Conclusion
Chapter 7
Radically Normal, part 7 of 7 · Series overview · Dieses Kapitel auf Deutsch
Do you remember the people outside your veranda, waiting for you to bring them more water? Your gun, your heavy door bolt? You are still there, and it is still your move.
I’ve written a lot about details now. The tools are basically there; calibrating them is a job for experts. There is also more than one path to the goal of a fairer world. If we do not agree cooperatively on a path, the pressure in the system will continue to build — and history shows that extreme inequality always leads to an adjustment, and rarely a peaceful one. I would like to spare us that.
What I care about at the core is that we are honest with ourselves. Because that is the precondition for everything else. A lack of honesty towards ourselves is the reason we stay stuck in a felt hopelessness, the reason we dodge our responsibility.
But just as in our desert scenario, we have to acknowledge our responsibility and decide. And on this fundamental question there really is only black and white. Do you share, or do you shut the door? There are no excuses like “that’s too complicated.” Because that would be dishonest in the face of 25,000 people dying of hunger every day. Once we agree on that, we can happily argue about the methods and nuances.
If you don’t want a fairer world, then that is your decision — and your responsibility.
And by that I mean all inequality, all over the world. There is no hiding behind national borders. Justice only for your own group is not justice. For me, this is about responsibility, not about migration policy. It's about whose life counts, not which border controls come down and when.
And once you have decided to stand up for more equality, you need a guiding star. A point of orientation that reduces the criteria for a better world to the essentials. One that keeps us from sinking into petty skirmishes and trying to refute, point by point, the arguments of those who don’t want to share. All of that drains the energy we need to do what’s right. Gary Stevenson understood this, proclaiming very simple principles (“tax wealth, not work”).
Whether the goal is called 10x or something else is secondary. Just as the exact choice and calibration of measures is secondary. But with a guiding vision we widen the frame of what can be discussed in our society. And that is urgently needed, because today this frame is set too narrowly. And it is set by the very people who would slam the door of the oasis house without batting an eye.
But even a frame is worth little if we feel that we ourselves cannot change anything. If, despite us wanting it, we do not see a mass movement overnight forcing governments around the world to change course.
It is not easy to share our oasis. But it is a choice we can make. And no one forces us to make the same choice today that we made yesterday.
That is what I mean by “radically normal.” Today it seems radical to say that no one needs a hundred times more to live on than someone else. Just as the abolition of slavery or women’s right to vote once seemed radical. That they seem normal today was only possible because people fought for radical change.
That is why it matters that we know we can already take small steps now, taht we don’t have to wait until better, easier times come.
What are examples of such steps?
Every one of us can talk with our friends about the topic. Every one of us can speak up online for more equality. Every one of us can boycott exploitative companies. All of us who live in democracies can demand pilot programmes for a basic income and push our elected representatives to stand up for progressive taxation, and for wealth taxes in particular. And we can join global initiatives that work against inequality.
I would be glad if you took this text as inspiration, if you discussed it — controversially and respectfully — if you asked questions; in short: if we took responsibility together.
Acknowledgements and further reading
This topic has been consuming me for many years. The impulse came from two directions:
For one, it was the constant denial of one’s own responsibility that I kept meeting in everyday life. From that I derived the oasis parable and developed it further in many conversations with friends and relatives.
For another, the impulse actually came through Richard David Precht’s History of Philosophy, which — even though I find his positions problematic in many respects — provided me with a clear sense of direction. In it he mentions Plato’s Nomoi and, with them, the 4-to-1 ratio. When I read that, I was floored.
Starting from these two core ideas — personal responsibility and the historically documented possibility of even daring to think about a limit on wealth — I began to sketch and research how one might connect them and argue the whole thing through from beginning to end.
In that research, and as a sparring partner throughout, AI tools also helped me. Without them I would not have made progress so quickly — I work full-time, I also do volunteer work for Volt, and I have a wife and three children.
In the course of this research, I gradually came across thinkers who had already illuminated various aspects of my argument far earlier and far more deeply. Sometimes my reaction was: oh no, someone had the same idea years ago — was my work all for nothing?
But the more I read, the greater my gratitude grew towards these people, some of whom have devoted their lives to this topic. If I’m honest, it feels good to stand in the tradition of cleverer people. And it gives me hope that our shared cause will come to a good end.
Here are some of the people whose work I can recommend to you:
• Plato, Laws – the 4-to-1 ratio that started it all.
• Ingrid Robeyns, Limitarianism – the philosophical case for an upper limit on wealth.
• Sam Pizzigati (inequality.org) – has argued for decades for a “maximum wage” tied to the lowest wages; his ideal value is likewise 10 to 1.
• Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level – the data on how inequality damages societies.
• Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save – the parable of the drowning child and our personal share of responsibility for distant suffering.
• Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century – why capital grows faster than the economy over the long run.
• Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, The Triumph of Injustice – what a fairer tax system could look like.
• Ulrike Herrmann, The End of Capitalism (Das Ende des Kapitalismus) – growth and the limits of the planet.
• Gary Stevenson, Gary’s Economics – how a topic turns into a political movement.
• Martyna Linartas, Unverdiente Ungleichheit (Unearned Inequality) – how deeply entrenched inequality is, especially in Germany.
• Richard J. Murphy, Funding the Future – a blog with short, clear videos that overturn the everyday assumptions about how money, tax and the economy really work.
• Chris Reiter & Will Wilkes, Broken Republik – an unsparing yet hopeful account of Germany's slide into crisis.
There are surely more people working on the question of inequality and devising solutions. I would be glad if you pointed me to them, so that together we can keep learning and let voices that deserve to be heard ring out more loudly.
Last but not least I want to thank my wife and my children, because they have patiently endured the many hours I have spent on this project, and because they have motivated me to carry on even when things got difficult.