Greens propagate goody-goody state

Winfried Kretschmann, the new Green Premier of the German state of Baden-Württemberg, has announced in his policy paper that he wants to make his state a pioneer in ecological matters. The liberal weekly Die Zeit is sceptical about the idea: "An overly-virtuous state is not good, but bad. Liberalism tells us that social goods are generally not the result of good intentions or central planning but competition between ideas and agents. ... That's why it sounds so suspicious when politicians identify and promote solar energy and the electric car as 'products of the future'. The fact is that the present doesn't know which products will belong to the future, and neither do public servants or parliaments. ... Of course freedom can go too far. ... But that is not the danger hanging over the Federal Republic as it goes green in the early summer of 2011. The danger it faces is the goody-goody state - a commonwealth of highly modern, ecologically friendly and morally exemplary small-mindedness."

» more information (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Environmental Policy, » Politics, » Germany
All available articles from » Jan Ross

» To the complete press review of Friday, May 27, 2011