Ask Lemmygrad

After the fall of the Soviet Union and Germany’s subsequent reunification, the German bourgeoisie coveted Russia’s markets and low-cost energy. They desired economic ties with Russia but only as long as they and their French compatriots could maintain their unfettered domination of the European project, which they had held since WWII. This meant building economic ties with Russia but excluding Russia’s political leadership from any equal participation in Europe’s political affairs, decisions, or structures. US strategy in turn had been to avoid any strategic relationship between Russia and Germany as their combined strength would create a formidable economic competitor in Europe.

Ownership of capital and the means of production are always fundamental. Over the last 30 years, the ability of capital to move quickly and seamlessly between the borders of imperialist countries has increased exponentially. Capital investments have a defined number of primary categories including stock, notes, bonds, private equity, real estate, and many forms of derivatives. The stock market is one of the fundamental vehicles for most capitalists to make long-term investments. A German firm that goes public may do so in either the US or German stock exchanges. Large funds like Vanguard purchase these funds, but they are not the beneficial owners. They are just effective trustees for the funds of major capital (some small percentage of this capital is owned by the petty bourgeoisie and privileged sectors of the working class through pension funds and other instruments).

The original shareholders of this firm eventually can and do sell their now public stock. They no longer remain dependent on managing their wealth via their investment inside one company. Rather they hire wealth managers, either through firms such as Goldman Sachs or their own advisors, who in turn, invest the cash proceeds from the sale of stock. For many capitalists, their advisors will have them invest well over 50% of their portfolio in the US stock markets. The German capitalist’s ‘family wealth’ therefore does not disappear when the German company they had originally owned declines in value.

The economic, political, and social consequences of this change in capital markets and ownership are vast. This newly minted global – formerly ‘German’ – capitalist behaves very much like their French, English, Swedish, or US peers. This level of integration and denationalisation of capital results in a much more robust economic and, eventually, reinforces political allegiance to the US.

The situation in Germany today, for example, clearly illustrates the effectiveness of this integration process and economic consolidation by the US as shown in Figure 38. According to 2020 IHS Markit data, only 13.3% of the German stock market’s value is owned by Germans, while investors from North America and the UK own 58.3%. A 2023 study by Ernst & Young revealed that at least 52.1% of the market value of the 40 blue-chip stocks that make up Germany’s DAX index is owned by funds outside of Germany in 2022. Of the remaining shares, 16.5% ownership is unidentified (very likely also owned by foreign capital), with only 31.3% of the market value owned by Germans. The major companies of the German economy are primarily not owned by Germans.

[...] The collapse of ‘national will’, the willingness to pursue a path corresponding to its national capitalist interests, demonstrated by Germany in the context of the war in Ukraine, shows that Germany has been defeated for a third time since the beginning of the twentieth century (the first two being the world wars, as noted by Hudson). Despite the cost to itself, Germany supported sanctions against Russia and military aid to Ukraine. When Israel’s war on Gaza entered its 100th day, having killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, Germany – with its historical violence in Namibia and domestic holocaust against Jewish people during WWII – supported Israel in the hearing at the International Court of Justice brought by South Africa.131

Over the last few months of 2023, political representatives of German capital in the Bundestag privately raised and then introduced measures to restrict trade with China under the guise of de-risking. This is clearly in contradiction to the short- and medium-term interests of German business. Marx described the relations between the capitalists as one between a band of warring brothers. In periods of crisis, the state, as an organ of the ruling class, exerts its political role despite the fissiparous nature of intra-capitalist relations. Today, the short-term interests of executives at nominally German companies are subordinated to the interests of Hyper-Imperialism.

With the formation of the German Empire (1871–1918), political and economic expansion into Eastern Europe, rather than solely territorial expansion, was a key strategy. After reunification in 1990, Germany pursued a dual strategy: first, it decisively supported the US strategy towards Russia of NATO expansion. Second, it led a simultaneous strategy of ‘capital penetration’ into Russia with the aim of securing political control in that state of groups most tied to Western and German interests and against those pursuing a more independent policy. German capital supported proxies like Russian billionaire (at the time) Mikhail Khodorkovsky. In 2001, Khodorkovsky established the Open Russia Foundation, with Henry Kissinger as one of its trustees. By 2004, he was imprisoned for fraud and embezzlement after attempting to carry out policies against Putin.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel pursued dual strategies of supporting military preparations against Russia and organising the internal opposition to Putin. She also orchestrated the building of Nord Stream 2 despite huge US resistance. The latter however was for German self-interest, not for the appeasement of Russia, nor to hinder NATO expansion. In 2014, she arranged the release of Khodorkovsky and enabled a calculated breach of the Minsk agreements. But the dual strategy ended in February 2022, when Germany as a willing partner alongside the US, and with the help of Ukraine, decided to wrestle and topple Russia.

Germany’s reality, however, is that unless it were prepared to undertake a full break with US policy, which no significant section of the German bourgeoisie is prepared to consider, any strategy it has fails without US support – giving the US the whip hand in this relationship. A paradox arose in which the US wanted to maintain German-Russian enmity, but not support a full German victory against Russia. This explains in part why the US appears to be threatening to cut off Ukraine’s funding. The US goal of destroying German-Russian relations has already been achieved as well as the vassalage of Europe and Germany under penalty of the deindustrialisation of Germany.

The US will continue to deprive the German bourgeoisie of all major options for asserting independent political positions. With the help of the capital ownership links that we have described, the German bourgeoisie will be faced with absolute subsumption of the options for the action of German capital under the US aegis. The hostility towards Russia acts as a driver of Europe’s subordination to the US and as a loss of any possibility of independent development.

All emphasis mine.