Robin Jaspert is a PhD candidate at the department for international relations and international political economy at Frankfurt’s Goethe University. His work focusses on financial markets, central banks, global power relations, and “sustainable” finance; in addition to his scholarship, he is involved in political education and movement activism.
Politicians like Sahra Wagenknecht say the Left should admit that immigration hurts workers’ living standards. This approach abandons the Left’s historic fight to win improvements for all — and it’s based on blatantly false claims about migration.
Since 2015, the EU has increasingly demanded that African states repress migration on its behalf. It secures their compliance through economic coercion — exploiting debt relations which have in recent times sharply turned in favor of rich EU countries.
Despite both right-wing hysterics about “woke capital” and the optimistic claims of Wall Street, ESG has done very little to steer investment in more socially responsible directions. Aggressive state action is needed to rapidly green the economy.
Seventy years ago today, Germany’s debts from World War II were written off. Today climate activists around the world are protesting in front of German embassies to demand the cancellation of the debt of the Global South.
The Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are withdrawing money from markets in the name of fighting inflation. But the move is aggravating the pressures of debt on the Global South — and pushing states toward ruinous austerity measures.