Fair distribution is only possible for those who understand value creation: Kühnert's critique of inheritance tax – Why social justice needs a strong economy

More taxes for large heirs? The underestimated conflict of objectives in Kühnert's demand

Kühnert versus family businesses: A debate on justice with economic risks

Kevin Kühnert's criticism of inheritance tax hits a nerve: Due to existing exemptions, very large transfers of wealth can effectively be taxed less than smaller inheritances. However, this issue of fairness doesn't automatically mean that higher taxes are the right solution. Especially for family businesses, the question arises as to how a tax can be paid when the assets are tied up in machinery, buildings, and ongoing investments. Kühnert's argument focuses heavily on distribution and political power, while liquidity, business succession, and the potential impact on investments receive less attention. A viable reform must consider both aspects together: appropriately taxing large inflows of wealth while simultaneously protecting the economic foundation from which jobs, tax revenues, and social benefits are generated. The central question, therefore, is not only who inherits how much, but also how to ensure fairness without weakening value creation.

The welfare state needs added value: What's missing in Kühnert's inheritance tax debate

Kühnert's inheritance tax debate shows how quickly social goals become an economic illusion when party politics replaces economic reality

Kevin Kühnert's criticism of inheritance tax touches on a real problem: the actual tax burden can be significantly lower for very large transfers of wealth than for smaller, taxable inheritances. This is especially true when large portions of the transferred assets are treated as privileged business assets. Those who conclude from this that current law needs to be reviewed and more precisely targeted are initially taking a legitimate position. A democratic society is entitled to debate whether very large transfers of wealth are taxed appropriately and whether existing tax breaks still serve their original purpose.

The weakness of Kühnert's argument therefore lies not in its social objective, but in its oversimplification of economic policy. Kühnert primarily views inheritance tax through the lens of distribution, inequality, and political power. He asks who owns how much, who pays how much, and which group benefits from a legal regulation. Too rarely, however, does he ask how the wealth was acquired, in what form it is tied up, what economic function it fulfills, what consequences a withdrawal of liquidity would trigger, and how a reform would affect investment, employment, ownership structures, and Germany's economic competitiveness in the long term.

This is precisely where partisan rather than economic thinking becomes apparent. Party politics seeks a clear line of conflict, mobilizable groups, and a readily understandable moral message. Economic policy, on the other hand, must withstand conflicting objectives, calculate side effects, and consider even the unintended consequences of its own demands. For a partisan campaign, the juxtaposition of privileged heirs and burdened workers suffices. For responsible economic policy, it does not.

The crucial criticism of Kühnert, therefore, is not that he shouldn't strive for social justice or that he fundamentally understands nothing about tax policy. It is that he largely separates social distribution from the process of economic value creation. A welfare state can only distribute what companies, employees, and the self-employed have previously generated. Without investment, there is less productivity; without productivity, fewer competitive jobs; without jobs, lower contributions and taxes; and without a sustainable financial base, no permanently effective welfare state. Social policy without an economic foundation is therefore not only incomplete; in the long run, it jeopardizes precisely those social goals it aims to achieve.

The welfare state does not thrive on political intentions

Germany finances its welfare state primarily through social security contributions and taxes. These revenues do not originate in the political sphere, but rather from wages, profits, consumption, investments, and entrepreneurial activity. Approximately two-thirds of social benefits are financed through contributions, with a significant further portion coming from government subsidies. When employment, total wages, and corporate profits stagnate, pension, health, long-term care, and unemployment insurance systems come under pressure. The welfare state is therefore not a counter-model to the market economy, but rather depends on its capacity to function effectively.

In 2025, German social benefits reached approximately €1.43 trillion, or about 32 percent of economic output. They increased significantly faster than nominal GDP, while real growth stagnated at roughly 0.2 percent. This development highlights the core of the problem: social policy obligations continue to grow automatically, even when the economic base barely expands. Aging populations, medical advances, rising care costs, and increased demands exacerbate this imbalance.

Against this backdrop, it is too simplistic to treat tax policy primarily as a question of untapped revenue potential. Additional tax revenue can alleviate budget problems in the short term. However, it does not replace growth and increased productivity. A tax reform is only convincing from an economic policy perspective if it considers not only static revenue but also investments, financing, employment, and location decisions.

