Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

The Refugee Crisis, Immanuel Kant And Germany’s Moral Leadership

Yanis Varoufakis 16th September 2015

Yanis Varoufakis

Yanis Varoufakis

Economists err when they think that human rationality is all about applying one’s means efficiently in order to achieve one’s ends. That the efficient application of available resources in the pursuit of given objectives is an important dimension of our Reason, there is no doubt. The error however sips in when economists, and those influenced by them, assume that this is all rationality is about.

This type of instrumental approach to the meaning of Reason massively underestimates perhaps the one ingredient of human reasoning that makes us exceptional animals: the capacity to subject our ends, our objectives, to rational scrutiny. To ask ourselves not just questions such as “Should I invest in bonds or shares?” but also questions of the type: “I like X but should I like it?”

This summer we, Europeans, faced major challenges to our integrity and soul. The inflow of refugees tested our humanity and our rationality felt the strain of needing to make hard choices. Most European nations, and their governments, failed the test of history spectacularly. Closing borders down, stopping trains on their tracks, treating people in need as an existentialist threat, indulging in bickering at the level of the European Union as to who will bear a lesser part of the burden – all in all, Europe behaved abominably leading the Italian Prime Minister to utter in desperation: “If this is Europe, I do not want to be part of it.”

One country stood out, showing moral leadership on this issue: Germany. The sight of thousands of Germans welcoming wretched refugees who had been turned away in several other European countries was one to savour and one to extract considerable hope from. Hope that Europe’s soul has not been lost entirely. Chancellor Merkel’s relaxed leadership on the matter, even the magnanimous attitude of otherwise misanthropic German tabloids to the inflowing refugees, made amends for Europe’s failure to rise up to this humanitarian crisis.

Many have imputed ulterior motives to Germany’s generosity. Poor German demographics may be helped by an influx of relatively young, highly motivated, mostly well-educated fleeing Syrians. Guntram Wolff, in the Financial Times, recently drew a historical comparison with a 17th Century influx of French protestant refugees into the state of Brandenburg, who brought in with them skills and dynamism. Employers rejoice at the thought of more workers, putting downward pressure on wage costs, while macroeconomists try to calculate the fiscal costs to the welfare system in relation to the economic benefits from a boost in aggregate demand.

This cynical cost-benefit analysis misses the point, however. That there are benefits from immigration is beyond dispute – except by racists. Host countries (with the United States, Canada and Australia offering living examples) are the ones enjoying enormous net benefits, while the countries abandoned by their people suffer. But this is true for all aging Central and North Eastern European nations. Why is it only Germany and its people that took enthusiastically to welcoming refugees? The answer, clearly, has nothing to do with economics. If there are positive economic repercussions, these are mere byproducts of some other type of motivation that made Germans open their borders and hearts to the refugees. What might it be?

Students of philosophy may be tempted, as I am, to seek the answer in one of Germany’s grandest gifts to humanity: the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Unlike economists and Anglo-Celtic philosophers, Kant is not satisfied with instrumental accounts of what it means to act rationally. Such accounts are fine for cats and sophisticated robots. But not for humans. Humans must have a capacity for moral reasoning that is, nevertheless, the result not of dogma but of pure Reason.

Kant’s practical Reason demands that we should undertake those actions which, when generalised, yield coherent outcomes. For example, lying cannot be a rational choice because, if universalised, if everyone were to lie all the time, trust in what others say would disappear and language would lose its coherence. True enough, many people refrain from lying because of the fear that they will be found out. But Kant does not consider such instrumental reasons for not lying as fully rational. In his mindset, the rational and the moral merge when we develop a capacity to act on the so-called categorical imperative: of acting in a universalisable manner independently of the consequences. For the hell of it, in plainer language.

Taking refugees in is such a universalisable act. You do not take them in because of what you expect to gain. The fact that you may end up with great gains is irrelevant. The warm inner glow of having done the ‘right’ thing, the boost to aggregate demand, the effect on productivity – all these are great repercussions of one’s Kantian rationality. They are not, however, the motivation. One’s rational acts, according to Kant, are not to be determined by expected gain, that instrumental ‘utility’ that depends on what others do and on a number of contingencies. There is no strategy here. Just the application of the deontological reasoning which requires that we should act upon ‘universalisable’ rules.

There is, of course, no way that one can prove empirically that German solidarity to the refugees was of the Kantian type, and not some instrumental attempt to feel better about themselves, to show up other Europeans, to improve the country’s demographics. Be that as it may, I do not buy these cynical, instrumental accounts. Having observed so many Germans perform countless acts of kindness toward refugees shunned by other Europeans, I am convinced that something akin to Kantian reasoning is at work.

I say “something akin to Kantian reasoning” because full Kantian behaviour is neither observed in Germany nor necessarily desirable. There are times when good people need to lie (for instance when skinheads interrogate you on the whereabouts of a black person they are chasing) and there are several realms where German attitudes are far from consistent with Kantian thinking.

