ABSTRACT
Germany, like many other European societies, is being seriously challenged by current domestic, European, and worldwide upheavals. The domestic challenge is due to the fact that the costs of unification have exacerbated the existing effects of economic rationalisation and tertiarisation in the German labour market, with the result that unemployment has risen to a level not seen for decades. The European challenge is a result of the imminent European Monetary Union (EMU) forcing the Member States to combat both inflation and budget deficits via rigid cuts in public expenditure, in order to meet the Maastricht monetary convergence criteria (see Bercusson et al., 1996, chs 2 and 3). Lastly, the challenge is worldwide in that what is commonly called ‘globalisation’ (that is commodities and services, manpower and capital, above all speculative capital surmounting national and continental boundaries) tends to universalise productivity and price competition leading towards regime competition among developed states, between developed and less developed states, and among the less developed.
