As Germany’s Economy Falters, Green-Socialist Government Moves To Redefine “Prosperity”

If Germany’s Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Green Party) gets his way, prosperity will no longer be defined by GDP and income, but by how many wind parks are built, social inclusiveness, groundwater nitrate content and many other vague social metrics. 

Is Germany’s Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck trying to hide economic woes by redefining “prosperity? Image: Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Politically this is becoming a hot issue as citizens struggle to make ends meet. If governments don’t act quickly enough to curb this erosion, they may find themselves booted out of office soon.

Yet, many green-leaning government don’t want citizens to see more prosperity because they feel prosperity is precisely what’s ruining the planet in the first place. Somehow green leaders need to convince citizens that worse is better.

Prosperity will soon mean something else

Blackout News here reports precisely how German Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck, Green Party, plans to do this: by redefining the term “prosperity”.

The problem, in their eyes, isn’t that things are getting worse for Germans, but that the wrong metrics are being used to calculate prosperity. “Growth equals prosperity” no longer applies.  In the old days, prosperity was often gauged by GDP, but for the German Greens and Economics Minister Habeck, this will no longer be the case. Prosperity will mean something very different from now on: like how green and inclusive society is.

Hey look! Things getting better for you, really!

Habeck’s new approach to measuring prosperity “includes 34 indicators that are intended to show what the actual state of prosperity in Germany is.” The factors include, for example, “the number of wind turbines”. “the nitrate content in groundwater” or “the average proximity to public transport” reports Blackout News. Maybe you won’t have any money to buy a car, but at least there will be a bus stop half a mile away. And look, now more people have a wind park near the back yard of their energy-efficient tiny apartment!

Already some are arguing that there are other motives behind the government’s new definition: “Is Habeck already preparing us for an economic downturn?”  As the economic crisis intensifies, the new definition would allow the government to claim that things aren’t really that bad after all, and that things are in fact better than they appear. And if you complain about it, then it just means you’re a right wing nut who’s a danger to democracy.

Prosperity = how green and socially just

The German federal government’s draft annual economic report states, “Individual and thus overall societal welfare depends on far more than just the economic framework data.” but on whether it is “ecological, social, just, inclusive, innovative and forward-looking”.

The government wants to include indicators that show the extent to which Germany is “on a socially balanced, sustainable, innovative, greenhouse gas-neutral development path.”

“The picture that emerges from the ministry’s data is mixed: Germany is doing well after many years of upswing in the past decade, but prosperity is unevenly distributed, economic momentum is low and energy transition goals are still a long way off,” Blackout News adds.

Meant to prepare us for economic downturn

“That GDP should no longer be a measure of prosperity suggests that the new definition of prosperity is meant to prepare us for an economic downturn. As prosperity declines, so does approval of current policies. To conceal the loss of prosperity, prosperity is then simply redefined,” Blackout News suspects.

Will Habeck and the German government get away with it? Not likely. But if they did, the question would become: For how long? The former Soviet Union and communist East Germany did it for decades, using political brute force. But eventually, like all social engineering experiments, it’ll end all ends failing in a heap socialist excrement, which in turn will serve as rich compost for better ideas.




12 responses to “As Germany’s Economy Falters, Green-Socialist Government Moves To Redefine “Prosperity””

  1. voza0db

    Seems logical enough… They need to manipulate the data in order to obfuscate the destruction they are creating daily.

    Clearly this is ALSO something that we, the herds of modern moron slaves, won’t care about and won’t do anything to stop.

  2. Petit_Barde

    This seems logical since in newspeak, poverty is prosperity as ignorance is strength and war, peace.

  3. Robert Folkerts

    “As inflation due to soaring energy prices skyrockets”
    A price rise does not increase the supply of currency. Governments do that for their own purposes. A 2% rate of inflation as desired by most governments reduces the value of a currency by 50% over 20 years. So their debt liability effectively reduces. Guess who pays?

  4. Michael Peinsipp

    Why do all of these guys look like pedos or just simple weenies?

  5. Cris

    Kinda like how Stalin used to gauge how well the country was running by how many bourgeois he was sending to the gulags…

  6. John Hultquist

    It looks like Germany has reached “Peak Population™” and will be decreasing at an accelerating rate until about 2060, then the loss will slow, flattening in about 2085.
    As this starts to impact the nation, not spatially even, many folks are going to experience worsening lifestyles.
    This is the sort of thing where a Federal Economics Minister might want to focus.

  7. Luigi

    Europeans have seen their well being eroding since the beginning of the 90es. In Germany with reunification and then since 2004 with Gerard Schroeder’s Agenda 2010, when he introduced the 400€ minijob, in force of which all companies and most even public institutions changed most permanent contracts into 4 or even 5 minijobs, having for the same money 5 employees who could be exploited because the official 8 hours work every week became then much more in reality. During the whole Merkel era there has been what in Germany is called Lohndumping. An example: End of Mark’s era: 1 computer engineer earned 5000Mark after tax (1st employment). In 2019 the same earned 2000-2500€ after tax, therefore having lost 20 years inflation. That said, why did Germans continue to vote those criminals? Because they apparently want all that. If they do not suffer, they are not happy.

    1. posa

      “That said, why did Germans continue to vote those criminals? Because they apparently want all that. If they do not suffer, they are not happy.”

      Correct Luigi. Philip refuses to acknowledge the obvious: The vast majority of voters AGREE with Habeck and the polices of the Red-Green-Black coalition. It’s Greta’s Silent Majority that wins 90% of votes on election day. No viable alternative exists. Germany is no grand exception. This is the prevailing culture across Europe (and especially the UK) with only a few exceptions in E. Europe.

      The situation is slightly different in the US. However, the BRICS New World Order led by Russia- China will not bend to the Less is More form of economic suicide. The West is on course to wither and collapse, a stark example of mass cultural suicide.

      1. Luigi

        It is a sort of natural cycle: the after-war generation fought to rebuild. Their children inherited all the advantages and had a comfortable life. They raised children with the idea that no effort is needed and now these children are destroying everything.

        🙁

  8. MGJ

    GDP is indeed a pretty lousy measure of prosperity. It is easy to manipulate and is subject to all sorts of absurdities, such as significant increases due to money being shifted between government departments or ludicrous ‘estimates’ based on the value of black market transactions.

    The proposed alternative is of course far worse – assuming your goal is an accurate measurement of wealth and not just to deceive the plebs.

    I see no benefit in trying to measure some sort of aggregate measure of prosperity – it is each individual’s personal assessment that matters, according to their own circumstances. I therefore propose we should stop measuring it altogether, fire the people wasting their lives trying to measure/fiddle it and they will then be available to generate some actual wealth instead.

  9. Senex

    I would define prosperity as being directly proportional to one’s distance from Berlin

  10. Gerald the Mole

    A very simple measure of prosperity is can I afford to keep warm in my house on cold days without putting on an overcoat.

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