Civil society is everybody's darling in politics and policy today. It's hard to find a policy student who hasn't interned at some NGO, founded her own grassroots initiative and isn't excited about non-profits in any given policy field. So is the third sector panacea? Uh, maybe not. A third sector? Non-governmental, non-profit? What kind of definitions are these, anyway? And what would be an uncivil society? Whenever social sciences come up with such terms that convey little more but a vague…

Peter Sloterdijk has recently called for a radical rethinking of redistribution. He criticized "compulsory taxation" (sic!) as fiscal kleptocracy inadequately degrading its citizens intosubjects of tax laws, rather than encouraging the rich to give. He cited US philanthropy and suggested to promote voluntary donations in lieu of taxes, thinking of (rich) people as givers, not as takers.

via Flickr, originally uploaded by Mindful One

Don't tax me, I'll donate?!

Sloterdijk's hyperliberal argument…

Foundations are booming in Germany and they are frequently cherished as the ideal way to harness private wealth for the common good. I'm critical about the efficiency, equity and legitimacy of civil society, and I think foundations are a case in point. This tax-exempt, free-roaming and supposedly benevolent capital is subjected to only minimal public accountability and may sometimes reflect a troublingly elitist vision of the common good.

Bertelsmann Stiftung / AG Berlin, via Flickr, originally…

I fear that amid all the self-righteous blameshifting and  frantic second-guessing of the attack, which was launched from an American fighter jet, but ordered by the German Oberst Klein, we haven't learned nearly enough.

We haven't learned nearly enough about this mayhem of a failed state and the chaos…

On May 1st, 2003 when then President George W. Bush, declared the end of major combat operations and the mission Iraqi Freedom to be "accomplished" aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, much of the failure and dying in Iraq still lay ahead.

The invasion, starting on March 19, 2003, had been a remarkable military success, on schedule and with comparatively few casualties (139 US troops and approximately 7,500 civilians before May 1,…

How to react to global warming? How do wean ourselves off that harmful oil - and still prosper?

I maintained that we'd better be safe with Sinn's fears of a Green Paradox than sorry without him, notwithstanding the uncertainties of his argument.

Economist Hans-Werner Sinn is no easy read for a green German: he pretty much pulls german and European green policy into pieces. Much of his critique is plausible, if unsettling: without…

"But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting."
Micah (5:2), King James Version

Last Christmas, Pastor Brusermann at a local church near my hometown (Weyhe's Felicianius Church) told the congregation that Christmas also meant that "this world could be made good, again". The…

The Big Ask is on: These days, the leaders of the world convene in Copenhagen for the 15th time to address that "greatest and widest ranging market failure ever seen": Climate Change.

Will they ward off that Tragedy of the Commons of our time? We don't know.

They are playing games in Copenhagen. Not of the entertaining kind, but of the intricately interdependent kind.

The Green Paradox is one of those intricacies: are we reckoning without our fossil-fuel supplying hosts? What are their stakes?

Let's…