Europe's soft totalitarianism

Manuel Barroso is on the right track, but far from his final destination. "Climate fundamentalism" has long entered the political scene in Europe.

In an interview with German newspaper Bild am Sonntag last Sunday, European Commission president Manuel Barroso warned against climate "fundamentalism" in the European effort to tackle global warming. "We don't want to go back to the Middle Ages," he said. "We want further growth. People should be able to continue to travel in future." Barroso went on to state that "We need to avoid all fundamentalism on climate issues," and that infringing on people's personal lives could lead to "our society taking on totalitarian characteristics."

Well, I've got news for him: in its current shape, the EU already is a semi-totalitarian authority, and its environmental policies especially are proof of it.

In the same interview, Barroso said that "[car manufacturers] should pay a sort of compensation" for every produced car that exceeds a certain carbon dioxide emission cap. This way, the Commission plans to reduce emissions to an average of around 180 grams of carbon dioxide per mile. Legislation in that direction is currently being drafted. Last June, Chris Davies, a British member of the European Parliament, proposed that cars sold in the EU be built so they cannot drive faster than 101 miles per hour, a proposal which may end up being adopted in new EU legislation.

On a different level, fine dust regulations imposed by Brussels have become so strict that some Dutch cities have real trouble finding space for housing projects. The city of Utrecht, in fact, had to stop its development of a new housing area near the A2 highway passing its city borders. It is now in the process (PDF) of covering over the highway for the length of a mile. In the meanwhile, anyone living in the newly developed suburb on Utrecht's west flank has to bike or drive some half a mile through no-man's land before entering their neighborhood.

Assuming global warming is indeed man-made (which I doubt, but I admit I'm not an expert), these examples all seem well-intentioned efforts to do some good for mankind. But then again, the initial case for socialism in general never sounded so bad either. The problem is that it constitutes a dangerous and unacceptable infringement on individual liberty.

The mentioned construction project next to Utrecht will cost the Dutch taxpayer as much as 115 million euros. By comparison, constructing two kilometers of regular highway in the Netherlands costs about one million euros, I believe. The amount of money spent on a mile of asphalt here might well exceed the normal sum by a hundred times, thanks to some arbitrarily set limit on fine dust. Some experts believe these EU regulations are outright nonsense in the first place, as the air in the Netherlands is way cleaner now than it ever has been during the last forty years.

Chris Davies's proposal to ban all cars with a top speed exceeding 100 mph, of course, falls into the same category. Never mind that factories such as Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston Martin and Maserati will see their entire home market collapse in the blink of an eye, resulting in the loss of hundreds of jobs and perhaps even the bankruptcy of these companies. To Brussels, the rich ought to bear the heaviest burden in the fight against global warming.

Barroso's plea for fining car manufacturers who build high-polluting cars does not (yet) specifically address what to do with the tons of cars being produced abroad by Asian or American manufacturers. The Commission president did say, however: "If we are among the first to shift to environmentally friendly technology, we will have a competitive advantage." In other words, European car manufacturers are going to be held to standards that will make them fall behind in the global market even further.

In the end, the free market cannot be pushed to turn greener by any force other than itself. The more Europe will regulate its economy to death, the more companies in China and India, champions of environmental pollution, will flourish and outcompete their European counterparts. In addition, European businesses themselves will seek refuge abroad as well, leading to the loss of even more industry jobs. Take into account the possibility of other countries imposing trade barriers of their own in retaliation, and neither the environment nor any country in the world wins.

There is another, more principal, argument against the imposition of these kinds of standards by Brussels. Socialist policies by definition discriminate against one group of people by favoring another. Many European citizens will see their real incomes decline or even their jobs lost as a result of EU regulations, and will consequently feel betrayed by Brussels. Friedrich Hayek has taught us -- already a long time ago -- that citizens will allow only the invisible hand of the market to infringe on their income security; as soon as they are able to blame anyone for their economic misery besides themselves or the market (i.e. the government), their resulting resentment might end up threatening social stability.

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away," goes the famous slogan (which is, I believe, misattributed to Barry Goldwater). I would like to add that a government big enough to impose upon society foolish environmental standards is also big enough to require its citizens to eat low-fat sustainably-produced vegetarian food products, or to tell newspapers what stories to publish. It is just a matter of how much leverage we give it, and the examples mentioned above set the wrong precedent.

On top of all that, the European Union in its present shape is deeply undemocratic. The exclusive right to initiate new legislation lies with the unelected Commission. Subsequently, it is put to a qualified majority vote by the Council of Ministers and to a normal vote by the European Parliament. National governments have no individual veto, and the elected Parliament consists of Europhiles to whom the perceived European interest is more important than the national interests of their countries of origin. One wonders why "Eurosceptical" parties on the Right and the Left are becoming increasingly popular in many European countries.

The EU should refrain from imposing such measures upon its member states. The possible long-term (yet abstract and non-measurable) gains these regulations will produce by no means outweigh their negative impact on the free European societies. It is typical that Commission president Barroso perceives influencing individuals' behavior, so as to reduce their carbon footprint, to be a totalitarian maneuver, while at the same time being fine with punishing businesses for not being green enough. It makes one suspect that we are witnessing the familiar old anti-capitalist reflex hitting the European policymaking establishment once again.