Haniel Lecture 09 2010 E.pdf - Haniel Stiftung

22 | Friedrich Merz
“We have committed our state to coshape,
co-fund and thereby enable families
to strike this work-life balance; a commitment
that seriously overtaxes this
state, from an objective point of view.”
Therefore, my fourth thesis is: we have committed our state to coshape,
co-fund and thereby enable families to strike this work-life
balance; a commitment that seriously overtaxes this state, from an
objective point of view. We are guided by gender equality aims that
not only lead to increasing state indebtedness but also to greater
social spending. We are also tempted to take away individual
responsibility from people who actually have a diff erent attitude.
This theory is not new. Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that, “When
inequality of conditions is the common law of society, the most
marked inequalities do not strike the eye; when everything is nearly
on the same level, the slightest are marked enough to hurt it”. He
goes on to say, “Hence the desire of equality always becomes more
insatiable in proportion as equality is more complete”. The overtaxing
of our social welfare state is closely related to this fact.
This is why I maintain that throwing more money at the social
welfare state will not solve more problems, but actually create
additional problems. I would even go one step further and say that
we, the state, public households spend more money on families in
2010 than we have ever spent before. There are probably around
80 sources of funding available to families, from child benefi t
through to health provision. We have relied too heavily on transfer
payments and too little on the internal responsibility of the smallest
social unit of our country, and that is the family. In the lecture
given by Ronald Heifetz, we heard a completely diff erent basic
attitude towards the relationship between the state and society
and self-responsibility than we have ever managed to develop in
our social welfare states in Europe over decades. So, what conclusion
should be drawn?
My fi fth thesis is that simple anti-capitalism has failed in providing
answers to these questions. It has always known what it did
not want and has rightly pointed to some drawbacks and excesses
that exist. But the task of striking a new balance between the
state and its citizens still exists and, from a European perspective,
is more pressing than ever. Many of the things that Ronald Heifetz
mentioned in his lecture are transferrable to us. I will touch on
two major tasks. First of all, I would like to mention corporate
social responsibility for employees. There has been a great deal of
positive discussion surrounding this issue for many years now and
many things have been done right. But are we doing enough? Is
it enough to simply feel social responsibility towards employees?
Shouldn’t we be thinking instead about initiating completely different
forms of organising work?
Again, let me give you a personal example. When I was still an
active politician, I was invited every year to speak at various New
Year’s Eve receptions. I was invited to one a couple of years ago
by a company in the Swabian Alps. This traditional, family-run
mechanical-engineering company had just proudly inaugurated a
new offi ce building, in which there was not only a canteen, but
also a company-run crèche right next to it. During my visit, many
employees proudly told me that they are now able to at least have
lunch together with their children. Why not take a leaf out of their
book and imitate this example?
I also came to learn in the meantime that we have major problems
in recognising company-run crèches for tax purposes. But if we
have the commuter tax rebate and the second home and advertising
costs or whatever they’re called that are tax deductible, then
the state should also make company-run crèches tax deductible.
They are useful and also, as the example I’ve just mentioned demonstrates,
a tool to enable families to achieve a work-life balance.
It must be possible to come up with other forms of organisation in
companies, and perhaps we should start with medium-sized companies
that still have strong ties with the region and the city in
which they are based.