Mangy outgrowth of capitalism

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Lottery balls

Photo: DLTB / obs

Were you happy last week when it was announced that a woman from Baden-Württemberg had won around 42.5 million euros in the lottery?

Have you wondered what you would do with such a profit?

You can do it.

But you can also ask: Why is there a lottery at all?

WTF & cui bono?

Margarete Stokowski, arrow to the right

Photo: 

Rosanna Graf

Born in 1986, was born in Poland and grew up in Berlin.

She studied philosophy and social sciences and has been working as a freelance writer since 2009.

Her feminist bestseller "Unterrum frei" was published in 2016 by Rowohlt Verlag.

"The last days of the patriarchy" followed in 2018, a collection of columns from SPIEGEL ONLINE and "taz".

No offense, woman from Baden-Wuerttemberg, congratulations, I grant all lottery players their winnings.

You don't have to be too generous to do this, because so many people don't get rich with the lottery.

You are more likely to get poor than rich from the lottery.

People who regularly play the lottery - almost 7.3 million Germans - are often smiled at for it, and sometimes admired for their naive optimism.

If it even comes out that they are playing.

Because the lottery is seen relatively seldom as a cultural and political phenomenon, which is strange because it is a state-supported game: The state regulates the lottery monopoly, sends officials to the draws, and earns money on the stakes.

Mangy outgrowth of capitalism

You could of course say: It's cool that this is monitored by the state, otherwise people would be ripped off by dubious Darknet providers.

Yeah, cool, the way things are going now, they're just being ripped off by the state.

From a state that stipulates that gambling advertising must always contain information about the risk of addiction - and at the same time the lottery numbers are presented on public broadcasting, without any indication of the risk of addiction and always close to the news and weather, as if it were dealing with socially relevant information and not a mangy outgrowth of capitalism that makes people poorer and sicker. 

Various studies have also examined the type of redistribution that takes place through state lottery markets.

Surprise: not a good one.

Gambling addiction is a serious illness that can be fatal.

A 2007 Canadian study found that gambling addicts were statistically 3.4 times more likely to attempt suicide than the rest of the population.

Various studies have also examined the type of redistribution that takes place through state lottery markets.

Surprise: not a good one.

"Our analysis shows that lotteries are a form of regressive taxation," says the essay "Who plays the lottery?"

from 2008. Regressive taxation means: the poorer you are, the more you pay in, or also: redistribution from bottom to top.

Of course you could say: yes, then you just have to do it in moderation, you just can't spend more than you can afford, and so on.

And besides, some of the income is run for charity.

That's true.

But not even a quarter of the proceeds go to charity.

Apart from the fact that a functioning society would not need charity.

"You do it voluntarily"

But people do it voluntarily, that would be another pro-argument.

Yeah yeah

Would be even nicer if not.

Or: yes, of course, except for the more than 400,000 people in Germany who have "pathological gambling behavior", there is such a thing with voluntariness.

The non-addicts play voluntarily, although "voluntariness" in capitalism is also such a thing when it comes to people spending completely irrationally money.

"You do it voluntarily" is always a mediocre trick to make behavior based on ideologies look like a chosen lifestyle in order to devalue criticism.

But in this case the criticism would be sorely needed.  

For some people, the extremely small chance of getting rich from the lottery may still be greater than the chance of getting rich from work.

What is certain, however, is that the lottery is a state-funded system that can make people sick and poor people.

It is a perverted twist on charity to take the money from those who are desperate enough and give it to those who are lucky.

Lotto bridges the obvious gap between the "Everyone can get rich!"

the capitalist promise and the "obviously not."

Reality gapes: Everyone

, at least in theory, if they would spend the money on a lottery ticket and were lucky.

If you got rid of the lottery system, you would rob people of this microscopic chance.

But it would also give them freedom from an illusion.

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