Werner Rügemer (born 1941) is a German interventionist philosopher. His work focuses on the influence of corporations and financial-industry actors on public affairs, including cross-border leasing, public–private partnerships, the privatization of public services, union busting, corporate crime and the role of rating agencies. His publications have also examined the activities of financial firms such as BlackRock and the relationship between finance, politics and labour, nationally and globally. He describes himself as an "interventionist philosopher".
Biography
Rügemer was born in Amberg, Bavaria. He attended school in the Rhön region and the Berchtesgaden area and completed his Abitur in 1960. In a 2009 biographical interview, he described studying literature, pedagogy and philosophy in Munich, Tübingen, Berlin and Paris.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Rügemer worked with Service Civil International (SCI), where he was involved in organising civilian service and international work camps. He has described himself as having managed the organisation's German section until 1974. During the student movement of 1968 he was also involved with the Kritische Universität ("Critical University") project at the Free University of Berlin.
From 1975 to 1989, Rügemer worked on the editorial staff of the education journal Demokratische Erziehung. From 1984 he also produced radio and television features, particularly for WDR.
In 1979, Rügemer published his doctoral dissertation, Philosophische Anthropologie und Epochenkrise, at the University of Bremen. The dissertation examines the relationship between the general crisis of capitalism and the anthropological foundations of philosophy through the work of Arnold Gehlen. Rügemer argued that a purely ideological critique of philosophy was insufficient and that the material conditions under which knowledge is produced also had to be taken into account. He related Gehlen's philosophy to Germany's social and political development from the Weimar Republic onward.
Rügemer has worked as a freelance author since 1989. From 1998 to 2017 he was a lecturer in political science at the University of Cologne. A University of Cologne faculty page also lists him among its lecturers.
His articles have appeared in publications including Ossietzky, NRhZ-Online, Junge Welt and NachDenkSeiten. He also contributed to Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik until 2016.
In recent years, Rügemer has published in Belt & Road Initiative Quarterly (BRIQ) and in World Marxist Review.
Work and publications
Rügemer's journalistic and non-fiction work has concentrated on corporate crime, privatization, municipal finance, financial institutions and labour relations. A recurring theme is his criticism of arrangements in which, in his view, public institutions assume financial risk while private investors receive long-term benefits.
New Tech – Old Society: Silicon Valley
In Neue Technik – alte Gesellschaft. Silicon Valley, published in book form in 1985, Rügemer examined what he regarded as the less visible social and environmental consequences of the emerging information-technology industry in California. The book drew on field research and interviews with trade unionists, lawyers, scientists at Stanford University, engineers and technology-industry figures, including Steve Jobs.
Rügemer discussed the history of post-war technological development and Stanford's role in the emergence of Silicon Valley, while focusing on working conditions in electronics production, occupational disease among semiconductor workers, environmental contamination and links between the technology and defence industries. Reviewer Helmut Volpers wrote that, despite the book's explicitly anti-capitalist perspective, it demonstrated the risks of uncritically transferring the "Silicon Valley" model elsewhere.Helmut Volpers, review of Werner Rügemer, Neue Technik – alte Gesellschaft. Silicon Valley, Medienwissenschaft: Rezensionen, no. 3, 1986, pp. 291–292.
The book was subsequently translated into other languages, including Russian and Hungarian.
Cross-border leasing
Rügemer became an early German critic of cross-border leasing (CBL) and later of public–private partnerships. His WDR 3 radio feature Hundert Jahre wie ein Tag – Die heimliche Globalisierung der Städte, broadcast on 17 December 2001 and also associated with Deutschlandradio, examined transactions in which municipalities transferred infrastructure or other public assets to United States investors and leased them back under long-term contracts.
In 2004 he expanded the subject into the book Cross-Border-Leasing. Ein Lehrstück zur globalen Enteignung der Städte. In a review for Die Zeit, Eva-Maria Thoms described Rügemer's argument that the deals transferred major risks to German municipalities while producing large tax-driven returns for investors.
The financial crisis subsequently caused difficulties for a number of CBL arrangements. In 2009, Die Zeit again cited Rügemer and examined the contracts and the risks that municipalities had assumed.
Privatizing in Germany
Rügemer's Privatisierung in Deutschland. Eine Bilanz examines privatization projects carried out in Germany from the 1980s onward and their effects on public budgets, public services and democratic control.
Reviewing the book in taz, Dirk Eckert wrote that Rügemer sought to show that privatization had frequently failed to produce either improved services or lower prices and drew particular attention to the disposal of state property by the Treuhandanstalt. Eckert nevertheless considered Rügemer's proposed alternative of a "cooperative economy" insufficiently developed.
