The column “Cleansed and Enlightened” about the expanded state: About life on a tax plantation

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The mystery is large and unsolved: how can it be that in our time the state is constantly growing, but public opinion never tires of asserting that it is collapsing? Pieter Sloterdijk (76), a master of waking modernity, addresses this theme in various ways in his new book, Lines and Days III. The philosopher looks at the present as if he does not belong to it. And he comes to surprising conclusions.

Sloterdijk is reminiscent of the Prussian economist Adolf Wagner (1835–1917), who formulated the law of expansion of government activities back in 1860. According to this, the growth of a state constantly begets the growth of a new state because, firstly, bureaucracy begets new bureaucracy and, secondly, because citizens’ demand for government services increases as national income increases.

The richer the citizens, the more comfortable

Sloterdijk develops this idea: the richer citizens are, the more comfortable they feel and the more immature they behave. In the end they accepted everything as if they were not citizens, but well-appointed subjects. At the same time, the more detailed the state’s support for its citizens, the more invisible the state becomes.

From a financial point of view, Europe has long returned to absolutist conditions: depending on the country, the state claims a little more or a little less than half of the gross domestic product. According to Sloterdijk, France, whose citizens once started a revolution to tax everyone equally, is the vanguard of a new semi-socialism. If in 1789 the state’s share was 10 percent, today it is almost 60 percent.

Sloterdijk: “Signs should be hung at the borders of France: Welcome to the largest financial plantation in Europe!”

Understanding tax evasion

Anyone who talks about neoliberalism in the face of such financial conditions must be a comedian. Instead of complaining about the state’s “unfulfilled promises,” we should urgently talk about “frozen illusions.”

Taxes in semi-socialist countries are progressive – the more you earn, the more you pay, not only in absolute but also in relative terms. Sloterdijk: “Every new student of finance should know that the richest 10 percent receive half of the income tax.”

Is it any wonder that some people are thinking about how they can escape taxocracy? Sloterdijk: “You see the tax evader as an antisocial sheep who wants to avoid being sheared with a knife. In the past, avoiding wool meant slaughter. Today, sheep who surrender are offered a second shave.” Little progress. Anyway.

René Scheu is a philosopher and managing director of the Institute for Swiss Economic Policy (IWP) in Lucerne. He writes to Blick every other Monday.

Source: Blick