Richard Wolff sees triumph of Elif Eralp in Berlin as proof of decline of US-centric politics

Renowned American economist and public intellectual Richard D Wolff says that the change in New York and now in Berlin, two cities where socialists have won the popular mandate, is proof of the rejection of US-centric politics that have dominated the world since the end of World War II in 1945. Wolff, a top-notch academic who is also the founder of the media platform Democracy at Work, was responding to the victory of Elif Eralp of The Left party (Die Linke) in the mayoral election in Berlin, Germany.

A section of analysts described the Berlin election as Germany’s “Mamdani moment”, referring to the victory earlier this year of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York. In excitement, a few passionate Leftists also posted on social media the late singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen’s iconic lines, “First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin”.

For Wolff, this is much more than all that. He tells Open in an interview, “The middle of politics -- responsible for the 80 years since 1945 devoted to administering the global US empire (that it inherited from the mutual destruction of all the old empires in World Wars 1 and 2) -- is now being rejected by all those, at home and abroad, who suffered in and from that empire. The masses everywhere -- first in the colonies and now also in the home of the colonising countries -- are rejecting the 80 years’ rule, the last gasp of capitalist imperialism as it declines in the face of the dominance of today’s post- and anti-colonialist era,” he says, emphasising that New York and Berlin are symptoms of this process and steps within it.

Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School. He has earlier taught economics at Yale University and City University of New York and is an alumnus of Harvard College, Stanford University, and Yale University.

He adds, explaining the growth of conservative and far right politics, “Of course, disaffected masses go right politically at first. That simply reflects the rightward bias of anti-communism over the past 80 years. But as the right proves to be no big change from those 80 years, the masses will turn leftward to see if a new left can deliver the needed change.” Wolff dismisses those who think that such victories are a flash in the pan. “They are utterly ahistorical in their thinking and have succumbed to pure wishful thinking instead. A sign of their desperation in the face of the disappearing political middle,” he argues.

Like 34-year-old Mamdani, who is New York City’s first Muslim and Asian-American mayor, Eralp, 45, who is set to become the next mayor of Germany’s capital, will have many firsts to her credit when she assumes the post. She will be the first woman of colour to hold the office, first mayor of Turkish descent in Berlin, and the first Left party candidate to win in Berlin since German reunification in 1990, which happened a year after the fall of the Berlin wall.

Eralp’s campaign had focused on curing the ills of excessive neo-liberal policies and promised rent controls besides greater inclusion for all amidst a marked rise in xenophobia fuelled by far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and others across the country. The emphatic win for the Left in the Berlin state elections is attributed to overwhelming support among young voters, especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Incidentally, this was the first poll in Berlin in which the voting age was lowered from 18 to 16. According to various surveys, a good chunk of voters aged 16 to 34 favoured the socialists.