Europe’s Green Deal: A Demonstration of Social Democracy

To be sure, the tasks confronting the European Union are daunting. Even reading the new document is daunting: a seeming welter of plans, consultations, frameworks, laws, budgets and diplomacy, and many interconnected themes, ranging from energy to transport to food to industry.

Critics will scoff at the European bureaucracy. But this is bureaucracy in the finest Weberian sense: it is rational.

The goals of sustainable development are spelled out clearly; targets are based on the time-bound goals; and processes and procedures are established in line with the targets.

The overarching objectives are to reach "climate neutrality" (net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions) by 2050; a circular economy that ends the destructive pollution caused by plastics and other petrochemicals, pesticides, and other waste and toxic substances; and a "farm-to-fork" food system that neither kills people with an overly processed diet nor kills the land with unsustainable agricultural practices.

And the European Commission understands that this must be a citizen-based approach.

Again, the critics will regard the talk of public consultations as naive fluff. But tell that to French President Emmanuel Macron, who has faced street riots for more than a year; or Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, whose country suddenly erupted in riots this fall after the introduction of a small increase in metro fares.

Both Macron and Piñera are exemplary environmentalists. Both have committed their countries to climate neutrality by 2050. Both are urgently searching for a path of public consultations, but after the fact.

American neo-liberals will scoff, too, arguing that the "market" will sort out climate change. Yet look at the United States today. If neo-liberalism...