It is an article of faith among my countrymen that it is lucky to have been born in our tiny mountain country of Liebenwelt. Not extraordinarily lucky, or even very lucky, but just precisely lucky enough.

We are, you see, an extremely egalitarian society. We have taken great pains to remove the arbitrary chance of birth, preferring instead to start each citizen with identical circumstances. There are no private schools, no ancestral titles or estates, no inheritance of any kind – parents can give no gifts, set aside no bequests, impart no material advantage. Parenting is their sole legacy.

All children receive free education, up through vocational or degree programs, graduate or post-graduate work. Each is given the freedom to choose, and as water finds its level, each ultimately meets their calling.

We have organized ourselves to be a well-off society. This world has long had no scarcity, only inequality – as long as resources are distributed thoughtfully, there is enough for all. We have enough to provide for everything our people need, and some of what we want, as long as we don’t want too much.

We have done everything we could to even the so-called playing field, but our nation’s founders knew that we would never be able to escape the iron fist of luck itself. And so, in their wisdom, they allotted to each child a sovereign amount of fortuna, or luck, to be gifted to them on the date of their majority.

This is, it should be said, each individual’s most precious possession, a bounty that can be neither bought, traded, nor renewed. We teach our children to use it with the utmost care. Once it is gone, there is no more.

Some, it is true, use all their fortuna to immediately gain an advantage they hope will compound over a lifetime, but soon find themselves falling prey to day-to-day ills, with no recourse. Others hoard and dole it out centifortuna by centifortuna, a little here and a little there to ease their way. A young woman trying to get pregnant, a patient hoping for good news from the doctor, a mountain climber protecting herself against a fall on a particularly dangerous route.

There is no one right way, and poets, philosophers, and economists have argued since our founding as to the most effective strategy. To live a long, healthy, happy life untouched by great events? Or to burn brightly before being snuffed out by luck-starved tragedy?

For we are, we have learned, an inherently accident-prone species, each step on solid ground a drunkard’s stumble atop a narrow mountain ridge. The world is a minefield, and whether by disease, malice, or a single moment of inattention, our actuaries have calculated an average lifespan of less than twenty-three years without a minimum daily expenditure of 3.7 millifortunae.

It is strange for us, I have to say, to look at the peoples of other, less consistently fortunate countries. How is it that one person is allowed to win a lottery worth more money than they could spend in a lifetime, while others suffer miscarriages, car accidents, or cancer? 

But where, you may ask, does this fortuna come from? It must seem incredible that we could gift such a thing, and I admit, it is no simple process. Our nation’s founders chose to pool their own personal fortuna, creating a wellspring in a place both known, and kept with absolute secrecy by each member of our society. It is there that on our eighteenth birthdays we go and replenish the supply, irrevocably giving our individual stores of luck into the common pool, and receiving back an amount agreed to by our statesmen and scholars.

Some leave disappointed, having given away far more than they receive in return. But many experience the opposite, discovering that their lives – their potentially very short lives – were almost entirely devoid of luck, and that they have been given an unparalleled gift. There is no way to know beforehand, and there is universal participation across the population.

You might imagine that the overall level would stay relatively even, the averages balancing out and the supply remaining stable over time. And indeed, for hundreds of years our fortuna has grown, each of us taking an amount carefully calculated to save an average of 12.5 centifortunae in the common store. Over the last fifty years, though, we’ve discovered a concerning trend. Each new generation has had less fortuna to contribute than previous generations. It has not been clear why.

Perhaps the world is entering a more challenging period? Or our tiny nation is threatened by some terrible calamity? It is easy to feel a sense of foreboding, and a corresponding feeling of helplessness as the world slides sickeningly off its familiar axis. Members of my generation were fortunate – our average donation was in line with previous generations. But our children have not had so much to give. Just how much less, we can calculate to the microfortuna.

And this has raised an uncomfortable question. Should we lower the amount of fortuna we gift to each citizen? Or should we keep it the same, reducing our reserves but preserving fairness across generations? We banked fortuna for centuries, always gifting back a little less than the average of what we received. There have always been calls to increase the allocation, but while our leaders have wisely resisted these efforts, they have also failed to reduce it, even as intake went down. And so, our savings have dwindled.

Everyone knows that this is a situation that cannot continue, but we have few options, and none of them good. We can reduce the allocation, guaranteeing our children less fortunate lives than we’ve lived. Or we can leave the allocation at its current level, in which case we will eventually run out. We have lost the understanding of how to restart the pool, and once the font is dry, our children’s luck will become less and less, until ultimately none remains.

Some have suggested that we could walk away, escape out into the world and live as the unfortunates of other countries. And indeed, some have tried, only to see their fortuna drain irrevocably away, their lives cut short by disease and accident. After so many centuries, it appears that our fates are tied inextricably to our mountain home.

We must make a decision. To diminish to a sustainable level – and quickly – or to hide our heads in the sand, leave everything as it is, and watch our savings rapidly dwindle to nothing, condemning our grandchildren to short, painful, luckless lives.

Some have argued that we should accept the end of our luck, our home, and our people. Far better to enjoy the last days of a way of life, they say, to give our children the same fortuna we received – and to let them find a solution, if they can. Others speak of austerity, and have created complex plans in which the old gift back their fortuna for the benefit of the young, at the cost of their own lives. 

To avoid the choice is to choose, and yet despite endless debate we have found it impossible to commit to a course of action. If we do nothing, then the next generation will be our last. This is not controversial, and yet round and round we go. We are paralyzed with the weight of a decision that will change everything about how we live. We must act, or perish.