Das ist wirklich eine schwierige Frage. Ich glaube, dass es auf die jeweilige Situation und auch die Person ankommt, mit der Sie es zutun haben. Glück ist eigentlich eine sehr individuelle Empfindung und ich denke auch, dass Sie das nicht unmittelbar beeinflussen können. Aber Sie können durchaus die Bedingungen dafür schaffen, dass andere Menschen die Chance haben, Glück zu empfinden. Und ich denke das eigene Glück hängt auch davon ab, ob sich andere in ihrer Gegenwart glücklich fühlen. Der Gedanke von Martin Buber, dass „Ich bin, weil Du bist“ (siehe These 1 und 2) drückt aus, dass wir durchaus stärker voneinander abhängig sind, als wir manchmal glauben.

„Jeder Mensch, der aus politischen, religiösen, ethnischen oder rassistischen Gründen verfolgt wird, hat das Recht in einem Land seiner Wahl Asyl zu beantragen. Dabei entscheidet das Parlament des Gastlandes regelmäßig darüber, in welchem Umfang Menschen Asyl gewährt werden kann. Asylsuchende und Asylberechtigte genießen das Gast- und Aufenthaltsrecht, solange in ihrer Heimat Menschen verfolgt werden und eine Rückkehr in sichere Lebensumstände nicht möglich ist.“

Hier der Link zu einem Video, das ich vor vielen Jahren zu diesem Thema gemacht habe: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/50214481

One of the basic ideas of my paper was to strengthen the sense of community. After such a long period of prioritising the me-perspective (nothing against #metoo!) I found it important to draw attention to what we can actually give back to society, if we were lucky enough to be born on the bright side of life. So I thought up a very simple formula: 1/3 for my pleasure, 1/3 for my family and friends, 1/3 for society. This I attached to the cases of inheritance, the making
of profit through business, ownership of property or financial transactions.

In case of inheritance its accepting that all you have achieved, is based on what your social and economic starting position was and sharing a reasonable part in order to help others have better conditions in the future. Therefore I say that you can give it to foundations who do good things with it.

In case of profits (!) you make, it seems reasonable to me that those who contributed to it, should have their fair share and if your property gains value without you contributing it’s also fair to have society get a proportion of it.

The 1/3 idea is to define a cultural and social value by fixing a proportion that is easy to communicate, that has a chance to be generally accepted and that has a symbolic function in terms of „if I gain more, I will share more“. To me it should be easy to teach that in school. Growing wealth then always has a social dimension and it will free you of constantly being scrutinized or morally insulted for your achievements. I’m not an expert in this, but it might even keep income taxes fairly low.

The other 1/3 aspects came gradually, are based on already existing demands by NGOs or UN resolutions and of course they are also symbolic and easy to memorize: the UN demands 1/3 of the world’s territority to be natural reservations in order to protect flora and fauna, the towns of Zürich or Vienna have succesfully dealt with social housing issues by making sure that 1/3 of tenements are in public hand, every reasonable bank will only give you a mortgage, if you can provide 1/3 of the necessary capital. And finally, after the Corona experience leading economists proclaimed that it makes sense not to have more than 1/3 of your production line abroad.

I would like to live in the world your create . . . .

One substantive question: there are a lot of one-thirds. Is there a basis to that across the different principles in which you use it to allocate shares, versus one half or one quarter. Just curious.

In 1960, the top marginal tax rate in the US was 70%; it is now 35%, with capital gains taxed at 20%. Thus, the rich get richer and is disproportions that are extreme. I think this will become the major source of conflict in the US in the coming years. Oddly, most of Trump’s followers are poor white people at the bottom of the food chain lacking college education or upward mobility. You would think they would be at the front of the revolutionary ranks, but no. They’re the ones willing to throw democracy away on a demigod.