0 · First pluck, then judge

A wage is what someone earns from what they make. A profit is what remains after everyone has been paid. We have decided that this surplus must be skimmed off to finance the bottom and the middle. First, we pluck those who feed us. Then we restrict them so they can no longer keep up with China, America, and India. Then we judge them when their factories close. The circle closes itself — and we, the majority, are the executioners.

I · Diagnosis — we pluck those who feed us

Five percent of the population carries fifty percent of the wealth. In Germany, the DGB demands a ten percent wealth tax. France and Norway have introduced exit taxes. On 12 February 2026, the House of Representatives passed a wealth tax for the super-rich by 124 to 26. Brussels is working on a European minimum exit tax. Meanwhile, 16,500 millionaires have left the United Kingdom. The same pattern follows in Italy, Portugal, Spain. We pluck the productive minority faster than they can leave.

II · Mechanics — the walls we have built

Box 3, wealth tax, exit taxes, gift schemes, succession rules. Each reasonable on its own; together a trap from which a family business, an inventor, an entrepreneur finds it increasingly difficult to escape. Italy made an opening with the 24-bis flat tax (€200,000 per year, for life) and attracted 5,500 wealthy individuals in two years. Lugano and Ticino are doing the same. The walls we built to keep the productive class inside turn out to be gates for those who want to leave — and prison walls for those who stay.

III · Outcome — South Africa as a mirror

Between 2000 and 2020, 100,000 highly skilled people left South Africa. The rand lost 75 percent of its purchasing power. Eskom logged 247 days of load shedding in a single year. Urban water became unreliable. And the looters — those who had demanded the policy of redistribution — were left behind with a country that could no longer sustain them. The same mechanics are now at work in Europe. When the productive leave, the productive do not suffer. Those who stay behind suffer.

IV · The political landscape — no way out within the system

A European left wing that plucks with moral certainty. A center-right that bends without knowing how to do otherwise. A populist right that points without building. A Brussels institution that produces documents but no products. Employer organizations that protest technically but lose morally. The productive class no longer has political representation in Europe. Statistically, politically, culturally, morally alone. The way out lies outside Europe. For those who stay, there is no way out anymore.