Kühnert's argument focuses heavily on the immediate distributional effects. A large heir pays little, so a higher tax burden seems like the obvious correction. This view is static. It treats existing wealth like a fixed pie whose slices simply need to be redistributed. However, an economy is not an unchanging entity, but a dynamic process. Capital is invested, assets deteriorate, technologies change, markets are lost, and new competitors emerge. The size of tomorrow's pie depends on whether sufficient capital, knowledge, and risk appetite are mobilized today.

Economic policy thinking therefore begins where the question of distribution is linked to the question of its creation. Who should bear the burden of a tax? From what liquidity will it be paid? What alternatives do owners and companies have? Will investments be postponed, dividends increased, loans taken out, or shares sold? What consequences will there be for employees, suppliers, and locations? As long as these questions are not systematically answered, the demand for higher taxes remains a political position, but not yet a sound economic policy concept.

Kühnert's thinking follows a political conflict logic

Kühnert served for many years as chairman of the Young Socialists (Jusos), deputy chairman of the SPD, member of the Bundestag, and general secretary of the SPD. His professional background is thus primarily in political organization, communication, campaign management, and internal party strategy. Today, he works in the areas of taxes, distribution, and lobbying at Finanzwende. This biography does not disqualify him from tax policy debates. However, it explains why his arguments often follow a partisan logic.

A general secretary must sharpen political differences, mobilize supporters, and translate complex issues into clear messages. Kühnert possesses these skills. He can reduce a complex tax conflict to a morally comprehensible formula: employees pay high taxes and contributions on their income, while very large inheritances are sometimes taxed only lightly. In this narrative, family business associations appear as a powerful lobby that, under the sympathetic guise of the family business, protects the interests of billionaire owners.

This narrative works communicatively because it connects to widespread notions of justice. However, it remains inadequate from an economic policy perspective because it conflates different asset classes, company sizes, and financing conditions. A liquid securities portfolio, a rental real estate portfolio, a regional machine manufacturer, and an international family-owned corporation may have similar tax values, but they should not be treated equally from an economic standpoint. Their capacity to finance a tax differs significantly.

Party-political communication thrives on clear-cut divisions. On one side are the many employees, on the other the few wealthy heirs. Economic policy, however, must recognize that employees and business owners are not simply adversaries. The employment of one often depends on the investment decisions of the other. Wages, social security contributions, and taxes all originate from the same value chain. A company is not an abstract block of assets, but a network of capital, labor, knowledge, suppliers, customers, and long-term obligations.

While Kühnert acknowledges these connections in principle, he subordinates them to his distribution narrative. Economic objections quickly appear to him as self-serving excuses. This shifts the debate from the question of the best regulation to the question of whose motives are credible. This is useful for political mobilization, but dangerous for sound economic policy. Even an association with its own interests can raise a factually correct objection. Likewise, a public-benefit organization can advocate an economically problematic demand.

The true core of his criticism

A credible debate must acknowledge that Kühnert is right on one important point. While German inheritance tax is formally progressive, its actual burden is not consistent. The statutory rate increases with the value of the taxable inheritance. However, allowances, valuation rules, tax relief, and special exemptions can significantly reduce the effective burden in large business transfers.

Business assets can be exempt from taxation by up to 85 percent or entirely, provided certain conditions are met. Above certain thresholds, special review and reduction rules apply. As a result, very large transfers can have a lower effective tax rate than smaller taxable inheritances. Anyone promising progressive taxation must therefore be prepared to answer whether such a reversal is politically desirable and objectively justified.

The argument of meritocracy is also valid. An heir has not earned the transfer of assets through their own labor. The fact of being born into a particular family is not a personal achievement. Those who heavily tax earned income while largely exempting very large inherited assets create a clear pressure to justify their actions. The argument that the assets have already been taxed does not fully address this objection, because inheritance tax is based on the increase in the new owner's wealth.

Kühnert's criticism also touches a raw nerve in business advocacy. Trade associations frequently invoke small craft businesses or regional medium-sized enterprises when defending regulations whose greatest financial benefits arise from significantly larger transfers of wealth. This communicative conflation is just as problematic as Kühnert's blanket criticism of family businesses. Not every demand in favor of a multi-billion-dollar family conglomerate can be justified by protecting the baker, the freight forwarder, or the toolmaker.

Objective criticism of Kühnert must not overshadow these points. Otherwise, it merely results in a mirrored campaign. The correct counter-argument is not that there is no injustice whatsoever in the inheritance tax. It is that Kühnert too quickly derives a ready-made economic policy solution from a real problem of justice. He describes the distributional effects more precisely than the production effects. It is precisely this asymmetry that makes his position politically acceptable, but economically incomplete.

