Last year, I shared a very amusing Michael Ramirez cartoon showing Obama as the European lemming.
Today, Mark Helprin takes a much more serious look at the same issue in the Wall Street Journal, commenting on the wisdom (or lack thereof) of Obama’s interest in the European economic model.
Both in his re-election campaign and as the core principle of his presidency, Barack Obama asks America to cast off reliance on the free market—because, in his characterization, the free market “doesn’t work”—in favor of the European model of ever-tightening, ever-regulating, ever-expanding governance. This he does, astonishingly, at the very moment of the European model’s long-predictable crisis, collapse, bankruptcy, and devolution. With his trademark certainty he proposes—indeed, at times commands—that we follow him over the Niagara to which his back is turned. …Promiscuous endorsement of things European, inveterate in the president’s academic coterie, has long been characteristic of American snobs. …in suppressing and over-engineering their economies they court national bankruptcies. Just as reckless are their efforts to ameliorate economic stagnation via the all-guzzling welfare state. Shall we create more jobs by aping Europe, which since 1990 has averaged 9.16% unemployment while ours was 5.95%? …like the leaders of the bankrupt states of Europe, President Obama believes that the key to prosperity is to regulate, engineer, and direct the economy; to raise taxes; to augment the powers of government; to substitute collective largess for family cohesion; to spend money that does not exist… In short, the president and his progressives are chasing after a specter. Because the president is apparently repelled by the principles of the American Founding and lacks an alternative other than the European model, nothing else is in his quiver as he is driven by the dread of a future absent his omnipresent intervention.
Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyhow), I concur. I’ve cited OECD data to show that America is much more prosperous than Europe’s welfare states. And I’ve participated in an online debate where I argued that Europe is in worse shape than the United States.
The World Bank also has produced research showing Europe falling behind, and there’s also been good analysis from Jim Glassman, Irwin Stelzer, and Constantin Gurdgiev. And here’s a very compelling video on Europe’s fiscal crisis.
Last but not least, here’s a chart posted on the Cato blog by my Cato colleague, Marian Tupy. It shows how Europe’s growth rate has dropped with each passing decade.
In other words, the evidence is overwhelming. Europe is a model, but it’s a model of the policies to avoid, not the ones to emulate.
Let’s close with some humor. Here’s a post featuring a Hitler parody on the European downgrades, and here’s a list of ways to celebrate Europe Day.
[…] *Ironically, the President bragged that America’s been creating more jobs than Europe even though he wants to copy European policies. […]
@Carlyle Rogers:
There are still soime socialists left in the UK?
And I thought Mrs. Thatcher had pulverized society and socialist spending in order to free the market forces of unbridled banking capitalism.
As a german I don’t see socialist tendencies in the UK. And in regards to the coellectivist mindset:
All worthy endeavours are not done by a single person, it always needs cooperation to strive for big goals. Even in a business company the CEO can not do all the work on his own, and therefore will need employees to set to the task.
[…] Statists are in a tough position. For years, they’ve been saying the United States should be more like Europe. […]
[…] Statists are in a tough position. For years, they’ve been saying the United States should be more like Europe. […]
[…] Statists are in a tough position. For years, they’ve been saying the United States should be more like Europe. […]
[…] Should the United States copy Europe? My answer shouldn’t be a surprise. I say that Europe is a giant warning signal about the dangers of excessive government. […]
[…] Should the United States copy Europe? My answer shouldn’t be a surprise. I say that Europe is a giant warning signal about the dangers of excessive government. […]
[…] Should the United States copy Europe? My answer shouldn’t be a surprise. I say that Europe is a giant warning signal about the dangers of excessive government. […]
[…] like a good guy, right? Just the type of person who can explain that Europe’s problem is too much government. The kind of policy maker who can argue for cutting back the welfare state, slashing tax rates, and […]
[…] like a good guy, right? Just the type of person who can explain that Europe’s problem is too much government. The kind of policy maker who can argue for cutting back the welfare state, slashing tax rates, and […]
[…] Here’s a graph from our current Progressives’ favorite exemplar, Europe, courtesy of Dan Mitchell at the International Liberty blog: […]
I think America should not imitate Europe; the US should go back to what our Founders of this Country wanted.
PS: funny that arguably the most anti-European US President of all time, should be blamed for wanting to copy Europe.
