11. CHAPTER THE CONFESSION OF A NAY-SAYER On December 6, 1992 we have, Klara and I, along with the overwhelming majority of the Swiss people cast our vote in a referendum concerning the Swiss adhesion to the European Economic Community. This vote has been preceded in our family by an exhaustive discussion with our two children. Eventually we have come to a consensus. To some extent we have voted along with our children, we have cast their ballots along with ours. We have voted No. Why have we done that? That the various populations of Europe are bound to be reunited some day lies in the absolute logic of human history. That populations who belong to the same race, whose languages mostly derive from an ancient IndoEuropean tongue, who are issued from the same Christian culture, whose national histories are mostly so similar and enmeshed in one another simply belong together is something so self-evident, so natural, that this reunification is bound to take place - and will. The creation of an European Nation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Oural Mountains is only a matter of time. To a man living in the XXIII or XXIV. century the present warring, the quarrels, the national boundaries, the narrow-minded thinking of today's European politicians will appear as abstruse, as nonsensical as the quarrels of the Greens and the Blues in old Byzantium appear to us. Insofar as mankind then still exists it will just have a tired smile left for our present problems. All this we have discussed within the family. I have a great amount of interest for human history and have always tried with the help of great historians to find out the deeper sense of human development. And all the signs - and not just in the stars above -are present that
mankind has arrived at a turning point of its development, and that we simply cannot continue in the same direction. To put it straight, we are now condemned or simply damned to thoroughly revise our whole mentality, our outlook on life, our sets of values or as an alternative to disappear from the globe. The time of Apocalypse - of Revelation - has come. Since the turn of the century we have wasted more raw materials than in the previous eight thousand years. We have definitely destroyed more forests, and caused more pollution of every kind and description than all the previous civilizations taken together. The Europeans have created the so-called "Third World" with all its misery and despair, and at the same time awakened in those people the hope for a world of consumption and satisfaction of all material needs of which we know, and cannot possibly ignore, that under the actual premises it cannot be possibly realized. Europe's present wealth is no more and no less than the systematic plundering of Third World resources, with the active complicity of a tiny fringe of native politicians and business people. The transmission of our present living standard - or, to put it more accurately - of our waste society to the generality of the world population would provoke the instant collapse of the earth's ecosystem. Our "No" to the European Economic Union must be seen in the light of these generally recognized facts. It is not a "No" to Europe. It is far more a "No" to an economic system that survives only for itself. Our Western civilization has replaced the religion of Buddha, of Lao Tse, of Confucius, of Jesus, of Mohammed, of Mahatma Gandhi through the cult of the Gross National Product. The idol of this new religion is called "Economic Growth". And "Economic Growth" is being handled like a panacea. And yet is unlimited growth in a limited world a thing of sheer impossibility: Any peasant with a herd of cattle and a meadow, every joint owner with a kitchen and a dining room knows that. Only the learned people at the head of industry, finance and politics haven't realized it yet.
