Becoming Europe: Economic Culture, Decline, and How America Can Avoid a European Future

Sam Gregg’s new book with that title comes out tomorrow. I haven’t seen it yet, but here’s how Amazon describes it:

“We’re becoming like Europe.” This expression captures many Americans’ sense that something has changed in American economic life since the Great Recession’s onset in 2008: that an economy once characterized by commitments to economic liberty, rule of law, limited government, and personal responsibility has drifted in a distinctly “European” direction.

Americans see, across the Atlantic, European economies faltering under enormous debt; overburdened welfare states; governments controlling close to fifty percent of the economy; high taxation; heavily regulated labor markets; aging populations; and large numbers of public-sector workers. They also see a European political class seemingly unable—and, in some cases, unwilling—to implement economic reform, and seemingly more concerned with preserving its own privileges. Looking at their own society, Americans are increasingly asking themselves: “Is this our future?”

In Becoming Europe, Samuel Gregg examines economic culture—the values and institutions that inform our economic priorities—to explain how European economic life has drifted in the direction of what Alexis de Tocqueville called “soft despotism,” and the ways in which similar trends are manifesting themselves in the United States. America, Gregg argues, is not yet Europe; the good news is that economic decline need not be its future. The path to recovery lies in the distinctiveness of American economic culture. Yet there are ominous signs that some of the cultural foundations of America’s historically unparalleled economic success are being corroded in ways that are not easily reversible—and the European experience should serve as the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

Have a look.

Jeremy

It sucks I have to live in a time of complete morons who apparently are interested only in collecting welfare while the politicians suck everyone dry. It’s NEVER going to get better folks (not in out lifetime anyway). People are just too sheep-like I’m afraid.
Roberto Severino

Tom, Jessica Flanigan of the Bleeding Heart Libertarians blog in her post “Freedom and Feminism” has become more sympathetic to Julie Borowski’s position. There are still a few bitter, humorless “left-libertarians” griping, leaving comments like this.

“That video was an idiotic rant by what looked to be a 17 year-old with a webcam. Why on earth are you discussing it? People so concerned about the liberal conspiracy to promote sex aren’t libertarian; they’re good old-fashioned social conservatives trying to find a more widely adoptable philosophical grounding for their beliefs now that the mainstream is becoming less religious. Libertarians allying with people like that probably has something to do with not appealing to women, however.”

Sigh. Some of these people are making the movement look like a joke. We have more important issues to talk about, like the economy, fiscal and monetary policies. I still found Julie’s video highly entertaining and funny, and a lot of these people are still taking the video out of context and calling the “rant” idiotic.
TJ

It pains me to state this, but there are many people I personally know who firmly believe Europe is the template and model for how things should be done in the United States, from their cultural norms and morality (or lack thereof) to their socialistic healthcare systems and high tax rates. They like the fact that nobody drives a car and has to use public transportation to get anywhere.

They also look at Europe’s economic situation described above and simply conclude either A) the government just needs to spend more money or B) the government has to restrict what little freedom is left to be taken because it’s always people who are the problem and never the State.

It’s sort of like throwing gasoline on a fire to put it out, and when the flames grow even larger, thinking you just need more gasoline. But the last solution conceivable is water. And, to them, the person to blame is the firefighter, not the arsonist.

When they say “We’re becoming like Europe,” they think we’re progressing. It excites them. Unfortunately, it is apparent this attitude is neither the minority nor unpopular in Washington D.C. or among millions of Americans.
Franklin

It perplexes me that the warning, “We might become like Europe,” is even employed anymore, or taken seriously. It’s become quite tiresome, and silly. In what way is the United States not? The US is a socialized democracy and oligarchy. It has been thus for decades. And I don’t mean just a couple.
Different from EU? Yuh, maybe the tax rates are not quite equivalent but the social spending certainly is. And as the war machine hopefully diminishes, do you think this means rebates for everyone? Get real.
Handwringing about the precariousness of some illusory US laissez-faire model is akin to telling me that Notre Dame may not be the number 1 football team for much longer.
Did Gregg just arise from some Irvingesque twenty-year slumber?
I suspect the scholarship shall be thorough and detailed, but too little-too late, isn’t it.
Franklin

Indeed.
As an aside, During my son’s abroad study last Fall, not that this shall come as any surprise, his German professor said, “I don’t understand why some US politicians fear the European model and lifestyle. We think it is very pleasant here, it’s a great life, and we don’t see it as a negative, whatsoever. What is it that the US thinks is so terrible?”
And not simply reserved for tenured profs, many of my EU business colleagues throughout the continent and in UK feel similarly.
kirk

there is no freedom without economic freedom.

without freedom, there is slavery.

this is not a difficult concept to grasp.
Franklin

Perhaps for you it is not. History and current events would indicate otherwise.
kirk

history and current events do attest to the difficulty humanity has with such a simple concept. this does not negate the concept as simple, or as fact.
Patty Hankins

Roberto,
I also liked Julie’s video. Communication is not just verbal. Her energy, wit, and body language just screamed LIBERTY! This is a woman who doesn’t care about LABELS. To dissect her words and accuse her of some kind of ideological impurity is silly – it wasn’t that kind of video. It was more like comic relief, and I am grateful for some!
In fact, I liked the video posted on this site so much I went to Julie’s site and watched all of them. Many of them were well thought out and intellectually vibrant, as well as being entertaining. In one, she delivered a talk on ending the FED to a room full of people at a liberty event of some kind. She knows what she is talking about, and people really respond to her! She also thinks on her feet and gives good answers to tough questions.
If the Libertarian thought police treat Julie this way, who is such an obvious asset to their cause, they have a problem. It reminds me of how the GOP treated the Ron Paul delegates (of whom I was one). And how did that work out for them???
JFF

Professors and business men, i.e., those who brought about and benefit from Europe how it is today. Telling.
JFF

Another huge aspect to this has been the effects of the forced cultural integration that happened throughout the Continent particularly during the 20th century. Not to sound like one of those paleo-xenophobes, but trying to consolidate wildly varying cultural and ethnic groups under one tenuous and wholly artificial “national” umbrella was a recipe for huge problems even if those groups were only spread out over a few hundred miles. In my opinion the unification of Italy is a prime example of this, but you see it in Spain, i.e., the Catalonian secession movement, as well as parts of central Europe.
Justin

I agree maybe it just because I follow blogs like this but this seems like 100 or more years late.
Liberty Belle

American’s don’t see much of anything. The truly informed ones, certainly, understand what ails Europe. But I’m continually amazed at the complete ignorance of the “informed” progressives around me who continue to regard Europe as being one step away from Utopia.
Michael Mills

Have they been to europe for more than a vacation?
AV1611Preacher

So how do I get Tom woods to review MY book?