Operating assets represent productively bound responsibility

The most important economic distinction concerns the form of assets. A company's value is not the same as the balance in a bank account. In a family-owned manufacturing company, the assets are tied up in machinery, land, buildings, patents, software, inventory, customer relationships, and skilled employees. These values ​​can be substantial even if the owner does not have corresponding liquid funds available.

A tax on the transfer of ownership legally falls on the heir. However, it can still burden the company economically. If the heir lacks sufficient private funds, they must finance the tax through dividends, loans, or the sale of shares. Higher dividends deplete the company's equity. Loans increase interest and repayment burdens. Share sales can alter control rights and influence strategic decisions. Therefore, the claim that the company and the heir can be completely separated economically does not hold up in practice.

This is especially true for capital-intensive industries. A mechanical engineering company, logistics provider, metal processor, or automotive supplier requires continuous, substantial investments to remain technologically competitive. Digitalization, energy efficiency, automation, and decarbonization further increase capital requirements. If funds are withdrawn to finance inheritance tax during such a period, the tax payment directly competes with investments and crisis reserves.

Kühnert's perspective underestimates this financing conflict because it primarily views wealth as an expression of individual performance. This assumption is often plausible for private financial assets. However, it is only partially correct for business assets. The heir receives a valuable share of the ownership but simultaneously assumes risks, obligations, and capital requirements. The economic benefit cannot be completely separated from the continued existence and success of the company.

This does not automatically result in tax exemption. However, it does mean that an economically sound tax burden must take liquidity into account. A tax can appear fair and yet be detrimental if it is due at the wrong time. The decisive factor is therefore not only the value of the transferred assets, but also their distributable income, debt levels, investment needs, and vulnerability to crises.

Family businesses are not a homogeneous asset class

Around 88 percent of private companies in Germany are considered family-controlled. They employ approximately 18.3 million people, representing roughly 58 percent of the private sector workforce. Family businesses range from micro-enterprises to global corporations. For this reason alone, any sweeping statement about their political power or economic performance is problematic.

The small craft business with twelve employees has neither its own lobbying department nor direct access to political decision-makers. The medium-sized industrial company with several hundred employees may be regionally significant, but at the national level it usually remains dependent on associations. An international family-owned corporation with billions in revenue, on the other hand, possesses professional legal, tax, and communications structures. All three are family businesses, but their interests, resources, and options differ fundamentally.

Kühnert often uses the term "family business" as if it were primarily a sentimental euphemism for large corporate fortunes. This criticism may apply to individual campaigns and industry association arguments. As a general description, however, it is inaccurate. Family businesses are not an artificially created communication tool, but rather a defining form of ownership in the German economy. Many of them think more long-term than capital market-oriented corporations, maintain their locations even during crises, and finance growth primarily from retained earnings.

This long-term capital commitment is particularly relevant from an economic policy perspective. Owning families often diversify their assets less than a purely financially driven investor would. A large portion of the family's wealth remains within the company, thus bearing the risk of economic downturns, technological disruptions, and competition. Therefore, a high company value does not automatically translate into a correspondingly high standard of living or readily available wealth.

Conversely, the economic importance of family businesses should not be used as a license for impunity. Even large, family-controlled corporations can have substantial dividends, liquid reserves, and financing options. The larger and more profitable a company is, the less convincing the blanket assertion becomes that every tax burden threatens its existence. A differentiated system must therefore distinguish between size, liquidity, and actual financing risk, rather than treating all family businesses the same.

Kühnert's partisan approach prevents precisely this differentiation. It requires the powerful bloc of family businesses to construct a clear opposing viewpoint. In terms of economic policy, however, he would have to explain which companies he intends to burden and how, how liquidity problems will be avoided, and what transitional rules will protect investments. Without this clarification, the moral conflict remains clearer than the practical solution.

Lobbying influence is real, but it's no substitute for impact analysis

Business associations have money, contacts, and expertise. They commission expert reports, formulate statements, and hold talks with ministries and members of parliament. Large companies can also maintain their own lobbying groups. These resources create political influence and justify transparency and critical scrutiny.

Kühnert, however, partially reduces this accurate finding to a single-cause explanation. According to him, if tax privileges persist despite criticism, this is primarily due to the power of the family business lobby. This reduces a complex legal situation to the success of a single interest group. He ignores the objective reasons that also support granting exemptions: protecting corporate liquidity, preserving jobs, ensuring the continuity of long-term investments, and preventing forced changes of ownership.

