The U.S. as a Politically Backward Nation with something to Learn

Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age by Steven Hill is, as Hendrik Hertzberg, observes like a reverse Alexis de Tocqueville exploring a society largely unknown to American citizens. Europe’s economy is almost as large as the U.S. and China combined; it accounts for 75% of foreign investment in the United States; although its military budget is second only to the U.S., it has drastically reduced its military budget and poured its savings into healthcare, education (including free university education), pensions, sick leaves, parental leave and child care (genuinely valuing family); it, according to the World Health Organization, has the best health care in the world – the U.S. is thirty-seventh; it is much more environmentally conscious than the U.S. (its consumption is about half of the United States – for the same standard of living; its democracies are more robust with multiparties, an absence of winner take all, a stronger public deliberative sphere, and public financing of elections.

One of the things that struck me as particularly important is the European retention (despite the terminal decline of religion) of the communitarian Catholic belief that property is to be used for the common good as opposed to the individualism associated with some forms of Protestantism.

Europe has its problems, but it is not as dominated by business corporations, and it does not host a people who think government is the problem instead of being an important part of the solution.

Comments

[ゼチーア]

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[Supra Skytop]

I'm not sure I agree on the idea of South Durham as a "dumping ground" for such projects. I tend to think the presence of Southpoint has made residential more desirable around it, not less.

[Tenant Loans]

I find it odd that citizens of individual countries, the UK particuarly, think it's THEIR government that has caused the GLOBAL crisis. That just does not work.

[Antonio Manetti]

"One of the things that struck me as particularly important is the European retention (despite the terminal decline of religion) of the communitarian Catholic belief that property is to be used for the common good..."

I wonder how much the prevalence of European communitarianism owes to Catholicism as opposed to the pragmatic necessity of fending off Communism.

Another factor, of course, is the rootedness of European communal society in contrast to the semi-nomadic character of American life. This is a case where the myth of the Frontier masks the decay and collapse of communities left behind. The ghost town is as much an emblem of America as the boom town.

[online doctor]

all of the countries has a problem with economies not just Europe or USA.

[jimbino]

This is a joke, right?

The idea of property's being used for the public welfare would entail a rewriting of Catholicism's reign in the Dark Ages or even in modern Bolivia, Haiti or Brazil.

Furthermore, it is the private Disney World founded by Protestant Disney that affords entertainment to common people of all colors from throughout the world.

It is the public parks and forests of this country that are visited by exclusively White Americans, most of whom are retirees. You will be hard pressed to see a Black, Brown or Red face at Yellowstone, Grand Canyon or Mesa Verde, except for those of well-off Japanese tourists.

Check out Ken Burns' National Park series: the only Black faces you see will be those of men working hard for the CCC in the 30s. While the Black man now works hard to pay taxes for the Catholic national parks and forests, he takes his kids to Protestant Disney World.