Thomas Schmid on the thieving welfare state

The German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk has suggested a change of paradigm in the policy of redistribution. In the conservative Welt am Sonntag Thomas Schmid praises Sloterdijk's suggestion to rely on citzens' voluntary payments rather than taxes. "People like to describe the welfare state as an achievement, but in its current form it also represents a defeat: There is an excluded class. ... Those who believe today's welfare state is beyond question, will be renouncing an idea of how ... social peace can be preserved. The idea informing the concept of redistribution is not a productive one. For fundamentally it is based on the foolish idea of an original theft, which we must keep responding to with 'counterthefts' (Sloterdijk). Here wealth is a crime, and solidarity is only conceivable as something obligatory. For this reason this concept is incompatible with the dream of a civil society. Slotedijk has good reason to praise voluntary actions: for they are the life elixier of a free society."

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