These reasons may be exaggerated or fabricated. But they are not wrong simply because an association puts them forward. Economic policy must evaluate arguments according to their empirical validity, not according to the social identity of their author. Anyone who dismisses every objection to higher taxes as lobbying interests immunizes their own position against criticism.

Furthermore, Finanzwende itself engages in lobbying. Kühnert is no longer a neutral observer of a lobbying conflict, but rather an actor with a clear tax and distribution policy agenda. Civil society organizations also run campaigns, set the agenda, simplify messages, and try to influence political decisions. This is legitimate. It just shouldn't be portrayed as if there were only the common good on one side and purely economic self-interest on the other.

The difference between interest groups lies in their goals, resources, and funding structures, not in their fundamental desire to exert influence. Kühnert's credibility would increase if he more openly acknowledged this role and examined the opposing arguments more objectively. The assertion of a power imbalance may be true, but it doesn't answer the question of which tax rule is economically sound.

The problem of static distribution calculation

Kühnert's thinking often follows a static logic. The state forgoes revenue by granting tax breaks; if these breaks are eliminated, billions more become available, which can be used to relieve the burden on other groups or to finance public services. This calculation is politically appealing. Economically, it is only a first approximation.

Taxes change behavior. Owners can bring forward gifts, adjust corporate structures, restructure their assets, increase dividends, or relocate. Companies can postpone investments or take on more debt. Not every reaction is detrimental to the economy, and not every threat of relocation is credible. Nevertheless, a sound reform concept cannot ignore these behavioral adjustments.

Even more important is the long-term impact on the investment base. If successors to a business have to withdraw funds for tax payments over many years, these funds may be lacking for machinery, research, training, or expansion. The tax can therefore generate higher immediate revenue while simultaneously weakening the future tax base. Whether this effect actually occurs and how significant it is depends on the specific design of the tax. This is precisely why payment deadlines, deferrals, and investment incentives are crucial.

Party-political thinking presents the calculated increase in revenue as available redistribution leeway. Economic policy thinking asks about the net effect after all adjustments. This includes positive effects: An appropriate inheritance tax can promote capital mobility, break down entrenched ownership structures, and improve equality of opportunity. It can enable the state to finance education, infrastructure, and lower taxes on labor. But these positive effects do not arise automatically. They depend on how the revenue is used and what burdens are reduced elsewhere.

Kühnert is promising potential additional revenue without presenting a binding overall economic policy framework. The hope that the state can then use this revenue to provide relief elsewhere is not yet a reform. What is crucial is which specific taxes and levies will be reduced, by how much, and according to what timeline. Without such offsetting measures, there is a risk that the inheritance tax will simply increase the overall level of taxes and levies. For an economy with an already high tax and contribution burden, this would not be a minor problem.

Social goals require entrepreneurial strength

The fundamental flaw in many left-wing tax concepts is not the pursuit of social goals. It lies in treating economic strength as a fixed resource rather than the result of ongoing decisions. Companies only invest when they anticipate sales opportunities, reliable framework conditions, and a reasonable return. Employment only arises when labor can be used productively. Higher wages ultimately require higher added value.

The welfare state therefore depends not only on high tax rates, but above all on a broad and growing tax base. A lower rate on rising incomes and profits can generate more revenue than a high rate on a shrinking base. In light of demographic change, Germany needs more productivity, more private investment, and more successful business successions. A tax policy that weakens these prerequisites may appear socially responsible in the short term, but have long-term negative consequences.

This is especially true for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Many owners will face succession issues in the coming years. If succession is unresolved, investments decline. Machines are replaced later, digitalization projects are postponed, and new hires are avoided. Uncertainty about taxes, financing, and ownership transfers exacerbates this effect. Therefore, any reform must be not only fair but also predictable.

Kühnert's argument underestimates this temporal dimension. For him, the moment of the transfer of assets is paramount. However, from an economic policy perspective, the entire transition phase is crucial: preparation, valuation, financing, training of the successor, securing credit lines, and building employee trust. A high or unclear burden can influence behavior years before the inheritance.

Anyone who wants to maintain social security must take this business reality seriously. Employees of a family business do not benefit from a theoretically fair tax if necessary investments are neglected and the location loses competitiveness. Conversely, they also do not benefit if heirs remain permanently tax-free, withdraw profits, and provide no return for the preferential treatment. Economic policy must limit both risks.

