The Measure of Justice

From inheritance to participation — restoring the moral balance of society

In the political debates of our time, everything seems to move toward extremes.
One side preaches freedom, the other equality; one promises tax cuts, the other subsidies.
Yet whichever side wins, the same group always loses: the middle class.
They pay for the prosperity of the top, and for the protection of the bottom.
They are the backbone of society, yet they carry its heaviest burden.

At both ends of the spectrum, something essential has gone wrong.
At the top, wealth has grown to disproportionate levels — not through work alone, but through inheritance, speculation, and structural advantage.
At the bottom, a small but visible share has grown resigned to life on benefits, calculating how to get the maximum from a system that once existed to protect, not to replace, effort.

Between these extremes, the middle class sees a pattern:
every reform feels like a loss.
Either something is taken from the bottom “to encourage participation,”
or something is taken from the top “to redistribute fairness.”
In both cases, the cost lands on the same shoulders —
those who still believe in work, in contribution, in the idea that prosperity must be earned.

Wealth that no longer circulates

In The Price of Inheritance, we saw how capital increasingly locks itself within families,
transforming luck into lineage and merit into myth.
Wealth, when hoarded, stops performing its social function.
Money that remains in the hands of a few ceases to circulate —
it is pulled from the bloodstream of society.
And money, like blood, only has value when it flows.

An inheritance, then, is not merely private property — it is social oxygen.
To let it stagnate is to deprive future generations of air.
That is why a reformed inheritance tax is not a punishment but an act of renewal:
a way to reintroduce wealth into the circulation of society.

But redistribution alone is not enough.
For a system to be just, people must also participate in its making.
Economic fairness without personal responsibility becomes dependency;
personal effort without structural fairness becomes exploitation.
Justice lives in the tension between the two.

Work as the moral counterpart of wealth

That is where Give and Take begins.
If inherited wealth must flow back into society,
then social support must also flow forward — through participation, contribution, and shared purpose.

A just society cannot be built on passive entitlement.
Support is not a right to rest, but a chance to recover one’s footing.
Those who can work, should — to the extent they are able.
Those who cannot, must be protected without shame.
But no one should be lost in the grey zone of permanent dependency.

That is why the welfare state must evolve from a system of compensation
to a system of activation with compassion.
Employers and government share responsibility:
70% of reintegration costs carried by companies,
30% by the state.
After six months of unemployment, everyone who can should contribute
in essential sectors — healthcare, education, energy, public service —
not as punishment, but as participation.

In return, those at the top are called upon to give back through fair taxation and inheritance reform;
those at the bottom are called upon to contribute where possible;
and those in the middle finally find relief — no longer paying alone for both sides.

A new social equilibrium

Money does not grow on trees.
It circulates, or it disappears.
When wealth concentrates, it freezes.
When too many step out of contribution, it thins.
The task of politics is not to choose between rich and poor,
but to keep the moral economy in motion —
to make giving and taking parts of the same rhythm.

In such a society:

• Wealth returns to the common good through fair taxation.

• Labour regains dignity as the path to participation.

• The middle class, long the bearer of both burdens, becomes again the centre of trust.

This is not utopia. It is balance — the kind Aristotle would have called virtue:
the mean between too much freedom and too much control.
Or as Hegel might put it: freedom realised not in isolation, but in recognition —
through the interdependence of citizens who give, take, and belong.

Epilogue – The society we build together

Every generation must decide what justice means in its time.
Ours must rediscover that fairness is not found in slogans,
but in proportion:
between inheritance and effort,
between protection and responsibility,
between the individual and the whole.

The middle class — the invisible majority — carries the memory of that balance.
They work, they care, they pay, they hold the system together.
It is time the system returns the favour.

Because the real measure of justice is not how much we give,
nor how much we take,
but whether we still believe we owe something to one another.