Eco-social market economy

The eco-social market economy, including ecological and social market economy or ecological market economy is an economic, environmental and socio-political vision that sustainable business practices and environmental protection as political categories in the social market economy involving. She sees herself as a further development of the social market economy and to bring a balance between economic and environmental objectives by attempting to enforce environmental protection with the market economy, rather than exclusively with prohibitions and commandments.

Theory

The natural environment was generally regarded to in the 1970s as unlimited disposable commodity. Since the report " The Limits to Growth " by the Club of Rome may be known, however, that the humanity of the " capital " of natural resources and not by the "interest" income, which nature gives us live. Looking at the economic environment as a free and public good in this are the causes of ecological failures. So be an integration of environmental sustainability into the entire economic and social system, especially with regard to intergenerational equity, long overdue. The foundation of the eco-social economic order is a powerful, innovative market economy. The other two pillars are social justice and environmental responsibility. The social balance is a prerequisite for social consensus, the environmental sustainability of the survival of civilization par excellence. Therefore, a business ethics was needed, which, inter alia, the Christian social doctrine is introduced into the model.

The eco-social market economy sees itself as a ordoliberales concept that refers explicitly to the social market economy, whose achievements would, however, eroded by globalization and therefore had to be developed. Is a result of the alleged market failure it is distinguished from a " marktfundamentalistisch " designated economic concepts from which lack of ability, economy and social peace in balance to keep accused. Also be rejected socialist economic theories because of their lack of efficiency.

By incentive taxes, stricter environmental liability and other control instruments are the external costs that arise in an economy because of the individual economic use calculus, are included in the individual economic costing of the causer. Thus environmental protection to be economically cheaper than pollution. Concrete demands are creating ecological true costs (eg for public goods such as air, water and soil ), enforcing a strict polluter pays principle, the enforcement of environmental tax and ecologically oriented laws and clear product declaration as true and comparable information on labor exploitation, environmental degradation, child labor, genetic engineering and hormone use in food.

As an approach to achieve their objectives, the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations are supported. In part, this concept has already been successfully realized in the social and economic order of the EU.

Foundations and pillar model

To perfect use of existing resources, market forces are to be used, which ensure the most effective use. The prerequisite is that the good environment has a price. This will production methods that are more harmful to the environment, less profitable. The Eco - Social Market Economy, for which in particular the Foundation for Ecology and Democracy begins eV, meaning that the " dynamics of the market in accordance with the polluter pays principle ecological decisions are taken " - the chairman of the Foundation for Ecology and Democracy eV Hans- Joachim Ritter.

There are several ways to evaluate environment with market prices. For example, you can issue a limited number of licenses for the environmental impact that can be traded like an equity ( environmental licenses). Additionally, environmental taxes such as CO2/energy tax ( energy tax / Eco ) are market-based instruments for environmental policy. Such a tax reform can be revenue neutral, so as not to let the total tax increase. The environmental taxes then steering charges referred to are to be redistributed to the eco-bonus - principle to about one -third each:

• As air - bonus in the form of grants for private, energy - efficient appliances, etc. directly to consumers per capita ( affordable technology change),
• As a social bonus, so they do not suffer from the recipients of transfer payments ( the same amount ) under rising energy prices,
• As employment bonus ( work bonus ) for firms depending sozialversicherungspflichtigem work, in the form of a reduction in social security payments.

An eco-bonus with respect to the energy tax is also called energy money. In some countries (Denmark ) there is the Green check, or a settlement with the health insurance contribution ( incentive tax ( Switzerland ) ).

In the model of the ecological market economy is a fundamental difference between the use of the environment on the one hand and the energy consumption on the other side:

First column

The central idea in the first column is to quantify the use of the factor environment and to convert as a marketable " product" in a market. The environment should the manufacturing industry no longer free standing as a free good available, but are by state total restriction to a scarce resource. The environmental factor obtains what all scarce resources apart: a price.

Second column

The second pillar is the taxation of energy and energy consumption. This, in particular for the detection of the private sector important tax increases the cost of consumption of secondary energy carriers (electricity, petroleum, fuel oil, etc.). It is clear therefore that necessary to distinguish between private and corporate environmental consumption also.

History

The term " Ecological- Social Market Economy " goes back to scientific investigation by Hans Christoph Binswanger (St. Gallen) in 1970s and 1980s. With its several years of research on the topic " Ways out of the wealth case - strategies against unemployment and environmental crises " and his book publications " working without environmental destruction ", " Money and Magic ", "Money and Nature ," etc., he laid the foundation for the ecological tax reform and for an Ecological- Social Market Economy. The Ecological- Democratic Party ( ödp ) has taken under its chairman Herbert Gruhl these ideas as the first German party.

In Austria the 1980s the term was coined, as Austria after the Zwentendorf referendum in 1978 and still more elaborated the events of the occupation of Hainburg wetlands in 1984 and the Konrad Lorenz referendum in 1985, and a wide range of new environmental awareness of the population, a reorientation of the paradigms that form the basis of the energy, economic and environmental policies in Austria to this day. The then Environment spokesman Walter Heinzinger spoke (two months after Hainburg ) on an Environmental Study as part of the Forum 90 of the Austrian People's Party from the " social market economy on their way to an eco-social market economy. " ÖVP was then opposition of the red-blue government Sinowatz. As a battle cry against the social democratic- liberal economic policies of these days, but also against the fear of business-related forces and the work ends with ecology as a hindrance of economic progress and a threat to job security, and thus of social peace, the term until today found especially among Christian Democratic and conservative politicians trailers.

At European level, the European Democratic Union in 1991 known to this model, which was soon pushed to the political agenda by the then economic crisis to the brink. Clearly refers to the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP ), with Josef Riegler, Austrian Minister of Agriculture and later Vice-Chancellor, and Franz Fischler, followed by Agriculture Minister and temporarily EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development on the Social Market Economy. The fact that the Conservative Party has responded first to the concerns of gaining strength after the Hainburg events Greens ( first 1986 National Council mandate ), is an Austrian specialty, from which to this day is based a closeness between Christian Democracy and green alternative in which the agricultural interest groups of the former with the environmental concerns of zweiteren enter into synergy.

In Germany in particular scientists, Franz Josef Radermacher urged the pursuit of eco-social market economy as the guiding principle of global economic policy. Also CDU politicians such as former Federal Environment Minister and later Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Klaus Töpfer, Fried Pflüger or Heiner Geissler see in the eco-social market economy, the regulatory response to the challenges of global economic development. To some extent there is the concept in some European green parties. Among the founders of a forum Ecological- Social Market Economy is one of Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker (SPD).

Since 2000, September 12 is the day of the Ecological- social market economy. This day will be remembered that the ecology is to be realized more on market-based ways.

Since 1994 and the supplement in 2002, one can state that the eco-social market economy in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic is through Article 20a expression ( "The State protects the responsibility for future generations, the natural resources within the framework of the constitutional order by legislation and in accordance with law and law by the executive and the judiciary ").

In particular, the Global Marshall Plan Initiative, the Austrian coordinator Josef Riegler, has made a worldwide eco-social market economy to their concerns. As the first trade association in Germany, the Federal Association for Economic Development and Foreign Trade for the Global Marshall Plan, the goal of a worldwide eco-social market economy involved.