Socrates was called a gadfly. Synonyms for gadfly are pest, energizer, irritant and motivator. There is a gadfly in Germany, the bestselling philosopher Peter Sloterijk, the author of Critique of Cynical Reason (University of Minnesota Press, 1987). Sloterijk’s philosophy strikes a balance between scholarly philosophy and its opposite.
In June, Sloterijk caused a storm in Germany when he published “The Revolution of the Giving Hand,” an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In it he questioned the basis of the modern state in general, but specifically the fundamental assumptions of the post-Nazi Federal Republic, a Bürgerstaat. A Bürger is both a bourgeois and a citizen.
Sloterijk is an “eternally loyal” supporter of the Social Democratic Party. At first sight the ideas proposed in his article resemble those of the conservative right, but his reasoning and the quality of his thinking could not be more different.
As Rolf Dahrendorf had written fifty years ago, when industrialization began, the state found ways and means to use it to strengthen its authority. Otto von Bismarck, the Blood and Iron Chancellor, did this by inventing the modern welfare state. He introduced social legislation – health care, unemployment insurance – not to make people happy or independent but to prevent rebellions.
For this reason it is most important to remember the original purpose of the Bürgerstaat, which was to lift the yoke of authority and devise a self-regulating organism allowing the individual as much space for private initiatives as possible.
A foolish fiction had been invented to enable the state to raise taxes – the fiction that, in the first place, its citizens had stolen property from the state. Only by raising taxes could it recover the stolen property.
Instead of forcing citizens to pay taxes Peter Sloterijk suggests that the Bürger make voluntary contributions to meet the financial requirements of the state. In return for these, the state would meet the needs of the Bürger by presenting them with presents. In this way the original purpose of the Bürgerstaat could be realized.
The Revolution of the Giving Hand would pull the rug under the foolish fiction of the stolen property.
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
Today in Canada we had a poverty group in Ottawa saying one child in ten in Canada lives in poverty. No definition given of poverty. Solution: Raise taxes on the ‘rich’, so the government can spend it, and raise the minimum wage, which usually puts people out of work. Maybe someone should invite this man to Canada.
Peter S. has been in Canada. There is no evidence that he has had any influence on the government.
This is an interesting concept, but I guarantee it would not work. Instead we would have user fees for everything. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet wrote an interesting letter stating that there is no self-made man and listed all the benefits the government supplies. Just look at the mess Ireland got itself in with its low taxes. But I wish somebody would do a comprehensive study of which taxes are best and the consequences of each tax collected. If corporations want a well-educated work force and great infrastructure, who should pay for it? We keep forgetting that capitalism only works if there is a healthy consumer. If wealth is concentrated in too few individuals the only way the economy keeps going is with debt and this does not last too long. I would vote for a system with a firm foundation of government social services with great education and infrastructure, etc., which would allow entrepreneurs to flourish. A mixed economy!
Excellent comment. Since Peter S. isn a professional gadfly, I am sure he doesn’t think for a moment that his idea would work. He wants to provoke.
I have never heard the ‘theory’ or ‘scenario’ by which the people have stolen property from the state which then must tax it back, and I have taken a lot of economics and politics courses in my time.
Is this a reformulation of the idea that all property comes from the state (the Crown, in a monarchy like Canada) so the state has a right to it? That conclusion does not follow from that premiss anyway – and the premiss has always been purely theoretical, with no historical pretences.
Clearly citizens impose taxes on one another (including themselves) through a legislature that they have themselves chosen and to which they have given this power. That’s the simple theory, far more persuasive than the ‘theft’ nonsense.
Of course there are lots of rough edges in practice with the simple theory. Parkinson (of various Laws fame) warned about the dangers of allowing people to impose taxes on other people’s property that they themselves did not pay.
And many people would pay taxes more happily, or at least less disgruntledly, if they were more confident that the state was spending the money wisely. You and I may disagree on the measure of wisdom in that context …
Could it be that Peter S. was thinking of Proudhon and his anarchist idea that all property is theft?
I am sorry I have only read a description of his article not the article itself. I am sure he gave plausible reasons for his deliberately extravant suggestion.