In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Americans living in Europe were often scolded about the need for big, centralized government to look after the poor, and we heard yet again about the moral superiority of Europe’s social model over America’s market-driven one.
People who follow the Acton Institute and read the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page are too smart and well-informed to fall for such bromides. The American Entreprise magazine also devoted a whole issue debunking Europe’s claims.
But when mainstream publications such as Newsweek International can see the hypocrisy and obvious failings of European protectionism, we may be reaching a tipping point.
This week’s edition has an article on Europe’s increasing reluctance to expand global trade. The biggest culprits are France, Germany and Italy, the continent’s three largest economies but whose political classes, whether they be of the left or of the right, are beholden to trade unions and other opponents of increased competition. (The U.S. Congress is not spared deserved criticism, either.)
Part of the socialist mystique is that the poor are too vulnerable to survive market changes – but the Newsweek article shows how the poor also have the most to gain from increased trade. Europeans must start to understand that this affects not only the poor in Africa and Asia but in their own countries as well.
As Tony Blair recently told the European Parliament, “What type of social model is it that has 20 million unemployed?”
