95 Theses Against the Rule of the Financial Markets by Perestroika.de (2017)

95 Theses Against the Rule of the Financial Markets by Perestroika.de [These theses posted in 2017 were translated from the German by Marc Batko on the Internet, https://marcbatko.medium.com/we-live-in-a-radical-counterenlightenment-efd2bc4da619.] By Michael Brie, Peter Wahl, Rudolf Hickel, Ulrich Duchrow, Gregor Gysi, Ingrid Mattern and Andre Brie at PERESTROIKA.com TIME FOR A NEW REFORMATION Theses 1–15 1. What began in Luther’s time has reached a new climax today: the monopoly of money. Democracy is in danger. Internal and external peace are threatened. Social cohesion is disturbed. The domination of a neoliberal mainstream has made politics worldwide align itself with the dictates of the financial markets and the interests of the top, rich one percent of the population. The 8 richest men on earth own as much as the 3.6 billion of the poor half of humanity. A reversal, a reformation is necessary. 2. If 500 years ago it was the venality of the salvation of believers through the sale of indulgences that was the expression of a great crisis, today it is the subordination of politics to the dictates of the financial markets. God or Mammon — you cannot serve both, it was said in the time of Jesus and 500 years ago. Democracy or financial market capitalism — this is the question of our time. 3. Ongoing underdevelopment, 800 million people suffering from hunger, hundreds of thousands of deaths in wars, millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, and dramatic climate change have become fatally intertwined. Their flip side is exorbitant wealth and luxury. That the EU Commission has instead changed Parliament’s financial market directive, of all things, which was intended to stop excessive speculation in food, in such a way as to render it virtually ineffective, can only outrage. The austerity policy pushed through by the ECB, the IMF,