Except in Germany, which was able to benefit from the long global economic recovery after the financial – and Euro crisis the most, is the confidence in these countries and the EU as a whole, today, under the value before the start of the financial crisis.

The loss of confidence in the disenchanted, experts, politicians and opinion leaders in the media paved the way for former outsiders who positioned themselves against the “elites”. The deeper the loss of trust, the more successful of these “populists”. In Italy, where the pain was, now rule populist parties, and in France, where up to a temporary recovery by the choice of Macrons, a similar development became apparent, are likely to be in the coming European elections, populist parties are the most powerful force. In the UK, the populist to control most of the country on a hard break with the EU.

the loss of trust splits the society. In the UK Brexiteers “and” Remainers are “” unforgiving. For us, it could come due to ever more threatening intervention in the individual freedom of movement, possibly to a clash between “Environmentalists” and “climate deniers”. Because if the level of trust in experts is discredited, what is the area of Finance has breached, then the evidence-based debate in society with the willingness to compromise will be replaced by the implacable fight for the true Faith. We don’t go as fast on the barricades, like our French neighbours, but politically motivated violence is by no means foreign. We do not want to be “Weimar conditions”, then we urgently need to restore confidence. More honesty about our intentions, modesty in relation to our Knowledge and respect for the rules of society are necessary, on which our right of freedom rests.