Personal attacks are no substitute for criticism

Kühnert's position should not be countered with the assertion that he has never really worked and therefore cannot have a say. Such criticism is personal, vague, and factually unnecessary. Kühnert has gained professional experience outside of a traditional corporation and has held political responsibility for many years. The validity of his statements is not determined by his resume, but by their economic merit.

At the same time, his political background can be cited as an explanation for his perspective. Someone who spends the majority of their career in a party, parliament, and political lobbying understandably develops a different view of companies than someone who finances investments, acquires customers, pays wages, and bears personal risks. This lack of experience doesn't necessarily manifest as a lack of knowledge, but rather in the way problems are prioritized.

Kühnert's approach focuses on distributive justice, power asymmetries, and political symbolism. Liquidity, capital structure, investment cycles, and international competition appear as secondary considerations. This is a legitimate political perspective, but not a comprehensive economic policy. Objective criticism should precisely identify this gap.

Insulting terms or sweeping denigrations, on the other hand, weaken the opposing position. They give Kühnert the opportunity to portray himself as the target of unfounded attacks and distract from the core issue. The strongest criticism is not that he is personally unsuitable, but that his concept insufficiently considers the economic prerequisites for his social goals.

This makes the debate more demanding. It is not enough to accuse Kühnert of ideology. The opposing side must present a better model. It must explain how large transfers of wealth can be taxed appropriately without jeopardizing investment and employment. Those who merely defend the status quo confirm the suspicion that economic arguments serve as a cover for privileges.

A reform beyond the logic of camps

A viable inheritance tax reform must combine three objectives: fair taxation of large inherited fortunes, protection of productive business assets, and reliable financing of public services. None of these objectives should be absolute. Justice without economic sustainability is short-lived. Economic protection without adequate participation from very large heirs loses social acceptance.

The first step should be regularly adjusted personal tax allowances. Ordinary homeownership and smaller inheritances should not become increasingly taxable solely due to general price increases. Indexation would relieve the burden on the general population and focus political discussion on large wealth transfers.

The second element is a clear delineation of the assets actually required for operations. Machinery, production buildings, patents, and liquidity reserves necessary for operations deserve different treatment than private financial investments, excess cash balances, or non-operating real estate. The decisive factor is the economic function, not merely the legal structure within a company.

The third component should be a real minimum tax on very large business transfers. A low, reliably collected tax is fairer and more transparent than a high rate that is almost entirely negated by complicated exemptions. The tax burden could increase gradually with the size of the transfer, without creating abrupt thresholds.

The fourth element consists of long payment terms. Ten to fifteen years can make it possible to pay the tax from future distributions without immediately withdrawing capital from the company. In severe crises, payments should be temporarily suspended, but not automatically waived. This would allow the state to account for liquidity risks without relinquishing its tax claim.

The fifth component is a stronger link between tax relief and demonstrable economic performance. Investments, additional apprenticeships, research spending, and long-term job retention could reduce the tax burden. A simple holding period, on the other hand, also rewards passive owners. A performance-based model would favor those successors who actually develop the business further.

The sixth component concerns the use of revenues. Additional funds should be earmarked for reducing the burden on labor, improving depreciation allowances, or investing in public capital expenditures. This would create a comprehensible economic policy link: large transfers of wealth contribute to growth, while employment and future investments are relieved of the burden. Only this connection transforms redistribution policy into a growth strategy.

Why Kühnert's approach works politically, but is not enough economically

Kühnert is an effective political communicator. He recognizes societal discontent, articulates clear contrasts, and translates complex issues into understandable messages. His criticism of low effective tax rates on large inheritances resonates with people because it taps into an intuitive sense of justice. This political skill should not be underestimated.

This is precisely why his oversimplification of economic policy is relevant. His message can mobilize majorities for reform without a sufficient understanding of its concrete consequences. If family businesses are predominantly portrayed as lobbying constructs of the wealthiest, the protection of productive capital is quickly dismissed as a mere excuse. If additional revenues are presented as billions in readily available cash, changes in behavior and the effects of investment are overlooked.

Party politics asks which message will generate approval. Economic policy asks which rule will lead to greater prosperity, more stable jobs, and sustainable public finances after five, ten, or twenty years. Both perspectives can complement each other, but they must not be confused. Kühnert's position on inheritance tax remains too firmly rooted in the first logic.

