Kos foams at the mouth:
dailykos.com
The New Europe
by kos
Wed Nov 17th, 2004 at 08:23:46 PST
"The European Union is now, arguably, the world's largest superpower. Militarily, the US is the undisputed champ. But in eceonomic [sic] terms, and in notions of freedom, the welfare of its citizens, and in human rights, we've been lapped."
Quotes this as his authoritative authority:
salon.com
Much of American "productivity," Rifkin suggests, is accounted for by economic activity that might be better described as wasteful: military spending; the endlessly expanding police and prison bureaucracies; the spiraling cost of healthcare; suburban sprawl; the fast-food industry and its inevitable corollary, the weight-loss craze. Meaningful comparisons of living standards, he says, consistently favor the Europeans. In France, for instance, the work week is 35 hours and most employees take 10 to 12 weeks off every year, factors that clearly depress GDP. Yet it takes a John Locke heart of stone to say that France is worse off as a nation for all that time people spend in the countryside downing du vin rouge et du Camembert with friends and family [...]
European children are consistently better educated; the United States would rank ninth in the EU in reading, ninth in scientific literacy, and 13th in math. Twenty-two percent of American children grow up in poverty, which means that our country ranks 22nd out of the 23 industrialized nations, ahead of only Mexico and behind all 15 of the pre-2004 EU countries. What's more horrifying: the statistic itself or the fact that no American politician to the right of Dennis Kucinich would ever address it?
Perhaps more surprisingly, European business has not been strangled by the EU welfare state; in fact, quite the opposite is true. Europe has surpassed the United States in several high-tech and financial sectors, including wireless technology, grid computing and the insurance industry. The EU has a higher proportion of small businesses than the U.S., and their success rate is higher. American capitalists have begun to pay attention to all this. In Reid's book, Ford Motor Co. chairman Bill Ford explains that the company's Volvo subsidiary is more profitable than its U.S. manufacturing operation, even though wages and benefits are significantly higher in Sweden. Government-subsidized healthcare, child care, pensions and other social supports, Ford says, more than make up for the difference.
The new EU constitution, currently being considered by the member states, is an unwieldy, jargon-laden document that runs to 265 pages in English (and even more in Spanish and French). It should also serve as an inspiration to progressives around the world. It bars capital punishment in all 25 nations and defines such things as universal healthcare, child care, paid annual leave, parental leave, housing for the poor, and equal treatment for gays and lesbians as fundamental human rights. Most of these are still hotly contested questions in the United States; as Rifkin says, this document all by itself makes the European Union the world leader in the human rights debate. It is the first governing document that aspires to universality, "with rights and responsibilities that encompass the totality of human existence on Earth."
Meanwhile, at home, the inmates run the asylum. "Freedom fries" is considered a weighty matter worthy of deliberation by the US Congress. Regulating who people can love is considered a matter of national security (a greater danger than terrorism, say the GOoPers!). Our foreign policy is run on arrogance, while Europe earns international loyalty through a much more generous and benign foreign assistance budget. And a "shoot now, ask questions later" mentality pervades the government and a majority of US voters. Intellectualism is considered weakness, ignorance is celebrated.
Those of us who pine for the days of strong US international leadership can only cringe as this "might is right" administration continues to take the US down the path of international pariah. But if the EU can be looked at as an ideal, their story holds out hope for us.
The rise of the European Union may in fact, as Rifkin says, represent a new phase of history, and we barely saw it coming. While the outcome of this new cold war between Europe and America is far from clear, we should feel humbled by the way it's gone so far. The EU has succeeded so dramatically in its ambitious goals that the utopian dreamers of the last century who dared to imagine a peaceful, prosperous, united Europe seem eerily prescient now. If nothing else, it's an object lesson in the power of vision.
"I am a democrat," James Joyce wrote in 1916, while an entire generation of Europe's young men were slaughtering each other in the fields of Flanders. "I'll work and act for the social liberty and equality among all classes and sexes in the United States of the Europe of the future." People read that and laughed bitterly. Europe seemed poisoned by mustard gas and history; America was the land of liberty, democracy and the future. Nobody's laughing now.<<<<
Kos might have wanted to do a little more research before binding himself to such a silly notion that not even the economically stagnant Europeans believe:
timbro.com
A few snippets from this extensive 2004 Swedish study:
Is it possible to break the spell of economic stagnation in Europe? Yes, undoubtedly. But, alas, it seems highly improbable. The member countries have agreed on a relatively
far-reaching reform agenda in the Lisbon accord (yes, in the modern European context it is far-reaching). But the agenda lacks impetus. Not to say a true awareness of the need of reforms. Worse still, many European politicians and opinion-formers seem totally unaware of the lagging performance of the EU economies and that a few percentage units lower growth will affect their welfare in comparison with other economies.
And if you want statistics, look at the stats starting at p. 10 which show conclusively that the we haven't been "lapped" by the EU.
I suppose kos is still suffering from Post Electoral Sadness Disored.
Incredible. Use some cheesy Salon.com POS article to make such a far-ranging and easy to refute claim. |
