Reich cover | Have, have, have

Nobody wants an island. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/KEYSTONE | Christian Beutler The unlimited accumulation of private property is an idea that corresponds to the intellectual development of two-year-olds: They want to grab everything they see - and they don't shy away from violence to enforce their ideas. The fact that beyond the selfish individual there is also a level of community and solidarity cannot be made understandable to two-year-olds. The problems that arise from the urge to hoard and dominate are obvious and are continually re-examined from generation to generation.

Plato was the pioneer over 2000 years ago. For him, excess wealth endangered both the rich man himself and the society from which he had siphoned off his wealth. An excess of money increases the laziness and desire of the individual. For the state, wealth leads to division and corruption among those in power. “Virtue relates to wealth as if each were on the same scale,” said Plato: “If one falls, the other rises.”

With Christianity came the moral outrage of religious zealots into rhetoric. The biblical prophet Amos, for example, is very angry with the rich: “Hear this word, you who persecute the poor and oppress the oppressed in the land! You say: When is the New Moon over that we can sell grain, and the Sabbath that we can open the granary? We want to make the measure smaller and the weight of silver larger; we counterfeit the scales to deceive, so that we can buy the lowly with money and the poor for a pair of sandals. We even turn the grain waste into money." Because it has always been this way: whoever is rich can also make the rules, bend the laws and exploit those in need. Shouldn't you cry with anger? Or rather: “Shouldn’t the earth therefore shake, shouldn’t everything that lives in it mourn?”

His follower Jesus also leaves little doubt about what he thinks of the amassed private property. In the Gospel of Mark he meets the “rich young man,” who is actually a really nice guy. “You are still missing one thing,” Jesus says to him: “Go, sell what you have, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; Then come and follow me!” Then the rich young man becomes very sad and leaves, and Jesus explains to his disciples: “How difficult it is for people who have a lot to enter the kingdom of God!”

The greedy have always tried to distract from the issue. All you ever hear is “envy.”

Since the Enlightenment, God's justice is no longer necessary for arguments, but the criticism of excess wealth has remained. John Locke warned of the harmful effects of hoarding, similar to Adam Smith, of course Karl Marx and the many others who, generation after generation, put forward ever more sophisticated arguments to establish what every seven-year-old understands: the greed of the individual harms the community. Even in the Basic Law there is an echo of this in Article 14: “Property is an obligation. Its use should also serve the common good.«

The greedy and their heralds have always tried to distract from the issue. All you ever hear is “envy.” Envy is probably the only redistribution driver they can imagine. But that was never the point. No normal person wants three castles and ten companies and eighty luxury cars and a rocket to Mars. Nobody wants an island. But it would be nice if all people could exist with dignity. If the money that a few people have absurdly too much could be used to finance schools, hospitals and affordable housing. Maybe a basic income. So that no one has to live in fear anymore. So that there is a little justice, a little humanity - and peace of mind on earth. Nothing has actually changed since Plato.

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