Deutsch
English
FrançaisSub menu: Home
Home / Index of Authors
Jessen, Jens
2 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
Jens Jessen on capitalism and Judaism
After the faux pas of Bavarian economist Hans-Werner Sinn who compared current criticism of bank managers with attacks on Jews after the global economic crisis of 1929, Jens Jessen in the weekly Die Zeit calls on the Germans to put an end to such comparisons. "Because it was exactly the paranoid equation of Jews with capitalism and its crises that gave the initial thrust to Nazi propaganda. Anti-Semitism, as August Bebel [a founding father of social democracy] said in the 19th century, is the anti-capitalism of the dumb. But the association becomes neither more intelligent nor more innocent when you turn it around ideologically and conclude that anti-capitalism, whenever it arises, always contains an element of anti-Semitism. ... Dear Germans! Honoured economists! Do with capitalism what you please, praise it, criticise it, choke it or nourish it, but leave the Jews out of it! ... It must be possible to debate the merits of an economic system without - even apologetically - pointing a finger at the Jews."
» more information (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Fiscal Policy, » History, » Germany
Culture in times of financial crisis
The weekly Die Zeit hails the liberation of art from the economy that it claims the financial crisis has brought. "It may be that the bank crisis will mean the end for one or two cultural projects. Promotional funding that took an indirect route through culture could become scarce. But culture itself, the arts and sciences in the narrower sense, will profit from the crisis. All of a sudden they have been freed from the constrictions of the economy and regained their original elevated status. They need no longer fear that the sticky fingers of party guests from the business sector will sully their naked flesh. ... It is undoubtedly always painful when a book doesn't sell, but at least the tills will no longer be pronounced the yardstick for quality. ... On the contrary, the appeal of the arts and research will be greatly increased by the fact that their qualities cannot be ruined by an economic crisis. Knowledge and beauty are not governed by the same laws as supply and demand: a truth remains true, even if it has no commercial value or cannot even be traded. ... The tide has turned: it is no longer art that must learn from the economy but the economy that must learn from art."
» more information (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Exhibitions / Museums, » Film, » Fine Arts, » Literature, » Financial Markets, » Europe, » Global
© 2005-2012