Arbeit – Eigentum – Beteiligung

The structural problems of economic systems based on private property include increasing socio-economic participation deficits. A small owner society faces a large non-owner society. Germany has the the highest degree of inequality in the distribution of wealth in the eurozone. The legal and political framework for changing this is inadequate. The principle of labor ownership in the meritocracy ("ownership through work") and the participatory structure of economic property, which cannot made use of without the cooperation of other co-owners and non-owners are the legal ground of a basic human right to financial participation of all those involved in the value creation process through personal labor beyond remuneration. This right to employee capital and profit sharing must be enforced by the legislator through a participation law that obliges all commercial enterprises to offer their employees suitable capital and profit-sharing models. The legal policy objective should be a gradual increase in employee share ownership from the current 2 - 3 % to at least 5 % and, in the medium to long term, to 10 and 25 % of company capital. Such a participation law is the missing supplement to immaterial co-determination legislation and a requirement of the constitutional guarantee of property as economic property in the welfare state.