Capitalism criticism – the war of the rich

One should once again remember the striking quote from Warren Buffett, the stone-old stock exchange speculator: “There is a class war, right,” known the 75-year-old at the time, “but it is my class, the class of the rich, and we win.” It was more than ten years ago, at the end of November 2006 it was in the “New York Times”-and the pace, the radicality and the violence of gingerness Approximize worldwide.

The “Superstars summit”, as the publisher announces this narrow conversation band, is just right. Thomas Piketty, economist from Paris, debates with Michael J. Sandel, philosopher in Harvard – bestselling author with “Capital in the 21st Century” one (Piketty), bestselling author with “what money can’t buy!” (Sandel). The title of the conversation band: »The fights of the future. Equality and justice in the 21st century «. The topics, divided into nine chapters: growing social inequality, climate change, mass migration, rise of the right, future of the left.

All social and political upheavals worldwide, including the rise of autocrats and fascists, have not fallen from heaven, both agree. “The center-left politicians have failed,” says Sandel: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder-they paved the way, they caused growing injustice, anger and outrage in wide circles, they favored the rise of populists such as Trump, Farage, Merz & Consorts.

At the time, in 2008, US President Obama saved the financial sector. To do this, he “appointed the same economists into office” “who had already deregulated the financial industry under Clinton”. And what did you do under Obama? “They saved the banks and left the ordinary homeowner themselves.” Sandel said. “The rescue of Wall Street at the expense of the taxpayer” had a shadow at Obama’s presidency. The great hopes of progressive or social democratic politics burst. And two protest currents emerged: on one side the Ocupy Wall Street movement and “Bernie Sanders’ surprisingly successful candidacy against Hillary Clinton”; On the other hand, the tea party movement and finally the first choice of Trump to the White House. A “feeling of injustice, anger and outrage” developed among the population.

Piketty agrees to Sandel and then explains why the neoliberal policy prevailing for more than four decades has not been overcome by left -liberal politicians. It is »the fear that I myself in my book Capital and ideology Speaked, “says Piketty,” the fear of opening the pandora’s box of redistribution, but also the reassessment of our actions. The fear of not knowing where to stop «.

If you want to make the majority of the population more satisfied and agreed with the prevailing policy, it needed a fundamental change. “How can community be maintained?” Asks Sandel. Tax progression, certainly, ask wealthy to checkout wealthy. Rich tax, speculation tax, adequate inheritance tax for very large fortune, over -profit tax (as well as the abolition of tax avoidance constructs and sharper control and sanctioning of tax evasion on a large scale) – that is, everything that the upcoming German government is again.

“Dignity and mutual recognition” are necessary, the interlocutors agree, in short: a solidarity society to prevent drift into fascism. “Awaken the sense of mutual responsibility and shared belonging,” the philosopher demands. “We started,” adds the economist to “build a legal system that is basically made that the richest can avoid any community obligation. And then we pretend that it is very natural. ”Piketty’s proposal: taxation of corporate gains at the UN level. “I stand for a democratic, federal, internationalist socialism,” he says at the Parisian Elite Hochschule School of Addressing Social Sciences Studies. And when he adds that we completely ignored “the question of trust, international justice and the north-south redistribution”. How can there be a more peaceful world?

“The only way to attract public opinion in the USA or France,” says Piketty, “is a targeted taxation of high fortune, of large corporations that pay directly.” Only: This requirement is not heard and implemented for so long, as long as a political class is urged and chosen, which primarily wants to participate in the prosperity and therefore command recipient of the wealthy class, which it says, which it still says be. However, the two intellectuals do not address this change in the prevailing political class.

How can community be maintained? By redistribution, which asks wealthy more to the cash register.

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“The votes for Trump or Le Pen,” explains the French economist, “went” less back to migrant flows than on job losses “. And the lecturer on the Harvard Law School and co -founder of the Communitarianismwho is more of a keyword and questioner in this dialogue, adds: it was not about “immigration”, but “the feeling that others look down on you. It’s about recognition. It is about dignity. “Towards the end of the book, the two come to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his” treatise on the origin and the basics of inequality among people “(1754). The problem is “less the first fencing, the first piece of private property,” says Piketty, “as rather the limitless accumulation of property. (…) Some have great power and others lose control. “

A few comments, explanations and background information from the publisher would have been helpful, but to explain some terms and relationships in the academic world in the academic world. The rampage of the US President Donald Trump, who brutally turns the world upside down, is not even mentioned in this volume. Unfortunately.

Thomas Piketty/ Michael J. Sandel: The fights of the future. Equality and justice in the 21st century. A. d. Engl. V. Stefan Lorenzer. Ch Beck, 160 pages, born, 20 €.