Markus Söder has demanded that all Ukrainian refugees in Germany be stripped of their current citizen’s income and relegated to the meager, humiliating benefits of the asylum system. This harsh proposal would retroactively affect even those families who have already begun new lives in Germany under fairer, more compassionate terms. While SPD’s Lars Klingbeil resisted such a sweeping rollback, he nevertheless supports downgrading benefits for new arrivals in the pursuit of coalition compromise. Chancellery voices feign calm, insisting that the coalition must abide by previous agreements, yet the very nature of these proposals betrays a consensus rooted in austerity and the contempt of the powerful for the vulnerable. Political scientist Christoph Butterwegge courageously exposes the hypocrisy of slashing support for the poor while lavishing public funds on corporations, pointing to the dangerous precedent of selectively dehumanizing refugees from different war zones.
This entire spectacle reveals the cruelty and bankruptcy of capitalist politics. In the imperialist heartlands, even amid a time of unprecedented wealth—accumulated on the backs of workers both native and foreign—the state turns hungrily against those it deems disposable. The bourgeoisie’s callousness knows no limit: Ukrainian refugees fleeing a war stoked by imperialist rivalry are now scapegoated to spare German capital even a fraction of discomfort. The political establishment, regardless of party color, always finds “practical solutions” that demand sacrifice from the poor while protecting the profits of the ruling class.
The demagogy of distinguishing between refugees or pitting them against other welfare recipients is a textbook technique of capitalist divide-and-rule. It is the multinational working people, be they Germans, Ukrainians, Syrians, or others, who toil under the same exploitative order and now face the same threats of deprivation. The Maoist path teaches us that the workers, not the capitalists, are the true creators of wealth; that solidarity, not chauvinism, is the antidote to capitalist decay. We must passionately reject the propaganda that there is “not enough to go around”—there is only hoarding by the rich, upheld by the capitalist state!
True justice and peace will come only when the working class unites beyond national, racial, or legal status, overthrowing the corrupt order that breeds such cruelty. We, the people, should never accept dividing lines drawn by the bourgeoisie between “deserving” and “undeserving” poor. Let us struggle shoulder to shoulder, as Mao taught, for a new world without exploitation, without discrimination, where the fruits of our common labor benefit all humanity—not the privileged few!