Tatyana once again demonstrates that she divides the entire world into Red Communists and Rush Limbaugh.

My first hand experiences: 18 months living in several European countries (where surprisingly, just like Phillipe, I met many expats from my own country who went on about not wanting to move back to the U.S.!), a lot of comparative economic study during and afterwards. As for ideology, I'm consistently somewhat right of center in Europe, left of center here -- there is a LOT of room in that particular ideological niche. I will confess personally to enjoying standard European middle class quality of life probably more than American, but that might just be novelty value and change if I lived there permanently. I get just as annoyed by silly European anti-Americanism (the ghettos! The poor blacks!) as by silly American anti-Europeanism.

A full response here would take a book. Look, Daimler bought Chrysler, not the other way around. Nokia, Airbus, Carrefour, many other European corporations are world leaders in innovation and technology. They lag in some areas but so do we. The picture of Europe as economically stagnant and a backwater is a cartoon, pushed for ideological reasons by people who simply don't understand the place very well. Eurozone productivity performance is not as good as the U.S. but not bad (they produce about 8% less per hour worked, with a number of countries producing more per hour worked), and they have pretty steady productivity growth in the core economies. Again, just visit the place and look around, it's not that hard to tell how successful an economy in the rough outlines.

The debate about how well the post-WWII European economic model is working and how it can be improved is on the contrary quite important and serious, a lot to be said there about both their successes and their failures. Two things need to be understood as a baseline. First is the conscious political decision by Europe to emphasize leisure over economic growth, which has been one factor leading to higher unemployment rates, comparable to the U.S. in the late 70s. (Although EU central bank policy is another factor there). But it has also led to quality of life benefits up and down the income scale. People like those and have consciously chosen them.

The second thing I think one needs to grasp is the magnitude of the economic challenge that the EU has taken on. It's pretty much historically unprecedented to attempt to fully integrate a set of economies as backward as East Germany, Poland, the "satellite" nations like Greece, the Balkans, Spain, etc. with countries as wealthy as the Western European core. Most of the countries under Communism were probably poorer than Mexico before EU entry. It's a huge challenge (IMO it was probably taken on too quickly), which is leading to a ton of both social and economic change, but is happening IMO more successfully than one would expect. It is totally unfair to tag Europe as being "stagnant" while simultaneously ignoring their collective committment to an unprecedented social challenge.

On European wars -- WWI/WWII are good candidates for the the most significant event in recorded history. Dismissing them cavalierly would be discussing long term trends without putting them at the center, which is what Kotkin was doing. I'm puzzled why it should be part of a contemporary discussion about Europe to "put them on the hook" for WWI and WWII. Europe has learned the lessons of those wars pretty well it seems; since 1945 they have worked with the U.S. to create the greatest peaceful political integration of separate nations in history.

Jult52: good question. Short answer is I think that fertility is more about ideology and culture than economic incentives. Birthrates are plunging everywhere, probably (hopefully?) as part of a transition to a permanently smaller population. Wealthy secularized populations tend to have kids at below the replacement rate, one sees this everywhere. How much below is the question; too low=some form of "race suicide".

Posted by: MQ on September 22, 2005 02:18 PM

While I don't doubt that more Europeans are streaming to America than vise versa you'd wonder why after reading the Boston Review article about how so many middle class Americans are tottering on the edge of financial catastrophe.
Surely the truth for both Europe and America must be that (with some exceptions) those who live relatively prudent lives do relatively well, financially. Likewise, fools go under, wherever they live foolishly.
Sorry if that sounds smug. As an on and off fool I can attest to it from personal experience.

Posted by: ricpic on September 22, 2005 02:42 PM

Thats alot of information!!

servant5150
Hookah Forum

Posted by: Adam on September 22, 2005 02:59 PM

Rush vs Red Communists?
You're delusional, MQ, I've said it before. And not because RED communists is a tautology.

So, your "first-hand experience" is "lot of comparative economic study" - in which, I assume, you were on consuming end, not producing one.

Former socialist countries who entered EU are experiencing dynamic growth not because of socialist policies of EU, but exactly by the opposite reason: they abandon socialist ways and implement capitalist economic principles. They created economic regime beneficial for new business, small and large, they give tax breaks to enterpreneurs - something that scares French, f.ex., to death. And if I remember correctly, Slovakia instituted a flat tax (a 12% figure comes to mind, but I might be mistaken), a decision other Western countries don't have guts to make.

About social policies of Europe see this article that sites Tony Blair, not exactly a Thatcherite. A quote: "Some have suggested I want to abandon Europe's social model," Blair told the European Parliament last month. "But tell me: what type of social model is it that has 20 million unemployed in Europe, productivity rates falling behind those of the United States; that is allowing more science graduates to be produced by India than by Europe; and that, on any relative index of a modern economy -- skills, R&D, patents, IT -- is going down not up."

Your examples of intellectual, technological and big business' achievements of Europe are exctly that - achievements of business, achievment of capitalism (scary word, I know). What makes Europe stagnant is her departure from capitalism and primate of property and individual rights to the state socialism and enormous taxation of the few successful for the benefit of majority of parasites.