Indeed, this summer there was a second occasion when Europe harmed its integrity and damaged its soul: It happened on 12th and 13th July when the leader of a small European country, Greece, was threatened with expulsion from the Eurozone unless he accepted an economic reform program that no one truly believes (not even Chancellor Merkel) can alleviate my country’s long standing economic collapse, and the hopelessness that goes along with it. On that occasion no universalisable principle was in play, the result being that a proud nation was forced to surrender to an illogical economic program for which everyone in Europe, including Germany, will pay a price.

This is not the place to recount the vagaries of Greece’s never-ending crisis. And nor is there a need since its underlying cause has nothing to do with Greece: the real reason Greece has been imploding, while Berlin and the troika are insisting on a ‘reform’ program that pushes the country deeper into a black hole and keeps it hopelessly unreformed, is that the German government has not yet decided what it wants to do with the Eurozone.

Berlin knows well that, as it is, the Eurozone is non-viable. It needs major reforms. It needs mechanisms for recycling surpluses from the regions where they amass to the regions in deficit. Alas, Berlin has not formed an opinion, yet, on what these reforms should be, what form of European political union it wants, or how to convince Paris to go along with its priorities. So, while the Franco-German elephants tussle, little Greece is being squashed, awaiting the outcome of this interminable clash. In the process, millions of Greeks languish in desperation, hundreds of thousands of educated young men and women flee the country, and the oligarchy is having a field day exploiting the political impasse caused by last July’s surrender of our government.

Setting aside the Greek drama for now, Europe needs moral leadership from Germany. On the question of refugees, we have it – and that’s excellent. On the question of how to deal, at long last, with the Eurozone’s crisis, there has been no German leadership – indeed, quite the opposite, as the German government has been lagging behind developments, stepping in only at the last moment to tackle the symptoms but never its causes.

What should Berlin do? An excellent start would be to apply the same Kantian principle which has been evident in the case of the refugee crisis. Kant’s practical Reason asks of us to adopt policies that, if generalised, will yield coherent outcomes. Large trade surpluses cannot be ‘generalised’! Just as in the case of lying, securing economic prosperity in a monetary union by means of huge net exports, and increasing competitiveness vis-à-vis other European countries, fails Kant’s test. And so does a motivated blindness to the fact that one’s surplus is another’s deficit.

Time for Germany to extend its moral leadership from the refugee issue to the Eurozone’s architecture. Evoking Immanuel Kant to ditch the incoherent view of itself as Europe’s export-oriented workshop would be an excellent start.

This column was first published on Yanis Varoufakis’ Blog

Yanis Varoufakis

Yanis Varoufakis, a former finance minister of Greece, is leader of the MeRA25 party and professor of economics at the University of Athens.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u421983467e464b43d2 1 Why European Security and Sovereignty Depend on Its Digital SectorMariana Mazzucato
u42198346c3fba71fa474 0 As Temperatures Rise, European Workers Face a Looming ThreatMarouane Laabbas-el-Guennouni
u42198346741 4727 89fd 94e15c3ad1d4 3 Europe Must Prepare for Security Without AmericaAlmut Möller
6ybe7j6ybe Why Real Democracy Needs Conflict, Not ConsensusJustus Seuferle
u4219837 46fc 46e5 a3c1 4f548d13b084 2 Europe’s Bid for Autonomy: The Euro’s Evolving Global RoleGuido Montani

Most Popular Articles

u4219834647f 0894ae7ca865 3 Europe’s Businesses Face a Quiet Takeover as US Investors CapitaliseTej Gonza and Timothée Duverger
u4219834674930082ba55 0 Portugal’s Political Earthquake: Centrist Grip Crumbles, Right AscendsEmanuel Ferreira
u421983467e58be8 81f2 4326 80f2 d452cfe9031e 1 “The Universities Are the Enemy”: Why Europe Must Act NowBartosz Rydliński
u42198346761805ea24 2 Trump’s ‘Golden Era’ Fades as European Allies Face Harsh New RealityFerenc Németh and Peter Kreko
startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

S&D Group in the European Parliament advertisement

Cohesion Policy

S&D Position Paper on Cohesion Policy post-2027: a resilient future for European territorial equity

Cohesion Policy aims to promote harmonious development and reduce economic, social and territorial disparities between the regions of the Union, and the backwardness of the least favoured regions with a particular focus on rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition and regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as outermost regions, regions with very low population density, islands, cross-border and mountain regions.

READ THE FULL POSITION PAPER HERE

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

With a comprehensive set of relevant indicators, presented in 85 graphs and tables, the 2025 Benchmarking Working Europe report examines how EU policies can reconcile economic, social and environmental goals to ensure long-term competitiveness. Considered a key reference, this publication is an invaluable resource for supporting European social dialogue.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
How are minimum wage levels changing in Europe?

In a new Eurofound Talks podcast episode, host Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound expert Carlos Vacas Soriano about recent changes to minimum wages in Europe and their implications.

Listeners can delve into the intricacies of Europe's minimum wage dynamics and the driving factors behind these shifts. The conversation also highlights the broader effects of minimum wage changes on income inequality and gender equality.

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!


Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss European defence strategies, assess how the US president's recent announcements will impact international trade and explore the risks  and opportunities that algorithms pose for workers.


READ THE MAGAZINE

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641