Europe in Review

Thinking about trans-Atlantic relations lately, partially in response to questions of friends, other bloggers, commenters and readers. The back-and-forth led to four points:

1. The "problem of Europe" is in large part a product of the social welfare model that started with Bismarck. That's now broken, because of demographics, because excessive paternalism fosters excessive dependency, luring immigrants less interested in giving than receiving, and because the continent bizarrely reacted to fascism by empowering an unelected elite bureaucracy -- in France, the Enarques -- thus narrowing democracy nearly as much as any dictatorship. Many of my European friends already complain they're disconnected from public policy, a perception that will increase should the proposed EU Constitution, thus perpetuating pessimism.



2. Anti-Americanism seems to be equal parts jealousy and guilt. Never having sought perpetual gratitude, I particularly loathe the redirection of European colonial guilt toward America. I'm no priest; I can't grant Europe absolution. And I'm dismissive of collective guilt over Wilhelm II or Adolf (because I believe in evil), but annoyed when the guilt I do not solicit is returned in the form of anti-Americanism.



3. Along with most conservatives, I think the people have unrecognized wisdom and an enormous capacity for good. But doing good requires one to recognize, and challenge, evil. The concoction of paternalism, disenfranchisement and guilt has turned many Europeans into resentful nihilists (I'll never forget West Berlin a year before the Wall fell: the subsidy and exemption from conscription created the West's largest collection of jobless anarchistic losers). Hence the fact that "les Anglo-Saxon" has become a swear word in French--and each curse perpetuates stagnant GDP growth and high unemployment.



4. The cradle of the Renaissance and Enlightenment -- twin sine qua nons of civilization -- Europe's become hostile to individuality. True, many rejected fascism but soon embraced an aristocracy of the elite. Europe skipped modernity and went straight to cynical post-modernism. They flipped from religious liberty to hunting the faithful for sport (rejecting Rocco Buttiglione because he's Catholic). And, drawing exactly the wrong lesson from the global depression of the 20s and 30s (and America's disastrous response--upping trade barriers under Smoot-Hawley), Europe's spurned capitalism and returned to mercantilism. What links these threads is Europe's underlying problem: so risk-adverse it's neo-mercantile.

America doesn't have all the answers. Instead we minimizie central planning and account for incentives, thereby unleashing 280 million possible solutions. Because we began as a relatively classless society, Americans can more easily advance income levels. And, as The Economist observed, unlike Europe where "bankruptcy is stigmatised; in some countries it disqualifies people from starting another company," America's consumer-oriented bankruptcy laws (despite the current Bankruptcy reform bill) mean that Americans can try, fail, and try again.

Try that in Europe. But be prepared to flee.

More:

Andrew Stuttaford at The Corner says it wasn't always so:

These days Chirac may like to compare economic liberalism with the horrors of communism, but here’s what he was saying in 1984:

Liberalism seems to be working... Faced with a state machine that has become crazy, faced with a state bureaucracy that is growing monstruously, faced with an already difficult situation that will become even bleaker in the coming years, what will the next political leader be able to do, after the next election? He won't have any other choice than liberalism. More to the point: liberalism won't be a choice, but a necessity.