Our "No" of December 6, 1992 wasn't aimed at Europe. It was far more a "No" to a civilization of instant communication in which people die from loneliness. A civilization of social care in which people go cold and hungry on account of an arrogant and inefficient bureaucracy and on account of the politicians' inability to reform faulty institutions. A civilization which draws its legitimacy from 3.000 years of culture and produces the weapons to erase all life on this globe several times over. A civilization which preaches Democracy and simultaneously allows that - as in Switzerland - two percent of the population owns more than one third of the national wealth. Money is power, everyone knows that. And wherever this wealth is so unequally distributed Democracy becomes just a sham. A civilization where the soil has become just another ware. The ownership of land through a private individual is something unnatural. That a person should own houses, factories, farms along with their contents and should be free to dispose of these goods as he/she sees fit is definitely just and reasonable. That we all endeavor to improve our existence lays in the nature of things. But that ownership should be concentrated in so few hands is a very dangerous development indeed. Our land and property legislation is, to cite the Swiss economist Hans Tschäni, on its way to feudalism. The great revolutions in the history of mankind have not been realized by the rag-tag hordes of slaves and proles, and not by noble hearted aristocrats. The real progress is always due to a solid class of yeomen, tradesmen and business people with a sprinkling of highly qualified workers. People whose living conditions allowed a rather distanced view of the world around them, and yet whose wealth was not so great as not to compel them to consider the consequences of their acts. People who always could be had for a good book, a lively discussion, who were open to progressive ideas, and yet whose life experience
required from them to put those new ideas to the acid test of practical feasibility. In this social class we find Werner Stauffacher, Arnold von Melchtal and Walter FĂźrst, Switzerland's Founding Fathers in 1291. In this social class we also find the leaders of the American Revolution and of the French Revolution of 1789 as well. To this social class belongs Robert Owen, a 19. century English textile manufacturer who of his own volition improved the miserable living and working conditions of his employees in dramatic manner, and who can be considered as one of the founders of the socialist movement. Along those lines we also can cite Henry Ford I who voluntarily, without external pressure increased the salaries of his workers fivefold and so initiated the mass consumption of goods and services. We can consider it any way we want: The middle class is and remains the backbone of a nation and of a civilization. And this middle class is today and in this nation threatened of disappearing. The cleavage between rich and poor is becoming wider and wider. And it is to be feared that this cleavage will be increasing in the European Union, whose precursor the European Economic Union is. The tremendous process of concentration in industry and banking is a sure sign of where the money, and consequently the power, are to be found in the future. The consequence of this process are visible today already: Should a giant concern be faced with trouble, so is a salvage action started by the State. Should a small or middle business be confronted with precisely the same problems, so it can disappear from view. No one gives a hoot. The advocates of adhesion have blamed the opposing party for its lack of an alternative concept. In other words the advocates have a concept whereas the others have none. One doesn't have to be a great clerk to realize that the advocates' concept exhausts itself in the continuation of the present line of business. But today's crisis is no ordinary crisis, it rather signalizes the end of an era of human history.
And this has been brilliantly demonstrated by contemporary philosophers and social critics: the Swiss Hans Pestalozzi, Hans Tschäni, the American Alvin Toffler, the American of Austrian descent Fritjof Capra are a few names that come to my mind. This essay of mine reflects their ideas. Consequently this contribution to a discussion stands out essentially through its total lack of originality. It can at best be used as the proof that those ideas have left the rarefied atmosphere of high philosophy and have become the common good of ordinary people. And if we blame the EEC's advocates for the continuation of an obsolete and sterile concept, we also have to be ready, willing and able to present some alternatives, alternatives which can stand the acid test of practical implementation. KEY WORD: REAL ESTATE LEGISLATION: As the Swiss Confederation was founded, at the close of the XIII. century, the land was largely common property. Surely the buildings, the farms, the houses were private property. The Confederates therefore defended their land, the land that belonged to all, and triumphed in recorded manner over the Habsbourg aristocracy. In the XVIII. century the land had gone over to become the private property of a handful of Swiss aristocrats. The broad mass of people had no access to the land any longer. The French revolutionary troops occupied the country without difficulty. Switzerland was thoroughly plundered and ransacked and became the battlefield of Europe. At the outbreak of World War II every farmer and every tradesman in my village had the ownership of the piece of land which he occupied and tilled. The Swiss Army's capability of withstanding a Wehrmacht attack doesn't stand to discussion. But the deep motivation of my people to defend their soil, to sacrifice their lives for their fatherland has remained one of the living memories of my childhood.
