Vorab: The quotes in question come from a decision by the Bavarian State Ministry of Education and Culture on the admission of Lisa Poettinger to the teacher training program. Poettinger is denied admission because the state ministry assumes she does not stand on the foundation of the free, democratic and constitutional order.
Poettinger, who describes herself as a Marxist, is a typical liberal left-winger: she is an ardent believer in the climate narrative. I find little agreement with her political positions, but there should be no professional ban in this case either.
The interesting thing about the sections she published from this decision is the insight it gives into the intellectual quality of the Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution. One would like to know what this largely hidden apparatus thinks and on what basis it acts. Since this is a writing for a ministry and all parties involved could assume that at least these quotes would be made public, one can also assume that this writing was not composed in a state of intoxication or mental confusion. However, if one has to assume that this is the intellectual level of this authority in full bloom, a cold shiver can only be expected.
Let’s look at the first quote:
“The concept of profit maximization” comes from “communism” and “evaluates the pursuit of gain in the economy.” This is fundamentally false. Even in German, neither the use of the word “profit” nor the use of the word “maximization” is a value judgment. It only states an economic fact. The concept does not come from communism, a formulation that sounds like it was written by an economic and political illiterate. Even a common, capitalistic economist will confirm that the maximization of profits is the decisive steering criterion in a capitalist economy. A company that does not follow this criterion simply goes bankrupt.
One does not have to be a follower of the economic teachings of Karl Marx to understand and use this concept. If the author of this letter had even the slightest more knowledge of Marx, he would know that he wrote three rather thick books that revolve around the origin of profit, but also around why the pursuit of gain as a steering criterion has its limits. This is a question that is quite up to date, but the understanding of a person who thinks the word “profit maximization” comes from communism, indeed oversteps it.
Where it’s almost sweet is the writing of “communism.” This simultaneously signals a complete lack of awareness of the history of the 20th century, in which it was at best possible to speak of “communism” at the beginning of the 1920s. But one can assume that everyone is familiar with the concept of “profit maximization” at least. However, in the English-speaking world, no one would even think of abstracting a political position from the concept, because the gain is called “profit” in English, too.
But it gets even better.
“‘In the left-extremist language'” stands “the demand for the abolition of the class struggle synonymous with the demand for the abolition of capitalism.” Oh, Lord, throw brains from the sky! Really, a single reading of the Communist Manifesto would have been enough to abate this. Just look at the first sentence of the first chapter: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
By the way, this is a German problem. This peculiar over-interpretation of the class concept is a relic from the time of the KPD ban, when in the Federal Republic of Germany it was through that all it was declared that only the speaking of social classes was evil. Even in the English-speaking world, this is still quite normal. US Vice President J.D. Vance presented himself in his speech before the Republican nomination convention last summer as “a boy from the working class.