To be fair, there are some European policies that Obama might want to emulate:
* health care policy decided by the States, not by the federal (EU) government
* abortion policy decided democratically by the States, not by the European Court of Justice
* photo ID required to vote
* no affirmative action
There are also policies from some European States that he might be interested in:
* a flat tax, as in most of Eastern Europe
* no Keynesian nonsense, as in Germany and like-minded countries
* school vouchers, as in Sweden
So low is the bar of growth set in Europe, that Europe’s best, the so called “powerhouse” economies have been riding on a one to one and a half percent annual growth trendline for the past couple of decades. Meanwhile, the world as a whole has been riding a four to five percent growth trendline. One does not need doctorates in economics to figure out the deterministic arithmetic outcome of such trajectories.
The US used to sort of “hang in there” riding a three percent annual growth trendline. But Americans, in an electoral event confirming their worldwide naivete, decided that the road to prosperity is to… copy Europe. The road to higher production and thus higher standard of living was to be through the flattening of the effort reward curves, through further burdens on excellence in order to try to insulate the ordinary from the consequences of mediocrity. But nobody gets insulated from the consequences under the resulting slower growth rates. All decline under slower growth rates.
So what is the new American growth trendline going to be once the less productive assert their entitlement on the more productive? Two, two and a half percent?
So when ObamaCare enables my early retirement, depriving the American economy of the taxes I pay and – most importantly – the GDP I add to, while at the same time loading same economy with the cost of my healthcare subsidies… then sure… I will certainly refrain from taking it easier out of compassion for some thirty two year old a few thousand miles away who will have to work to pay my health insurance, and for depriving the American people of the six fold world average economic activity they have been accustomed to. And that is not behavior that will be limited to the “truly lazy” and “truly irresponsible” as someone noted above. Everyone’s productivity will be affected under flatter effort-reward curves.
Not to worry, though, there’s HOPE that I’m stupid. I just won’t notice. The subsidies and disincentives to work will remain a best kept secret amongst those who voted for them.
Politicians sold the American people tickets on the Titanic, a majority bought them, and the majority is now mandating everyone embark on the ill fated journey. The vicious cycle has started – if you doubt that, consider how Americans voted for Obama to correct Bush’s collectivist mistakes.
Republicans and Democrats will now behave more and more like the European Right and European Left. Each side with its own different statist agenda, and each side in tandem expanding their own area of collectivism when in power, without rolling back the opponent’s previous statist expansion (how much Bush statism has Obama rolled back, and how much Obama statism will Romney roll back if elected?). From this point on, the most likely outcome is that the economic distress of decline will trigger ever increasing electoral calls for more government help, thus ever deepening the vicious cycle. The only question is whether this decline will happen gradually over the next fifteen or so years, or whether it will happen more abruptly on a few crisis triggers.
Jim
Your response to Chad was spot on. Mitchell is totally correct. For those of us who have actually lived in Europe (UK for me for a total of 5 years) we can see from our own experience the inherent collectivist mindset and its effects on society and public policy thus we need little convincing that the model is falling apart, as predicted.
Chad, your arguments fall short.
Your first argument that Germany, Greece, Finland, Ireland and Italy are all different countries with different problems is obvious to all and hence, Mitchell’s reference to these countries as part of Europe versus the US was a comparison. You seem to suggest that it is improper for anyone to compare anything to anything when there are differences between those things. So I guess in your world view, you are only allowed to compare one thing to an exactly identical thing – in which case there is no such thing as a comparison according to your way of thinking.
Secondly, you fail to acknowledge our country’s decades-long march towards socialism with increasing welfare, entitlements, handouts etc. to not only the truly needy, but also to the truly lazy and truly irresponsible. Once again, in your world view our society must change from capitalism to socialism in a fleeting moment in time in order to label it socialism, but if socialism creeps in slowly over many decades, then you seem to think that is not socialism at all.
Mr. Mitchell,
I would quarrel with this analysis on two points:
1.) Considering Europe as a single monolithic entity. Germany, Greece, Finland, Ireland and Italy are all different countries with different economies and hence different problems. Incorrect to lump them all together.
2.) This characterization of the president as a socialist flies in the face of how socialism works. As an intelligent man, you seem to know the difference between socialism and the regulation of industries. There’s a market for the disposal of toxic substances but if I let you do it anywhere that’d be a problem.