Christian Kreiß

Christian Kreiß, 2020

Christian Kreiß (* 1962 in Munich ) is a German professor of economics at Aalen University . His focus is on finance and economic policy . In his non-fiction books he criticizes the premises of neoliberal economic theory and warns of its socio-political consequences.

Life

Christian Kreiß graduated from the Otto-von-Taube-Gymnasium Gauting and studied economics at the University of Munich . He became an assistant to Knut Borchardt and received his doctorate in economic history in 1992 on the subject of cartel price policy 1924-1932 .

From 1993 he worked as a bank employee at Commerzbank , from 1995 in investment banking at Bayerische Landesbank Munich , from 1998 in the Dresdner Bank Group .

Since 2002, Kreiß has been Professor of Finance and Economic Policy at Aalen University of Technology and Economics .

In 2013, together with Stefan Schridde, he presented a study on planned obsolescence commissioned by the parliamentary group The Greens .

Publications

The Mephisto Principle, 2019

Applied to economic life, the Mephisto principle means that as false and harmful basic assumptions or axioms as possible must be introduced, which, however, appear plausible, good and reasonable at first glance. These 7 axioms are: 1. Insatiability 2. Compound interest is good, right and important 3. Property of any amount is good, right and important 4. Businesses should maximize their profits 5. Consumers rationally maximize their self-interest 6. Competition and competition are good 7. The invisible hand of the market translates the selfish behavior of market participants into the common good.

They are followed by 7 chapters on the deleterious effects of these axioms. The author then designs a counter-model of a human-friendly economy and describes ways to realize it. The author sees the "struggle to eliminate Christianity" behind the undesirable economic development: According to his assessment, today's economics are a frontal attack on Christianity in many areas. The key phrase from Christoph Lütge's "Business Ethics" serves him as evidence of the evil of business studies:

“One can understand self-interest - within the appropriate framework - to a certain extent as a“ modern form of charity ”[...]. The traditional contrast between good, altruistic behavior and bad egoism no longer applies. "

Altruism and charity, two central pillars of Christianity, according to Kreiß, would thereby be abolished. (P. 197f)

Positions

Planned obsolescence

Kreiß substantiates his thesis of systematically planned obsolescence with many individual examples. The material of the book is partly the report, which he prepared in 2013 for the parliamentary group of the Greens together with the business economist Stefan Schridde.

Kreiß examines manifestations, extent, effects and causes and effects. Deliberate product defects, as is known with light bulbs, are only one measure in addition to functional and psychological wear and tear, if products are perceived as outdated and out of fashion . The author puts the economic damage at 100 billion euros per year. As a countermeasure, Kreiß suggests restricting advertising, marking the lifespan and making media independent of advertising revenue. "The author paints the ideal image of a slowed-down world in which products are not thrown away, but repaired," said the reviewer from Spektrum.de . "A society that - he unnecessarily rises to these pathetic closing words - is on the way to more freedom, equality and brotherhood."

Third-party funding

In “Purchased Science” Christian Kreiß shows that universities have become dependent on economic actors in the ever increasing proportion of third-party funded research . These steered science towards its own purposes: "Reports that conceal health risks, professors who fear for their jobs in the case of critical publications, universities who contractually guarantee that donors will exert influence." He sees the influences, which he demonstrates with many examples, as a systemic problem, not as random individual phenomena. Behind them he sees false assumptions, once about the allegedly demonstrably beneficial effect of sponsoring , and also the belief that the " scissors in the head ", ie self-censorship , can be contractually excluded. This view of Kreiß is criticized as "general suspicion", in addition, his own book was sponsored anonymously by a foundation .

According to Kreiß, business representatives also ultimately decide on the allocation of government funds, for example through the "Innovation Dialogue" or " Research Union" committees .

Kreiß also criticized Facebook and the appointment of Christoph Lütge at the Technical University of Munich as head of the newly founded Ethics Institute.

"The whole application process was dropped at the TU, the 6.5 million euros were awarded directly to an existing person. (...) Such a selection with a handshake contradicts the law.

Corona crisis

Christian Kreiß at lateral thinking 731 in Ulm on June 13, 2020

According to Kreiß, "a debt bubble, too weak mass demand and an overcapacity of around a third meet a media-generated corona mass hysteria and willing politicians who almost bring public life and thus mass demand to a standstill. That is an extremely explosive situation, in terms of stock exchange technology : the perfect storm. "

The dire conditions are prevented by the increasing elimination of civil rights and enabling laws. He expects strong national conflicts within Europe and a breakdown of the euro. That should lead Europe into chaos and strife. The power and financial elite would benefit from this , "all of this is masked by the sometimes hysterical fear of illness, infection and death caused by the corona virus." The "cleanup crisis" would restrict our human rights and undermine democracy.

Fonts (selection)

• Pricing policy of German cartels at the interface between the iron and iron processing industries 1924 to 1932 . Diss. Oec. publ. Univ. Munich, 1992.
• Mania for profit: why a more humane economy pays off . Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2013
• Planned wear and tear: How industry drives us to ever more and faster consumption - and how we can defend ourselves against it . Europa-Verlag, Berlin 2014
• Purchased research: science in the service of corporations . Europa-Verlag, Berlin, 2015
• Advertising - no thanks. Why we could live a lot better without advertising . Europa Verlag, Munich, 2016
• Blenden Wuchern Lamentieren - How business administration contributes to the brutalization of society, together with Heinz Siebenbrock . Munich: Europa Verlag, 2019
• The Mephisto principle in our economy . Hamburg: tredition Verlag, 2019

Web links

• Literature by and about Christian Kreiß in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Christian Kreiß in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Website Humane Economy by Christian Kreiß
• "Comments on the particulate matter discussion" , comment by Christian Kreiß on the pulmonologist debate
• Complete book "Mephisto Principle" for free download

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Product wear. Bought, used, broken , at: Die Grünen. Bundestag parliamentary group, March 21, 2013
2. ↑ Wanted botch. Accessed June 1, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Ralf Pauli: Book about private university financing: Everywhere donor obedience . In: The daily newspaper: taz . May 31, 2015, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed on March 2, 2020]).
4. ↑ Jens Wernicke: Abused Science. Retrieved March 2, 2020 . 
5. ↑ Jens Wernicke: Abused Science. Retrieved March 2, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Valentin Dornis: Artificial Intelligence: Facebook finances research. Accessed June 1, 2020 . 
7. ^ Sabine Buchwald: Technical University of Munich: When Facebook invests in the university. Accessed June 1, 2020 . 
8. ↑ Christian Kreiß: The Corona Fear and the Coming Economic Depression. Accessed June 1, 2020 .