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What can I hope for (from politics)? 1111
This was ended once and for all by the recognition of the scarcity of
natural resources, a decline in the quality of life and worry about the
prospects of the future. Can the fiction of neutrality of the state be
maintained under such circumstances?
‘The question is what we are to understand by neutrality. In the eyes
of the founding fathers, it seems, neutrality did not mean a lack of
values. Most of them were pragmatic politicians who knew all too well
that a governmental decision is always based on preferences of value and
that this cannot be otherwise, since it has to support good solutions and
obstruct bad ones. They thereby necessarily interfere in citizens’ lives;
this is precisely what they gained a mandate for. If they fail to do this,
i.e., distinguish between individuals’ performance and instead use
taxpayers’ money to finance good and bad, forms of behaviour that
strengthen and undermine society alike, then they are wasting the
resources at their disposal to an unjustifiable degree. Thus, the neutrality
of the state originally meant solely the neutrality of the safe or, in other
words, the impartial rule of law — which is included in the principle of
equality before the law — and a prohibition on anyone deciding the
debate on values with power.
Nothing is further from the classic of utilitarian liberalism, John
Stuart Mill, than the relativism of values that characterises libertarians.
In his work on utility, he draws a sharp contrast between higher and
base pleasures, the pursuit of others’ happiness and the chase of
individual happiness. He leaves no doubt that the bodies exercising
public power must reward good and persecute evil. The only thing they
can no longer do is decide themselves what good and evil are, be it a
curriculum, urban development or scientific research. Their mandate is
for ensuring fair conditions for the public debate on the nature of good
and evil, learn from its results and make decisions of power accordingly,
while maintaining the possibility of refutation, error and the correction
of error."
Mill’s current followers claim that liberalism does not contradict the
goals of ecological politics. They hold that it is the right of the neutral
state — duty, even — to take preventative measures against those who
harm the environment, saying that “...the only purpose for which power
can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community,
against his will, is to prevent harm to others.””’ The debate centres on
John Stuart Mill: On Liberty. Batoche Books, Kitchener, Ontario.
» Tbid. p.13.