Fuck you, Berlin

An immigrant’s take on Globalization and Berlin
Underemployed, underpaid, and overeducated: wait am I talking about millennials, expats, or immigrants? Let’s try all three: things aren’t going well for any of us, and we’re pissed.
One really, and I mean really, just needs to look around Berlin to see how the city’s problems reflect a global economy that is depressing wages and replacing jobs with technology. Berlin is a microcosm for the state of the world: much is beautiful and striving, but underneath, and somewhat visibly, people are profoundly suffering.
Berlin in itself is not Germany; there is no robust export sector, and the life is (still somewhat) affordable. This affordability has brought in droves of foreigners who see Berlin as a promised land of a more social and fair life. The common misconception is: I can get along, it’s Berlin.
There is a real dark side to this, however, and it lays in the city’s foundations. It’s an aversion to valuing labor and a race to the bottom complicated by a growing influx of wide eyed and naive newcomers, ready to “make it” here by not doing much or functioning outside of the system.
Many Berliners, new and old, are immensely resourceful. It’s astounding to think about some of the networks of support that I have experienced here. From everything to occupied housing systems to the original Tafel itself (a welfare organization that gives unwanted food to impoverished people): Berlin works on its standards. And these idiosyncratic standards reflect themselves in the worst and best of humanity within the city.
But, people are tired; and getting less for their work. Globally, productivity has outstripped wage growth. Laborers are thus getting less and less of the pie. In Germany, the poorest receive only about 10% of their income from wages: this means they are relying on the state, social transfers, informal income, or support networks for their livelihood.
Exactly because these social networks of support exist, there’s an insidious and exploitative side to the labor market here. While searching for work, just about every interview I attended seemed smugly satisfied to justify underpaying an intern (400 Euros a month) because: “It’s Berlin, that’s a lot.” Consequently, inequality is multiplying everywhere in Germany, even Berlin.
This is bad — inequality hurts everyone. It shuts workers out of formal work contracts and hurts the most disadvantaged, especially migrant workers. It also signifies the decline of labor-intensive work and a shift to more capital based sectors, emerging from global pressure for higher returns and the globalization of international trade. Both have led to the erosion of labor market institutions.
Inequality is also a bit racist: many believe that people coming from Southern or less developed countries require less income because they have fewer needs than nationals. Anecdotally, several of my acquaintances from “eastern European” (that label is damaging) countries report earning less than counterparts in similar positions.
A running joke in my expat group is: “could you imagine having kids?” No, we can’t. And we certainly can’t afford to.
Migrants and expats are underrepresented in market institutions because it’s that much harder to organize. We’re often shut out by nationals themselves who are afraid we’ll steal their jobs. This sentiment is mirrored even within the expat community: “Shh,” we say, hoping to keep Berlin our “secret,” or they’ll take our jobs.
Thus among higher wage and more skilled earners — the income gap is huge: migrants are doing worse. Ironically at the lower end of the spectrum (unskilled labor), the wage gap is much closer. Expats and migrants are making less, even when they work their way up the pay ladder.
Many, however, make ends meet in Berlin’s massive informal sector. I’m talking about the sellers at Mauerpark and the English language teachers who can scrape together enough to survive. Those working in more formal sectors, fully employed, can receive protection from the state. Those who work informally are more vulnerable to exploitation. The informal sector is growing globally while the proportion of low-earning workers is increasing: we’re all pretty poor together.
This underrepresentation in the formal sector is readily apparent in neighborhoods of Berlin like Wedding, where the migrant population (even second and third generations) has still avoided integration and (often) works by its own rules. Because migrant workers remain in their communities, there is a distinct lack of financing, social protection, and a larger informal sector. Ironically, this leads to some of the best entrepreneurial spirits in all of Berlin. The unending streams of Spätkaufs, barber shops, and Döner joints are in reality the heart of Berlin. I doubt that shop owners in Wedding are making minimum wage after calculating the grueling hours — some open for more than 12 hours a day. Precisely because migrants and expats slip through the cracks and mostly withhold themselves from market institutions, they are forced to find alternatives through entrepreneurial initiative and sheer grit. Ideas that migrants are stealing your jobs are ridiculous: they are doing their jobs because they have to.
Despite this, poorer consumers must keep spending; the global economy runs on their consumption. But, the profits are flowing to the top: growing inequality, so suggests the ILO, has put pressure on poorer consumers to borrow to maintain consumption levels. As Die Zeit columnist Harald Martenstein so aptly joked: the B for BMW stands for Bankkredit (German for loan). Richer households consume less. The path from Wedding to Prenzlauer Berg is paved with sports cars transforming into bikes.
Ah, Berlin. You were so promising. Your cultural goods would make you ca creative powerhouse and innovative hub open to the world. Then came the capital and investments, the companies looking for cheap labor and the speculation from greedy, second-generation (or newly arrived) Berliners who couldn’t care less that by making an extra buck off their neighbors, they were, in essence, beginning to hollow out any cultural authenticity Berlin once had. Does anyone remember Richard Florida? Well, apparently, he apologized for his insane “Bohemian Index” after realizing that the creative class is mostly made up of trust fund babies and those who can afford to have mommy pay for their apartment while they intern at a gallery.
The real fact remains, what made Berlin so creative and revolutionary was space. Once this space disappears, the ability to live anticapitalist lives fades with it. What remains are the graffitied alleyways leading to small, but posh, indie film theaters. While the studio apartments line their floors in linoleum, the artist who contributes marginally to a capitalistic economy goes hungry or sells his soul to the most SEO-optimized content they can produce.
I think, and so desperately hope that some of what makes Berlin beautiful (the informal networks of solidarity that are the difference between living in a shared flat and on the streets) can be scaled up and formalized to help more people. But one must demand justice — even if you feel you’re living here on borrowed time. Borders may be fluent, but your conception of what is fair should not be.
Because despite the bad, Berlin is still sexy.
References:
International Labor Organization. (2014). Global Wage Report 2014/15: Wages and income inequality. Geneva.