Switzerland has now become a country of tenants. The land has become an object of speculation and is controlled by trust companies with seats between ZĂźrich and Panama. A popular initiative aiming at the abolition of the Army has met with a decent success. The price which is paid for a piece price, for it doesn't compensate activity. The capital invested "sterilized", is taken away from disappears into the ground.
of land is a fictive the result of human in land is truly useful investments,
Quite a good example of the pointlessness of land ownership is the ship on the water or the plane in the air: Does the ship or the plane owner have to "own" the element upon which the ship or the plane are resting? And so far as the practical side of the idea is concerned: Klara and I are willing anytime to give back to the commune of to the canton the land upon which our establishment is built if the price which we paid in 1987 for that piece of land is deducted from our mortgage. And we are definitely ready to pay a decent rent to the Commune or to the Canton if our income tax were deducted from that rent. It would be a brilliant financial operation, for the community as well as for us: with a 4% interest the commune and the State would rake in some Fr. 25.000,00 . And we'd be saving Fr. 10 to 12.000,00 of mortgage interests. It is indeed just about time to put a stop to the greed and lack of responsibility of the Swiss banks. In everyday practice this cession of land for the benefit of the State would bring no change to our living conditions. Should however all the land become nationalized in this fashion, so could the land owners not be indemnified at all: The total value of the land in Switzerland is about Fr. 1'300 billions of francs. The payment of so gigantic a sum would provoke just as gigantic an inflation which would cause the ruin of our economy. The solution to the problem is simply to estimate the land as to its price and then deduct this amount from the mortgage.
Not even the banks would come to a loss: the money repaid to the banks is not lent to buy land. These sums which simply disappear from the balance sheets. whole country in land lease. The farmer gets from Commune a lifelong lease which can be transmitted to heirs for the land which he tills. The farming zones presently sacred and untouchable.
not are The the his are
The same fictive values are also to be found at every stock exchange: The stock exchange quotations ought to reflect the state of the economy. It is indeed a well known fact of life that the national stock exchanges have been for a long time totally dissociated from the country's economic events. If for instance the Dow Jones index or the Standard and Poor index were the true reflection of the United States' economy, they would be really in the cellar. It simply has to be realized that on the stock exchanges worldwide a gigantic poker game is taking place, with thousands of billions of dollars changing hands daily. And this money also is sterilized. The stock exchange values are for the most part as fictive as the land prices, as fictive and as unrealistic as the price of a painting with flowers bought a hundred years ago for one hundred French francs from a hungry painter and resold shortly for four dozen millions dollars to a speculator who is going to hide it in some safe. Just as fictive is the "pas de porte", "goodwill" or "key money" paid in order to acquire a business. As if a clientele could be "bought". ABOLISH SOCIAL SECURITY FUNDS AND RETIREMENT One thing has to be made perfectly plain after this provocative demand: The payment of a pension by the State which allows retired people to live a dignified and decent life is simply due. The way a State, a civilization treats its weaker members is a reliable mark of the relative validity of its system. Not the principle of the thing is to be discussed here, but the way it should work. And today's system has for scores of years administered the proof of its total inadequacy. This system of ours is unbelievably costly and so complicated that not even a doctor in Economy is able to unravel it.
