Post photo: coins and euros | © Pixabay
Nice Margaret Thatcher had recognized that "there is no such thing as public money, only taxpayer money," a truism that seems to be falling into oblivion. States always finance their spending through taxes, duties and profits, mostly through the sale of assets and goods belonging to the general public, be it water, air, sun, raw materials, nature or infrastructure.
Government spending, on the other hand, should serve to guarantee the tasks of the state: to ensure external security, law and order, infrastructure and the maintenance of the necessary powers and institutions. At least in Europe, tasks such as education, social security for the individual and steering functions have also been added in order to realize generally accepted ideas of human coexistence, and this for as many parts of the population as possible.
In order to be able to realize these for all applicable claims, the state redistribution process has established itself as a tried and tested means in these societies. Probably due to being human, these state redistribution processes have long since left their original purpose behind and have reached a momentum of their own that can hardly be controlled anymore. Decades ago, experts such as Helmut Schelsky warned against and encouraged to go back to the original ideas and tasks underlying the process.
In the meantime, state redistribution has become a process of its own and transfer payments are no longer used to help the disadvantaged or to save people, but direct money, finance and opportunities to those who can best articulate and assert their own interests in this process – the tragic thing is that it's not the “helpless” among us.
It must also be noted that this process has long required far more resources than any state system can generate revenue. And the hint that “the helpless fell by the wayside” is the manslaughter argument to nip any reversal process in the bud. So the companies affected have no choice but to generate more and more state revenue on the one hand and to continue to restrict other state tasks on the other.
“Growth, no matter what the cost” is still the tried and tested political means to keep the process going for as long as possible. And since growth will quickly reach its limits in ever-shrinking societies, more and more Potemkin villages have been built for a long time, generating systems and myths that promise infinite growth, but ultimately only serve to generate even more income for the respective state generate – finance and insurance is a good example.
But before this system finally collapses on itself - at least according to the belief of people who do not believe in perpetuum mobile - it will reach its limits, which are due to the current reality.
Countries whose population together makes up about 5% of the world population, but which claim about 50% of world transfer payments and a large part of all natural resources, are lands of milk and honey for many of the remaining 95% and are therefore the target of their wishes and migration movements.
These discrepancies must now be resolved - and as quickly as possible, if we ourselves are still Part of the solution want to be A wall around Europe, Germany or Heilbronn will not be a viable solution. Not even the thought of wanting to impose our will on the rest of the world again with sheer violence and weapons of mass destruction.
If we actually believe in our social system and its achievements, then now is the time to adapt both to the conditions of our one world and to see how we can convince the rest of the world - but in any case the modes of state redistribution should be limited to what is really necessary.