Why would America ever want to be like Europe?
Taken together, continental Europe’s always-expanding welfare state and entitlement culture, socialism, high and progressive taxes, heavy-handed regulation, and intrusive government offer clear reasons why the region has suffered three decades of relative decline.
It’s become so bad in Europe that America has proven the value of free markets by continually attracting the top talent from socialist countries abroad. This “brain drain” affords us the last laugh over the America-haters sipping their lattes with raised pinkies at European sidewalk cafes. These superficial dilettantes seem oblivious to their countries’ stagnation and deficit budgets, roiled with unassimilated rioting immigrants and descending toward economic oblivion. The British can be left out of much of this critique, having wisely declined to adopt the euro and to leave the European Union.
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However, the danger America faces is that this country’s hard left is leading us down the same dead-end path that continental Europe has taken. Ample evidence shows that, since the start of Barack Obama’s term, the left loves everything about Europe, especially France. Leftists seem blind to the fact that the region is famous for well-dressed adults performing entry-level jobs, while large percentages of youths cannot find jobs at all. The Wall Street Journal pointed out a few years ago that “much of Europe’s educated, middle-class youth are permanently unemployed.” With blinders firmly affixed, America’s lefties cannot see that billions around the world are working harder, or want to work harder, than Europeans do. They ignore that Europe is no longer a leader in new ideas and that too many nations, like France, are no longer great powers. America doesn’t need to follow the “European model” of the welfare state, a collection of radical agendas by too many nations that behave badly.
American liberals love to laud the European model, offering cradle-to-grave subsidies supporting all aspects of European life. Now, though, leftists are growing anxious over events in Europe that are slowly discrediting their beliefs. The political right is rising. Liberalism’s immigration experiment has produced grim results. Government spending makes up half of Europe’s Gross Domestic Product.
The Eurozone’s economy is a cellar-dweller and economically stagnant. Productivity growth in Europe’s four largest economies is lower than in 1980. Obtaining building permits can take years. Competition-restriction policies depress companies’ ability to hire new workers. Some economies are still on a 35-hour work week.
In some cases, tax rates are twice as high as those in the United States. Small businesses can’t get off the ground because of restrictive regulations on financing. Europe’s risk-averse business culture has plunged Europe into free-fall in the global race to create new technologies– the market value of Apple is greater than the entire German stock market. It has become clear: The bloated European welfare state is too inflexible for the modern world. This failed project produces a declining quality of life, eroding the electorate’s faith in its leaders.
The lesson here: Unless America wants to push itself into the abyss, don’t do what Europe does. Ignore leftist Americans who refuse to understand that Western Europe is committing economic genocide.
Who needs Europe anyway? Too much American blood has been lost on European soil, too much American money has been spent on European economic renewal, and too much funding has been lost on European blunders. They have been screwing us on trade for decades. Europe needs to be judged on its track record, which has been found wanting. The entire EU economy is one-third smaller than the U.S. economy. As historian Malcolm Gaskill has noted, Americans cherish “individualism, innovation, equal legal rights, and the unequal economic results of geographic and social mobility.” Except for the British, Europeans are the utter inversion of American values, which are embodied in tradition, honor, respect for property, and optimism.
The European crisis will continue. It makes little sense for America to invest strategically in a region where capitalism is rarely practiced, democracy has turned to socialism, individual freedom is subservient to the state, political leaders have misled their citizens, innovation is suffocated, and foreign policy ineffectively deals with real-world dangers.
The most that Eurozone citizens can hope for is that their leaders won’t follow through on the actions they claim are necessary.
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