Die Zukunft des Sozialstaates Deutschland - Elemente einer Reformstrategie

The author holds the view that the necessity of reforming the German welfare state is obvious, since high levels of public and social expenditure result in tax avoidance, drop in performance, illicit work, tax evasion, cor-ruption, and fraud and endanger the competitiveness of the economy. The author interprets the welfare state as one of the major achievements of modern age. In his view, it is possible to reform the welfare system without affecting the core of social objectives and particularly without reducing social security to a basic level, just securing a minimum income. The author discusses necessary reform steps including relieving the sys-tem of social security from tasks of general political nature, increasing the autonomy of the social insurance system, establishing an immigration policy limiting immigration, keeping the growth of social expenditure below the growth rate of the gross national product, keeping the growth of wages below the increase in productivity, re-establishing a culture of social part-nership and of co-operation between economic policy institutions, em-ployers and employees as well as a just distribution of the financial burden of reforming the welfare state, considering the ability to pay of different social groups.