This is also evident in his approach to social justice. He treats redistribution as a direct path to greater fairness. In reality, social justice depends not only on the distribution of existing wealth, but also on access to quality education, productive work, affordable housing, and economic mobility. A state can tax inheritances more heavily and still remain socially unjust if it fails to improve educational opportunities, makes it more difficult to start businesses, and places excessive burdens on labor.

A comprehensive social economic policy would therefore have to go beyond inheritance tax. It would have to facilitate business start-ups, promote employee share ownership, strengthen capital formation among broader segments of the population, improve schools, and reduce taxes on labor. It would have to ask not only how existing wealth is distributed, but also how more people can accumulate new wealth. Kühnert's approach remains too focused on correcting the status quo at the top and too little on upward mobility for all.

The more economic form of social justice

The best response to Kühnert's position is not a blanket defense of wealthy heirs. It is a concept that more consistently links social goals with economic realities. Large inflows of wealth must be taxed appropriately. At the same time, productively employed capital must be protected from abrupt liquidity withdrawals. The state may generate revenue, but it must also demonstrate that it uses it to promote growth.

Such a position is more demanding than the usual partisan rhetoric. It demands that business associations relinquish unjustified privileges. It demands that left-leaning redistribution politicians not treat capital formation and investment merely as obstacles to redistribution. And it demands that the state not simply let additional revenues disappear into increased consumer spending.

Kühnert should therefore not be criticized for addressing social justice. He should be criticized for not sufficiently elaborating on the economic foundations of this justice. His analysis is sharp regarding distribution, but imprecise regarding value creation. He recognizes the political impact of low inheritance taxes, but underestimates the economic function of long-term, tied-up corporate capital.

The crucial principle is this: without a strong economy, there can be no strong welfare state. This statement is neither neoliberal nor anti-social. It is a financial reality. Social benefits must be generated anew each year. Pensions, long-term care, healthcare, education, and infrastructure cannot be financed permanently through moral demands, but rather through productivity, employment, and tax revenue.

Those who weaken this foundation can distribute more in the short term but secure less in the long term. Those who strengthen it create the space for social policy. Therefore, any reform of inheritance tax must simultaneously be a reform for investment, business succession, and broader wealth accumulation. Only then will a partisan political demand become responsible economic policy.

The real benchmark is future viability

The debate surrounding inheritance tax must not end with the question of whether Kühnert or the family business owners present a more morally convincing case. The benchmark must be which regulation strengthens Germany's economic and social future. This includes fair participation for very large heirs as well as the protection of viable businesses.

Kühnert is right to criticize a reversed effective progression and point to the political power of large fortunes. He is wrong, however, to conclude from this that there is a largely unified interest group of family business owners and to reduce the economic consequences of higher tax burdens to the private level of the heir. His perspective remains partisan because it describes conflicts more clearly than conflicts of objectives and distributional gains in more detail than potential losses in growth.

The opposing economic policy position should not be backward-looking. The current situation is neither transparent nor entirely fair. Complex exemptions encourage tax avoidance, breed mistrust, and burden precisely those companies that cannot afford highly specialized tax planning. Reform is necessary. However, it must be more precise than Kühnert's campaign logic.

A sound system would simplify the succession of small and medium-sized businesses, subject very large transfers to a reliable minimum tax, and allow for payments over extended periods. It would protect operational assets, not every form of family wealth. It would reward investment and lessen the privilege of passive wealth holdings. Above all, it would use additional revenue to reduce the burden on labor and strengthen the local economy.

This would resolve the apparent contradiction between social justice and economic rationality. Social policy requires economic performance, and economic order requires social acceptance. Those who merely distribute without ensuring the creation of what is to be distributed are not acting in a sustainably socially responsible manner. Those who merely protect without appropriately contributing to large wealth gains jeopardize social cohesion.

Kühnert's contribution is useful because it forces a necessary debate. However, it falls short as an economic policy concept. He accurately describes where the tax system can be unfair, but fails to provide a convincing overall answer regarding liquidity, investment, succession planning, and location competition. This is precisely where substantive criticism must begin: not with him personally, but with the gap between the political message about distribution and economic viability.

The most provocative and at the same time most realistic answer to Kühnert is therefore: A welfare state can only afford justice if its economy is strong enough to finance it sustainably. Anyone who ignores this is thinking along party lines. Anyone who combines both is practicing social economic policy.