On Sunday, November 30, Joseph Stiglitz advertised his new book “The Great Divide” at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration (WU). Neither did I attend the lecture nor do I have access to any recording. My only record of his words is a German article in the Austrian daily newspaper “Der Standard” (which can be accessed here). That means, Stiglitz has been first translated into German and in what follows I re-translate into English. Given this sounds like an instance of the children’s game telephone, there might well be content lost in translation.

Nevertheless, I was quite surprised by what I read. According to the article (as objectively translated as I could) Stiglitz said:

“Demanding solidarity is not easy in good times. It becomes, however, politically dangerous if poverty and unemployment are on the rise since [in this case] it generates breeding grounds for right wing extremist parties. This also holds true for countries like Germany and Austria. Society should not only solidarize with refugees but also with low-income (and low-skill) workers. Those should be increasingly supported by the wealthy elites in these countries by re-distributional policies to avoid social tensions. Necessary funds could be generated by “wealth taxes” [private capital or equity taxes].”

There certainly is a deeper truth to this statement anywhere in the world. Also, it hardly comes as a surprise. However, I was somewhat startled to see it applied to Germany and Austria, admittedly the two countries with the biggest refugee influx per capita recently, but also two countries among the world-leading in equality and the extent of tax funded social services.