In political debates, undeserved well-being that is not earned through personal effort is often mistakenly described as a privilege. In this way, one can sell egalitarian, leveling-oriented politics as anti-privilege policies. Fateful differences are part of every human society.
Historically, a privilege is an exception to the rule. Today, it is understood more as a form of undeserved well-being.
In a Christmas letter I encountered sentences that express the feelings of many in these dark times: «Hans and I are aware of how incredibly privileged we are. We were able to experience a year with many lights – a contrast to the darkness that I have described. » And in a public conversation I recently had with Zurich SP government councilor Jacqueline Fehr about liberalism, she also spoke of privileges. It is her concern to combat them. Both times I thought we were all, including myself, using the term privilege too ambiguously.
Gerhard Schwarz was head of the NZZ business editorial team and is now President of the Progress Foundation.
Historically and legally, a privilege denotes a prerogative granted to an individual (or group) by the ruler or legislature. It represents an exception to the rule. Privileges such as subsidies, subsidies, special regulations are therefore anathema to all liberals. In a free economic and social order, there should be the same rules for everyone as far as possible. The opposite of privilege is discrimination. Both violate the principle of equal treatment before the law.
Misunderstood
But in the examples given, privilege did not mean this classic term, but something else, namely a kind of undeserved well-being. The letter writer wanted to express that, despite illnesses and worries, she and her family are better off than the majority of people living today, and even more so than those who lived before us. The politician, on the other hand, was concerned with the fact that those who are born into rich families not only have an advantage at the start, but throughout their lives, provided they do not gamble away their inheritance.
The problem with these views lies in the word “undeserved”, because what is deserved? In any case, neither the time one is born into, nor the country in which one grows up, neither the parental home with its mental and economic strengths and weaknesses, nor the talents, character and health that one inherits.
danger of a reduction in prosperity
Many state believers quarrel with this and would like to correct the distribution of undeserved happiness (and misfortune). Since they know that the inhabitants of Switzerland – even the lowest-income ones – belong to the upper class in a global comparison, so that the fight against this “privilege” would have to lead to a massive reduction in prosperity for Switzerland, and because they are not responsible for education either are leveling down, they primarily attack two undeserved advantages.
They fight the inheritance by means of repeated attempts to partially expropriate the heirs or testators, and they try to correct the advantage of growing up in an educated family through early state education and training for everyone. In doing so, they suppress the fact that good things that happen to you and are not deserved are not privileges. And so, under the false label of fighting privileges, the boundary between the private and the state is continually shifted in favor of the latter.