Property policy

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The property policy encompasses the economic policy measures of the state, on the development, structure and distribution of economic assets influence. The primary goals of wealth policy are the promotion of wealth accumulation and distributive justice .

Legal bases

In Germany , the demands made by the social democratic and communist sides for the redistribution of property found their first legal expression in 1919 in the provision on social liability of property in the Weimar Constitution (Art. 153 Para. 3 WRV), which was also introduced in 1949 in a slightly modified form found in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany ( Art. 14 Para. 2 GG ): “Property obliges. Its use should also serve the common good. ”Due to the property guarantee stipulated in the same article, however , the possibilities of the constitutional state to influence the distribution of wealth are less than with the distribution of income . On the other hand, the welfare state principle anchored in Art. 20 and Art. 28 GG imposes certain obligations on state action, the scope of which is, however, interpreted differently depending on the political point of view.

Instruments

The preferred instruments of wealth policy include in particular tax measures such as the taxation of property through a wealth tax , an inheritance tax or a property tax . In a positive sense, state transfer payments , subsidies and tax breaks can also be used to promote the broader education and distribution of wealth. Further measures are possible within the framework of social insurance , the works constitution policy or legal interference with property rights .

history

Historically, the discussion about the distribution of wealth in Germany focused on the inequality of land ownership. In addition to the discussion about land reform in Germany , the question of the expropriation of princes also played a role during the Weimar Republic .

After the widespread destruction of financial assets in the zero hour and the new beginning through the currency reform in 1948 , property policy played an important role in the first decades of the Federal Republic. In the concept of the social market economy formulated by Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard , the state promotion of private wealth creation is also important because it is seen as functional to maintain the competitive order. In the law on the formation of the council of experts for the assessment of macroeconomic development of 1963, the council of the five wise men was therefore obliged to examine "the formation and distribution of income and assets".

In the first decade after the war , the focus was initially on compensating for war damage. From 1952 onwards, primarily those who had been bombed out and those who had been displaced were compensated by the Burden Equalization Act . Those whose fortunes had survived the war unscathed were used for financing. A series of measures was then taken to encourage workers to build up wealth and thus make the distribution of wealth more evenly.

Important measures included a. the first capital formation law (1961), the promotion of employee shares and the issue of people's shares . In the area of ​​collective bargaining policy , various models of investment wages have been implemented. Measures to promote housing (7b depreciation, housing bonus , home ownership allowance , child benefit , etc. ) should raise the home ownership rate , which is traditionally low in Germany , and thus also help to change the distribution of wealth . After the successful reconstruction and the economic miracle , the classic instruments to burden the wealthy again gained greater importance: the inheritance tax and the wealth tax . The wealth tax was uniformly regulated in Germany in 1923; the wealth tax law was last amended in 1974. However, after a constitutional court ruling from 1995, the collection of wealth tax was suspended from the 1997 tax year.

In Stabilization Act of 1967 not a distribution destination was included, but was in the aftermath of various parties, the demand for extension of the repeated magic square to the goal of a balanced wealth distribution levied. Today there is a broad consensus among the parties in the Bundestag about the value of a fair distribution of wealth for the development of the economy and society, although naturally there are different ideas about what is perceived as such and by what means it should possibly be achieved. However, many tried-and-tested instruments for promoting wealth creation have been scaled back since reunification , as other priorities were in the foreground due to the costs of German unity (financed by the income-related solidarity surcharge ) and the ecological restructuring of the market economy .

literature

  • Uwe Andersen, introduction to wealth policy . Beck, Munich 1976, ISBN 3406049389
  • Erik Boettcher, Wealth Policy in the Social Rule of Law . Mohr, Tübingen 1985, ISBN 3163449581
  • Herbert Ehrenberg , Wealth Policy for the Seventies . Stuttgart, Frankfurt am Main 1971, ISBN 9783170941335
  • Herbert Ehrenberg / Peter Streichan, documents on wealth policy . Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1974, ISBN 3878311648
  • Rainer Luig, Property Policy in the Competition Economy , Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1980, ISBN 978-3-16-943072-7
  • Karl Neumann, Distribution of Wealth and Wealth Policy. Possibilities and limits , Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1976 and Bund Verlag, 1982, ISBN 3434100881
  • Ekkehart Stein , Property Policy and Fundamental Rights , Stuttgart / Cologne / Berlin / Mainz: Kohlhammer, 1974
  • Theo Thiemeyer: Exploitation and Property Policy - Limits and Possibilities of Property Policy in the Capitalist System , Online Version (PDF; 138 kB)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ § 2, Law on the Formation of the Expert Council for the Assessment of Overall Economic Development of August 14, 1963.

See also