Forum newsletter: What is more dangerous: tech-gigants or part-time? New Economy Talk with Aya Jaff and Thomas Fricke

Dear friends and colleagues,

The Chinese are giving us a lesson in how we will be replaced by AI in the future, subsidising our car industry into crisis and demonstrating industrial policy, while in the US, tech billionaires are hijacking our data to work towards a time without democracy – and a US president is reducing all the rules of fair competition to absurdity with tariffs.

And how is Germany responding? With the idea of finally taking action against lifestyle part-time work – or by removing accidents on the way to work from health insurance coverage. The Chinese and Donald Trump will be surprised.

All that would be amusing if it did not reflect in such a worrying way how deeply rooted our understanding of economics from the economic miracle of the 1960s still seems to be, according to which it is basically enough to spit on your hands and everything will be fine. In reality, this approach does not help us to cope with the China shock, nor does it enable us to take advantage of the necessary shift to electric mobility – something the Chinese simply decided to do and are now reaping the benefits of.

It is also of little help to roll up one’s sleeves when Germany has made itself far too dependent on exports to critical countries over many years. Or when it is almost impossible to convey to society the power that some (tech) billionaires now wield.

One of the major challenges of our time is indeed how people like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are establishing new power structures beyond democratic control. Another challenge is how to win back people who have lost faith in democracy. Both of these issues were discussed at our first New Economy Talk in cooperation with Surplus Magazine on “The uncanny power of tech bosses and authoritarians – who will save democracy?” on 26 February in Berlin-Mitte. The kick-off event of the talk series featured Aya Jaff, tech expert and author of the book on “broligarchy”. The second talk was given by the head of Forum New Economy, i.e. me: on ways to combat the powerlessness that drives so many to seek solutions to their problems from populists and authoritarians.

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