Posted by: Tatyana on September 22, 2005 03:04 PM

Also, to your claim that there are as many US emigrants to Europe as the other way around, I recall similar discussion, but with actual statistical data monitoring immigration per country per year in one Live Journal. Sorry it's in Russin (or part of it anyway), but I'm sure your "first-hand" all-encompassing 18 months experience in Europe includes knowledge of major European languages, so you'll be able to follow the argument. For the rest of us: here're the statistics: http://uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/yearbook/YrBk04Im.htm

A small note, not totally unrelated to the above topic: I've learned how the French call their limusine liberals: gauche-caviar.

Posted by: Tatyana on September 22, 2005 03:19 PM

Hi, Tatyana. Glad you are enjoying my delusions. Both Europe and the U.S. are capitalist systems, they are different variants of capitalism each with strengths and weaknesses for growth and quality of life. The aggressive export orientation of European firms helps to sustain a competitive mindset even in small highly left wing countries with little domestic competition (e.g. Sweden and Ericsson). One can and should argue about EU overregulation, but saying that Europe is state socialism is IMO delusory.

Something to emphasize from my first post above: Europe's decaying university system is IMO a major and overlooked source of problems there. This relates to everything -- to entrepreneurship problems (high tech entrepreneurship is very related to universities) high skill migration, etc. And this is a governmental failure, not a matter of not having enough capitalism (although too many student subsidies are an issue in some places). The U.S. university system is a major source of our comparative advantage, and government investment here was a major source to build it up and sustain it. Thinking about how societies are working or failing involves a lot more than just slotting them in as capitalist or socialist.

And I produce comparative research, not just consume it...speaking of which procrastination time is over, I'll just lurk on this thread from now on since I've talked too much already.

Posted by: MQ on September 22, 2005 03:35 PM

I'll pop in here only to say that I think it's unfair to think of Joel Kotkin as an ideologue producing boilerplate-on-demand for righties. I don't by any means always agree with him, but he's an often interesting, substantial guy, and worth arguing with. Plus he publishes stuff in all kinds of publications. Here's a recent piece in the British Prospect -- no home to rightie ideologues ...

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on September 22, 2005 05:39 PM

MQ:

Sorry to disturb your lurking, but I think you're dodging the main problem: the European social model is going to get a terrific shellacking from the impending demographic catastrophe (i.e., too few workers per retiree). I note that many European countries, including Germany, are rolling back their welfare state benefits even today, although I think its a case of too little too late.

I say this not to denigrate the productivity, intelligence or competitive instincts of Euro businessmen; I admired those myself during my two years operating in Europe. But, ahem, numbers are numbers and no amount of pleasant middle-class amenities are going to wish them away.

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on September 22, 2005 05:52 PM

MQ, the point that FvB was making is that the two WWs can't be dismissed when considering Europe's poor economic growth in the past century because those wars are part of the story of Europe's decline; they were self-inflicted wounds.

I like aspects of both Europe and the U.S. I don't think it can be said that Europe is a better place to raise your kids, though. Both are excellent compared to most of the rest of the world. I give the edge to the U.S. but can imagine reasons to go the other way.

Posted by: C.S. Froning on September 22, 2005 05:59 PM

OK, I guess I'm not really cut out to lurk. C.S., my point is that Europe pre-WWII and Europe post-WWII are profoundly different societies, Europe (Western) apparently learned its lesson on intra-European wars from that experience.

Friedrich, I'm not a big fan of catastrophe theories, whether environmentalist or demographic. I think free, open societies (and both the U.S. and Europe are free and open) generally find ways around them. In the 1950s, thanks the the baby boom and the birth bust during the Depression, the U.S. had total dependency ratios (non workers to workers) that were close to the levels the overall EU will face in the coming decades. We remember this period as a golden age in our history, with no real problem supporting our dependent population.

An aging population will put strain on the European welfare state, sure, probably help induce migration between countries in the EU, other changes as well. But there are so many ways to handle this (extended working years, greater productivity growth, higher taxes, greater immigrations) that I think it is unlikely to be a "catastrophe" or close to one. Modern economies are extremely wealthy, it is a matter of what you wish to spend it on. But we will see what happens.

Yeah, don't know Kotkin, didn't mean to imply he was a hack. Just didn't like the article.

Posted by: MQ on September 22, 2005 11:14 PM

MQ:

You write:

But there are so many ways to handle this (extended working years, greater productivity growth, higher taxes, greater immigrations) that I think it is unlikely to be a "catastrophe" or close to one.

I'm not suggesting Europe will descend into some apocalyptic scenario. Just that none of the solutions you are describing is compatible with the current way Europe works. (You really think higher taxes is a workable solution in Europe? I think capital flight will put the kibosh on that one. And higher levels of immigration? From where, exactly?)

I agree, Europe will survive...in some form. But the current Europe status quo and most of its social welfare trappings will not. I'm also betting that Europe won't find it as easy to adjust as you appear to imply--the types of changes you discuss are generally only adopted 'when the pain gets bad enough.' I.e., they won't come easy in democracies.

Just so you don't think I'm picking on the Europeans, I believe many of these same changes will be forced on the Japanese and the U.S., and they won't come easy in those societies, either. But I've been peddling the notion that many of the 'rules' of how advanced societies work (which have been fairly stable since the 1960s) are due for some fairly disruptive change for a few years now. Which means, of course, that we are entering something of an age of anxiety...

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on September 23, 2005 01:49 AM






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