The retirement funds have definitely stolen more than two billions Swiss francs from this country's working class, and invested this money into speculative land buys with disastrous consequences for just this working class. This system is perfectly perverse and has never had the right to exist at all. The solution to this problem consists in the abolition of the retirement funds and the control of their assets through the Confederation. Furthermore in the abolition of the Social Security contributions which would be the cause of an immense simplification of the employers' paper work. The missing amounts would be compensated through an appropriate rise of the income tax, or real estate tax. Every individual would be getting as of his/her 65th anniversary the same basic rent, sufficient to insure a simple but decent existence. This bare minimum would amount according to my own calculation to some Fr.2.600,00 or 2.900,00 and would be indexed. To this minimal pension would be added the sums saved by the person in the course of his/her life. This savings would come about on a perfectly voluntary basis. We could discuss the possibility of setting up frozen bank accounts with interest rates superior under all circumstances to the previous year's rate of inflation. Those frozen bank accounts would be guaranteed by the Confederation. INTRODUCE A REALISTIC INHERITANCE TAX Also here we are confronted with basic principles which are not open to discussion: the right of anyone to come to money through hard work, talent and ambition, to conquer a comfortable position and even power, or at least influence. Furthermore to transmit at least a part of these goods to his/her descendant. About such selfevident principles we should not waste even one word. Once more it is not the principle of the thing that's open to dispute but rather its excesses. One thing we all know: It takes money to make money, and the most illuminating example of this principle is provided by the Monopoly game: There comes the moment when the putative winner just simply cannot lose anymore, regardless how
badly he plays and how many costs he has to assume, whereas the putative loser simply cannot win anymore, regardless how skillfully he handles the situation. And this situation finds itself in real life again, and to this situation we should devote some attention. The simple solution is to introduce in every canton the same inheritance taxes with perfectly humane rates for small fortunes and steeply rising rates for larger ones. With the best will I simply cannot see why more than eight to ten millions francs should be distributed to the heirs. We also have observed the brutal inequality of treatment in the distribution of family allowances in this country: Well, or even very well heeled wage earners are endowed with unnecessary family allowances and at the same time employers who earn half as much or even far less are being deprived of same, although their activities contribute to secure jobs. This is a remainder of the old days when the employer was considered as a capitalist and an exploiter. This figure of the employer is perfectly obsolete: Family allowances belong in every household which doesn't show a yearly income of Fr. 70.000,00 at least. They should be cancelled wherever this limit is passed. The quarrel which I have reported at length is simply unworthy of a constitutional State. FEDERALISM UNDER SCRUTINY The Jura question has poisoned this country's political climate for scores of years and has reached a new climax with the death of a young terrorist in Bern in 1993 and a dynamite attack in the Bernese Jura. This political crisis has demonstrated once more the total inability of the political leadership to propose audacious and generous solutions to the present problems. If we are presently confronted with the problem of the creation of a new canton, so we make a whole job of it and offer a whole solution: the creation of a canton, not from the French border to the Lake of Bienne, but a canton which includes the Northern as well as the Southern Jura and the canton of Neuchâtel to boot. It is there largely the same landscape, the same mentality, the same language, the same industry and largely the same problems.
And since we have come this way we consider the creation of a realistic canton of Basel, which would includes the Laufen Valley, the Frick Valley (presently Aargau), Baselland and part of Solothurn territories. All these areas are in point of fact oriented toward Basel, economically as well as culturally. And the question may be allowed in this connection of why the cantons of Vaud and Geneva should not actually merge. There is no real objection to this merger, and a lot in its favor. In every crisis there is a danger, but also an opportunity for progress. The Jura crisis illustrates once more the total inability for dialogue of our political leadership, and its unwillingness to step out of the beaten paths. In this report I also have shown how the flagrant and lasting violation of a law with disastrous results for a whole branch of the national economy (the catering business) cannot be brought before a Court of Law. The law in question is the Catering Law of a canton. This demonstration could however be made with the environmental laws which have been accepted by the people in 1991. The summer time law also is a very good example: I for one have wondered again and again how such a relatively trifling matter could diminish the capital of confidence and respect in the Authorities. It shows the longer the more that this country is ruled not by Law, but rather by a political caste which doesn't give a damn about the Law and has separated itself from the people and consequently from reality. And this political class, or rather caste, demands our confidence in a question of such immense consequence as the adhesion to a United Europe... This political caste which demands our confidence hasn't seen the present economic and social crisis coming, although this crisis has been announced thirty years ago already. It has nothing to offer but a hackneyed theory of growth of which every child knows doesn't hold water. Our industry bosses know no better than produce ever more
