In hindsight the dearth of properly materialist analyses of the Merkel era and Merkelism is fascinating. Even today M appears as an 'effect without a cause', a leader without qualities or opinions who nonetheless presided over a deeply ideological process of elite stabilization.
So many political categories seem to ricochet on the hard postmodernism of Merkel - a woman who is everything to everyone, devil and saint, a transformist hero who both saved and destroyed Europe.
BUT - if you follow @tgrdebate and instead see Merkel as the ideal representative of a specific faction of large German export capital (think Adidas!) with tremendous power in Germany then her politics become perfectly legible and understandable.
Unlike the smaller German firms which Schaüble might still attend to, corporations such as Adidas have a vested interest in maintaining a diverse international consumer base and do not want to see poorer nations thrown out of the eurozone. Their multiculturalism is strategic.
Merkel’s post-ideological posture is the position of a section of large German export capital that does not need too much culture warring but does need a steady labour supply - and which obviously has no time for proposals that tilt the scales in European political economy.
Once you see Merkel in this light her amorphous politics suddenly become far more comprehensible in materialist terms - she's a shapeshifter because German capital shapeshifts constantly between national export performance and international markets!
Streeck hits most of these points in this (fascinatingly personal essay) - which should be turned into a book-length discussion wolfgangstreeck.com
For an overview of just how ideologically and economically destructive Merkel's reign has been, on both a European and global scale, this by @NewLeftEViews: jacobinmag.com
This old piece by @adam_tooze is great because it indicates just how far less suitable Schaüble is for the role of capitalist hologram than Merkel - and why he's proven less influential.
adamtooze.com
adamtooze.com
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