[rswail]

I just read up on the IHK and it sounds like the equivalent for business that an employee pays to be a member of a union. The fee is 47 EUR + 0.14% of gross income, which is not exactly "significant" compared to the other fees, taxes etc.

As for the old people running the IHK, from what I read, the membership is one-company-one-vote, so what stops people running for election?

As for the influx of refugees, that is a distinct advantage to Germany of an increased availability of workers, including many educated Syrians and others.

So it sounds like there's a problem with entrepreneurship in Germany outside the engineering / petro-chemical businesses. There's also a problem with your political choices due to the usual issues prevalent in every Western country. An aging population, the effects of the "financial industry" (a misnomer if ever there was one), the effects of climate change, etc.