Upcoming co-party leader Wissler: "It is not enough for the left to rule"

Together with Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, Janine Wissler will take over the leadership of the Left Party next weekend. In an interview with ntv.de, the Hessian explains how she imagines a socialist Germany – and what went wrong with her party recently.

ntv.de: Die Linke demands a license release for corona vaccines. Would we have so many effective vaccines today if their laborious development had not been driven by the prospect of fabulous profits?

Janine Wissler: Yes, I think so. Billions of dollars have flowed into the research and development of vaccines from tax revenues, 375 million to Biontech alone. Now it is necessary to speed up the production of vaccines because the market does not seem to be regulating it. We do not know how long the vaccination protection will last and the solidarity with the global south and other less rich countries dictate that the necessary production capacities are now created for the years to come.

If necessary, should the state limit the profit of the manufacturing corporations?

It's about saving human lives, and the state has to intervene. This also applies to other curable diseases where effective drugs are protected by patents. If there are effective drugs and vaccines against diseases, their use must not fail because production is not lucrative, profits are not high enough, or patents prevent poorer people from being treated.

Do pharmaceutical companies act immorally?

I don't want to discuss this on a moral level. It is ultimately a question of the system. For board members and managers, the interests of their company and their shareholders will always come first. Politics and the state are responsible for ensuring that certain areas are not left to the logic of profit and the market. The common good has priority.

Within your party you were a member of the Marx21 group, which is described as Trotskyist …

I have never called myself a Trotskyist. I am a socialist. For me, socialism means a democratic society in which all people can live in dignity, in which it is not profit that determines, but the protection of human life and quality of life, natural resources and peaceful coexistence.

Sahra Wagenknecht once accused the left of getting lost in academic debates instead of focusing on the interests of the voters. How do you explain to the single parent carer why she should vote for a socialist?

To person

The 39 year old Janine Wissler has been active against right-wing extremism and excesses of globalization since her youth. She has been a member of the Hessian state parliament since 2008 and has been parliamentary group leader for more than ten years. At the federal party conference of the left next weekend, she and Susanne Hennig-Wellsow want to inherit the previous chairmen Bernd Riexinger and Katja Kipping, who will not run again.

The single parent carer is a good example. Because you can earn a lot of money with care in Germany – provided you are not a caregiver. Care companies, on the other hand, earn well on the back of their employees, including many women. I know nurses who continue to work in outpatient care after their shift, because otherwise they can't get through the month, especially single parents. In this profession you cannot work well over 60 and retiring at 67 threatens correspondingly high discounts. Many geriatric nurses are therefore afraid of old-age poverty. Criticism of capitalism becomes very concrete here.

Is there a proletariat and a ruling class in Germany?

Germany is a class society, which is also clearly evident in the Corona crisis. The family circumstances into which you are born determine what educational opportunities you have. In Germany, ten percent of the population own well over two thirds of all wealth. Last year there were 58,000 new millionaires in Germany. According to Oxfam, a nurse has to work 156 years to get the average annual salary of a Dax board member. What does this have to do with performance equity?

Despite these conditions, the left is bobbing around in the polls.

We are stable in the surveys, but we are not exhausting our potential. We have to achieve that many more people perceive us as the force who represents their interests and who puts the finger in the wound, whether in the case of errors in the health system, social justice, racial discrimination or the housing market.

What do you want to do better when you and Susanne Hennig-Wellsow take over the helm?

As a party, we have to put forward those issues that we agree on. We haven't always succeeded in doing this well in recent years. And even more people go to the people, to be there when, for example, care workers for better working conditions or industrial workers for their jobs, or at Fridays for Future and the Black Lives Matter protests.

But do people in precarious circumstances even want a different social system? Or do they not just want to be able to live, travel and consume just like everyone else?

People don't necessarily want a different social system. But if you want the differences between rich and poor not to diverge in such a way that all people have equal access to education, culture and health care, and nobody has to worry about not being able to pay the rent anymore, ultimately we have to go through one Talking about system change. We will not solve the climate crisis either without interfering with the property and power relations because the corporations are blocking the necessary energy and transport turnaround. The same goes for the healthcare system: Large hospital groups pay dividends to third parties, while the doctors and nurses who generate the profits are completely overburdened.

The left rulers in Thuringia and Berlin. Do government participation lead to a system change or do they ultimately legitimize existing conditions?

That is the exciting question. If the left rules anywhere, that is not yet a change of system. Social pressure is always required for change. In Berlin we experience that with the rent cap. That is an intervention in the market, one is dealing with the interests of the large real estate groups in the interests of the tenants. This would not have been possible without the pressure from the tenants' initiatives and the protests.

So should the left seek more government participation?

That depends on the content. We want to change something. It is not enough for the left to rule anywhere. The great achievements have always been achieved through movements from below, be it women's suffrage, the eight-hour working day, the end of nuclear power, same-sex marriage. Abuses are only brought onto the agenda through social pressure and the power of corporations cannot be broken through government participation alone.

The Greens want to join the Federal Chancellery, the SPD chairmen want a "progressive alliance". Both parties want to overcome Hartz IV. But are you skeptical about a three-party coalition in the federal government?

I am happy when the SPD notices that Hartz IV was a socio-political mess and wants to change that. If there are corresponding majorities, we have to discuss the question of government participation based on the content.

Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder said in his Ash Wednesday speech that he had become a "central target of the entire legal and conspiracy scene" because of his Corona policy. Right-wing extremists have targeted you for a long time and have received death threats from NSU 2.0. Do you have any tips for Mr. Söder?

I am in solidarity with anyone who falls victim to right-wing threats. One should not forget that it was politicians of the CSU who, through their statements, have contributed to the poisoning of the social climate and the strengthening of the right in recent years. Most of the people who are the target of rights and racist hostility every day are people who are not prominent and who are victims of hostility, everyday racism, violence and structural discrimination because of their non-German name, skin color or religion.

Do you have any tips for Mr. Söder?

I can only give Mr Söder the tip that his authorities must consistently disarm the right-wing scene, educate right-wing networks and promote civil society projects against right-wing extremism. And: Prime Ministers can also stand in the way of Nazi marches.

Are you hoping for a rethink in the Union, which considers left and right-wing extremism to be equally dangerous?

The danger comes from the right. In Germany, more than 200 people have been killed by right-wing violence since 1990. Against the background of German history, equating right and left is dangerous and historically forgotten.

Sebastian Huld spoke to Janine Wissler

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