THE CRUELTY OF COMPASSION

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Social cohesion is one of those values all decent Europeans can sign up to: less social conflict and less of the inequality than America and Britain 'put up with'.

What all European governments must grasp, though, is that many of the policies espoused in the name of social cohesion do not promote compassion over cruelty. Rather, they encourage decline, entrench divisions and thus threaten the harmony they pretend to nurture.

Two worrying common threads can be discerned in all this, says the Economist. One is that the natural desire for social cohesion is being abused to justify the protection of "insiders"-- those in permanent jobs, in trade unions or in privileged professions.

The second common thread is that social cohesion has become a reason to defend the privileges and perks of the public sector, which is also now the last bastion of employee unions...

[sound familiar?]

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