The moral politics of German taxation
Why Germany increasingly links virtue, productivity and income — and why the argument is becoming more bitter.
Dear Reader,
The word comes originally from the realm of sport. A single, brilliant Leistungsträger can raise an average group of players to the cusp of glory (Michael Ballack at the 2002 World Cup). Three or four of them make you almost unstoppable (Manuel Neuer, Philipp Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger at the 2014 World Cup).
A team without a Leistungsträger, on the other hand, can be a collection of supremely talented individuals but is never likely to win anything. A Leistungsträger is rarely the flashiest member of the team. It is a player who leads by example, who possesses a will to win that carries everyone around him.
In modern Germany, however, the term has escaped the football pitch. It is now increasingly used to describe an entire social class.
The Leistungsträger of the German political Right’s imagination is a group of people that, throu…