The cruelty of compassion: Social cohesion has become an excuse for avoiding necessary reforms in Europe

SOCIAL cohesion is one of those values all decent Europeans can sign up to: less social conflict and less of the inequality that America and Britain put up with. Some countries, notably Germany, really do manage to marry social harmony and economic reform. In the past decade Germany has—thanks to good management and obliging unions—kept its public sector in check, partly freed its labour market, held down unemployment, and regained competitiveness. Elsewhere, though, the need to preserve social cohesion, parroted by European politicians from left and right, has become a self-defeating excuse to avoid reform 

From The Economist print edition: 

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15393964