Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

over. With the ownership of capital, the strata of the population previously without property
would be able to gain, not only greater economic security, but a formative influence on economic
affairs at the same time, so that co-determination and co-responsibility would automatically
exist. One should not, however, overestimate the consequences of a broad distribution
of wealth in the capital sector. In the industrial society, wages and salary will form the
most important source of income now as before. Nor will the system of ‘social security’ become
superfluous even with a broad distribution of wealth, although it may be limited to a
certain degree.
Incidentally, one should not give one-sided preference to any of the six forms of property, but
foster property formation in all realms in accordance with the current conditions and needs. In
Germany, however, participation in capital formation has stood in the centre of discussion for
years, especially because a process of wealth formation of unusual proportions has taken
place in various businesses since l948. The self-financing of businesses was possible because,
with the considerable backlog demand of German households and with the willingness to
spend, the demand for wares of all kinds was exceedingly strong so that high prices and good
profits resulted. To this was added the fact that, thanks to particular tax measures such as special
write-offs, high degressive write-offs, and other allowances, reinvested profits were not
swallowed up by taxes. Businesses usually took out short-term bank loans which, with the
high profits made, could be paid back in a short period of time, which allowed businesses to
become owners of their own plant and machinery. Thus, saving on the part of businesses has
to a large extent taken the place of individual saving. No one will deny that, in the years after
the monetary reform, it was urgently necessary politically and economically to make extraordinary
investments. It was only in this way that economic growth and full employment could
be attained. Nevertheless, one will have to ask whether it was politically and socio-ethically
correct for this wealth formation on the part of businesses, which was to a large extent conditioned
by the whole national economy, to have been concentrated among relatively few owners
so that the trusteeship of capital assets fell, as it were, to businesses along with the state.
3. Renewing and Strengthening the Functions of Private Property.
Broad circles of the middle class, but particularly the Socialist Workers’ Movement, looked
for a long time upon the broad dissemination of property, especially of capital assets, with
disapproval. In the meantime, a change of views has taken place such as could not have been
foreseen a few decades ago. Theory and praxis both meet substantial difficulties in the question
of how the participation of broad strata of the population in capital formation can be carried
out, since, on the one hand, it is a question of more or less anonymous forms of ownership
and, on the other, the different proposals must be thoroughly examined with respect to
their effects on the national and industrial economy. Fundamentally, two methods of disseminating
ownership in the capital sector can be distinguished: the redistribution of present
wealth and the participation of broad strata of the population in the new, annual increase.
a) Redistribution of Existing Wealth
One will rightly have to raise doubts about the redistribution of the wealth of private enterprises
that has arisen since the monetary reform, since a dangerous paralysis of business initiative
and thus a disastrous effect upon the whole national economy would be a risk to be
feared. The privatization of state capital is to be judged otherwise. This form of wealth, which
reached a total value of 835 billion marks in l979 (in l970 prices), does indeed consist for the
most part of railway and post office facilities, of streets, schools, and universities, and of the
reserve funds of social insurance. Only about four to six billion marks of the profit-generating
capital of the state is suitable for privatization. For the rest, the participation of broad strata of
the population in capital formation can only be reached through new investments.
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