junk out of automated factories and to lay off millions of workers who cannot buy that junk because they don't have the money since they are out of work... It is pointless and destructive to throw criticism at a system, at an institution and not to present some valid alternative. The value of a criticism is to be measured at the quality of the alternatives presented. Maybe it is just about time to examine some proposal aimed at the improvement of that system, of those institutions. There is indeed a lot that can be realized even by a lone individual. To start with, each one of use should absolutely insist on the strict application of the Law. I know, the mightiest force on earth is not love, or sex, or ambition or even money: the mightiest force on earth is the force of inertia, of resignation, of laziness, especially whenever it comes to writing. But more and more people in this country are leaving this inertia. Our Swiss Federal Supreme Court is totally overworked. This absolute bottleneck is caused by the absolute breakdown of the Justice instances at cantonal and local level, coupled with the corresponding refusal of the people to be taken for a ride. It also seems that this proposal of mine is about to become reality. The laws accepted in polls by the people have to be absolutely enforced, possibly through militant action. I have tried such an action with the cantonal Catering Law and have failed. Should however only ten percent of the caterers of a given canton unite and refuse to pay the catering license fee, so I am certain that this unjust fee would be dropped. No public official would take the risk of closing down ten percent of all catering operations at a time. It is only a question of having the population informed. Most politicians, public officials and judges at all levels do not deserve our trust and respect. But each one of us who has been mistreated by the Authorities and hasn't duly protested is co-responsible for the present crisis. Without ifs and buts. On purely personal level each one of us has to come to grips with his own existence and question the aim and purpose of his
professional activity. Our civilization has degenerated to become a mere waste society, but most of us feel confusedly that the fabrication of a better washing powder cannot be the crowning event of three thousand years of culture. This way of seeing things also is taking the upper hand: the longer the more Swiss citizens request more holiday instead of more money. And the Japanese also come round, it is only a matter of time... To learn the difference between business and busyness... between a sound professional ambition and careerism... between zeal and intrigue... between the satisfaction of owning and consuming fine things and keeping up with the Joneses... An example out of the catering business? "Let's imagine just a moment that the tremendous costs of holiday travels would be used to embellish our cities and landscapes, to humanize our place of work, for the search for a harmonious life. Let's imagine that the charm and beauty of holiday is now seeping in our everyday life! Then the problems of tiredness and stress would be solved through what I would like to call "the solution of the heart". And so, no more holiday or - if you prefer - a perpetual holiday, the real life, the real happiness..." (Michel Tournier out of: "The Vacation People" by Jost Krippendorf) In order to attain this blessed situation we have to take our leave from the usual mode of thought. In particular we have to take our distance from the notions of "Growth" and "Gross National Product". We all have to develop a new relationship to our work. Work is a blessing, and an individual who gets fulfillment from his work is a happy individual. For millions of people in Europe and in America and the longer the more in Japan work has sunk to the level of a chore, of a nasty occupation whose return more or less suffices to the satisfaction of artificial needs.
At the beginning of this book I have described how I have sunk the energy bill of our establishment by 35% by a 60% rise of the turnover. But this remarkable result is just a fart compared to the zero-energy house which we have visited at the Eureka exhibition in ZĂźrich. A house which produces enough renewable energy to heat and cool itself, to produce light and permit the installation of a repair shop. And this zero-energy house again is just a fart compared to the bio gas installations in some farms in Western Switzerland and elsewhere: The farming operation provides plenty of electricity and can even supply the public electricity network. Information about these developments are available without problem to any interested person, and millions of people undertake daily a world journey as they turn on their television set. The main news broadcast is the best attended broadcast in every country and on top of this we get over radio and TV at all time excellent information through specialized crews. At any time of day and night some 400.000 people are to be found in airplanes travelling from one country to the next for business or pleasure. The real revolution is the revolution in information and schooling and mobility. But the people who take part to this revolution are still being taken for school kids and treated accordingly by their Authorities. Our No of December 6, 1992 was not aimed at Europe. It was a vote of defiance and mistrust against just those Authorities. Grenchen, March 1998