The fourth expanded and updated edition appeared in 2008.
"Locusts" in the public sphere
In "Heuschrecken" im öffentlichen Raum: Public Private Partnership – Anatomie eines globalen Finanzinstruments, Rügemer extended his criticism of private financing of public infrastructure to public–private partnerships. He describes PPP arrangements as financially attractive to private investors but potentially costly to public authorities.
Later editions incorporated examples of PPP projects that were restructured, terminated or returned to public operation in Germany and elsewhere, including transport, municipal and infrastructure projects.
Colonia Corrupta
Rügemer's 2002 book Colonia Corrupta. Privatisierung, Globalisierung und Korruption im Schatten des Kölner Klüngels collected and expanded his investigations into political and commercial networks in his home city of Cologne. Among the subjects was the city's waste-incineration project, about which he had written since the mid-1990s.
The book was expanded repeatedly, reaching an eighth revised edition in 2015. Later editions added material on political financing in post-war Cologne and on international investors involved in major construction projects.
Rügemer's reporting on Cologne in the 1990s led to several defamation actions by local political and institutional figures. According to a 2025 profile published by the Cologne branch of the German trade union GEW, the actions were ultimately discontinued, dismissed or withdrawn.
Rating agencies
In Ratingagenturen – Einblicke in die Kapitalmacht der Gegenwart (2012), Rügemer examined the ownership and business models of major rating agencies. He argued that conflicts of interest arise because financial institutions may simultaneously invest in, use, or benefit from the activities of agencies that present themselves as independent evaluators.
Reviewing the book in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Thomas Thiel considered Rügemer's description of the interconnected ownership structure of rating agencies, banks and investment funds one of the book's important contributions, particularly because rating decisions can have major effects on national economies.
Economist Rudolf Hickel, reviewing the book for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, recommended it to both critics and supporters of capitalism and highlighted Rügemer's discussion of the agencies' lack of transparency and limited liability for erroneous assessments.
Labour rights and union busting
Rügemer and journalist Elmar Wigand organised a conference on labour-law violations in 2009. In 2014 they helped establish Aktion gegen Arbeitsunrecht ("Action against Labour Injustice"), an organisation concerned with labour-rights violations and opposition to works councils and trade unions.
The same year, the Otto Brenner Foundation published their study Union-Busting in Deutschland – Die Bekämpfung von Betriebsräten und Gewerkschaften als professionelle Dienstleistung. The study examined companies and professional service providers involved in strategies directed against works councils, trade unions and employee representatives.
Their book Die Fertigmacher. Arbeitsunrecht und professionelle Gewerkschaftsbekämpfung, first published in 2014 and later expanded, developed the subject further. Rügemer and Wigand described a network of law firms, public-relations companies, private investigators, human-resources consultants and other specialists offering services to employers in conflicts with employees and organised labour.
Reviewing the book for Der Freitag, Jörn Boewe described it as the first systematic and comprehensive investigation of the professional suppression of trade unions and works councils in Germany.
The Capitalists of the 21st Century
In Die Kapitalisten des 21. Jahrhunderts, first published in German in 2018, Rügemer attempted a broader account of changes in contemporary capitalism following the financial crisis.
He distinguishes several categories of actors: large asset managers such as BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street; private equity, hedge-fund and venture-capital investors; investment and private banks; major technology corporations including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon; and digital-platform businesses.
Rügemer argues that large asset managers have become significant shareholders across traditional banking and industrial companies while relying on a network of auditors, rating agencies, law firms and management consultancies. He also examines the increasing economic and technological role of United States-based corporations in Europe and the European Union.
A later part of the book discusses the economic development of the People's Republic of China. Rügemer contrasts China's development model with that of Western financial capitalism and presents China's approach to globalization more favourably. These assessments form part of Rügemer's argument rather than an established scholarly consensus.
Andreas Wehr, reviewing the book in Marxistische Blätter, described it as an empirical panorama of contemporary capitalism based on company publications, financial statements, financial journalism and interviews rather than primarily on a new theoretical model.
The book has appeared in several languages. An English edition, The Capitalists of the 21st Century: An Easy-to-Understand Outline on the Rise of the New Financial Players, was published in 2019. French, Italian, Russian and Chinese editions followed. The Chinese edition was discussed by Cheng Enfu and Yin Xing in a review published in World Marxist Review.
Imperium EU
In Imperium EU: Arbeitsunrecht, Krise, neue Gegenwehr (2020), published in English as Imperium EU: Labor Injustice, Crisis, New Resistances in 2021, Rügemer examines labour conditions within the European Union and the historical relationship between the EU and the United States.