The social kit is crumbling

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Today's Western societies function quite well as long as everyone plays by the same rules and is willing to step in for others if necessary. Whether this happens on a purely voluntary basis or is controlled by the state plays a subordinate role.

This mutual support between members within a society is often referred to as a social kit that holds entire states together, starting with families and continuing across communities. Especially in the case of states, this social kit is the basis for the security of the individual members and their existence.

And as with money, citizens must be convinced that the "system" works, at least in principle, and that other experiences - even very personal ones - are the exception.

From unemployment insurance to the social market economy, state leaders have created a lot not only to strengthen this social kit, but even to expand it to include "comprehensive insurance".

Unfortunately, this is becoming more and more difficult than it should be, especially since our corresponding control and regulatory systems are no longer able to actually guarantee these promises.

One of the reasons is that we all live in a very mobile world and the existing systems today are still far too small-scale to be valid for all of their members. Another and, in my opinion, much more serious cause is that even the “actors” within these control and regulation systems adhere less and less to them or even manipulate them for the benefit of themselves and others.

News like today's that many "super rich“ and not only their companies pay little or no taxes, show how the social kit is crumbling within western societies. And here in Germany, too, more and more citizens are convinced that our social market economy is no longer working properly — the diverse ones Citizen protests and expressions of dissatisfaction on social media can be taken as an indication of this and, in my opinion, are only the harbingers of more serious distribution struggles, since most citizens have long since recognized that money, their own savings and all other resources for all of us will no longer last for much longer .

Many already save themselves on their own island (United Kingdom) or in remote mountain regions (Switzerland) and believe that they can escape “doom” themselves—what a fallacious conclusion! The social kit has long since fallen out of joint in the UK and will slowly but surely crumble in Switzerland as well.

Every society collapses when it can no longer guarantee the social kit between its members. Because then everyone is no longer in the same boat, and each individual is entitled to be happy in their own way without having to consider others – one could also describe the end product as anarchy.

We all know very well examples of why this is no longer going so well in our societies. I recall the following:

  • Large corporations or high-tech companies operate worldwide, are therefore globally active and are still difficult to control even from very large countries;
  • Even the capital market can no longer be controlled by individual states;
  • The principle of equality, one of the foundations of all democratic societies, is being increasingly undermined and replaced by the age-old principle: "The boy sat at the source" - solidarity mutated into a political battlefield.

What do we need to change?

Our state structures must ensure that

  • they are valid and applicable to all people living in their area; equal rights for all!
  • the migration of knowledge, money and people is regulated and, if necessary, compensated for by international agreements and associations.

In addition, we must all ensure that

  • all members of a society feel safe and can be sure that they are not left out in the rain through no fault of their own;
  • we do not continue to crumble into subgroups or even small groups within the same society, because by doing so we endanger even the last remnants of solidarity among ourselves; We also have to do our part to ensure that a social system that applies equally to everyone (rights and obligations) restores the social kit in our society.

“The multicultural society is hard, fast, cruel and lacking in solidarity, it is characterized by considerable social imbalances and has winners from migration as well as losers from modernization; it tends to diverge into a diversity of groups and communities, losing its cohesion and the binding nature of its values.”

Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Thomas Schmid, The Time (1991, #48)

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