Source: NRC Handelsbland, 12th of March 2005, section Opinion and Debate, interview by Marc Leijendekker. Translation (back to) English by moi.
There, that took me bloody long enough.
I really see very little I can disagree with in this article, but I am quite certain that you people can. The only thing I dislike is the spraying about with facts without mentioning any sources.
ML: "You speak, as an American, about the European Way, write about the European Dream. A lot of Europeans are actually confused about what their future will look like."
JR: "We're in between two historical sections of time, so Europe has doubts, as does the rest of the world. Our trusted way of life is turning ou to be problematic, and our ideologies are under stress. In Europe some people think the EU is a collection of old institutions which will soon be discarded, but there's a new reality growing underneath its skin. Maybe you don't see it, because you're too close to it. It's the strangest poltiical experiment in history, so it's logical that there's confusion."
ML:"You can see that in the debate about the constitution, you can see that people want to give Europe an impulse other than the loathing of bureacracy and policy at a distance."
JR: "Europe is at a turning point. The debate about the constitution is about whether or not Europe wants to mature. Kissinger's remark that no-one answers the phone when he calls Europe is well-know. But the interesting thing is that everyone picks up the phone, no nation or group is powerful enough to be the boss. That's a breach with the political idea of top down command and control."
ML: "Then what is that European Dream according to you?"
JR:"To answer that question I first have to look at the American Dream. That's what I grew up with. My parents told me: 'It's a rough nation, but if you get a good upbringing and work hard you can make your life a success'. That's what keeps America together, not the constitution, not Washington, not capitalism, but the dream. It's sink or swim, no-one will take care of me, not the government nor society. But if I work hard, can take care of myself and am mobile then I can make something of my life.
We Americans have a fundamentally different way of thinking than Europeans do - and it has nothing to do with Bush. For us, freedom means: being independent, being able to take care of yourself, not blaming others for things that go wrong. On the European continent freedom is embedded in quality of life, in the relations you have with others. No parent will tell his child that he's on his own, no-one will be aided by that.
The irony of it all is that the American dream comes from Europe. When the founders of the USA came to America twohundred years ago, Eyrope was in the last phase of the protestant reformation and the first phase of the enlightenment. Our founders took those things, and froze them. Martin Luther said: you are alone and naked in front of God, with no church or priest in the way. Adam Smith said that being selfish was good for the economy and John Locke said that you're all alone against the forces of nature. That's where the idea of the autonomous individual comes from. The cowboy, that's what we are. And if Martin Luther would return today he weould feel more at home in the heartland of America than in Europe.
In Europe the reformation and the enlightenment in their purest form could never have been entirely accepted. There was an older traditiotn: the paternalism of the catholic church and the feudal society. That's why the individualistic ethos reigns with us, and the market capitalism. You got the social economy.
Then what are the differences? In America it it's about gathering wealth, as a goal, not as a means to an end, something the Europeans often don't see. The reason Americans pay so much attention to wealth is that our parents taught us from our fourth year on that no-one will take care of us. In America you can get rich, that's a lot harder in Europe. You tax eachother, so that the whole society creates a situation to live a good life. The American dream also addresses workethics, productivity, efficiency. Doing nothing is being lazy, but every European I've met says that you have to work to live, not live to work. The American dream is about growth, the European dream about durable development: Kyoto, the treaty about biodiversity, taxin gasoline, saving energy. You live more crowded, we could just pollute our living space and move on. You had to live in the context you had.
The American dream is abuot ownership rights and civil rights that expand our individuality. I possess, so I am indeoendent. If I have the right to state my opinion and the right to bear arms, then I'm independent. In Europe there is almost no attention for ownership rights, a little bit of attention for civil rights, but there is a lot of attention for social rights: universal healthcare, pensions, parental leave. And you pay attention to universal human rights, almost no-one here does that, except for Jimmy Carter.
The American dream is very religious, the European dream is secular. The majority of the Americans is really religious, Europeans laugh about it, but it isn't a joke to us. The American dream is also very patriotic. Nationalism is seen as an old, dangerous idea from the 19th and early 20th century.
And then there's the army. Not that Europeans don't love their country, people say they're proud to be Dutch, but also that they're European. That identity is a lot more complex than the American identity. The American dream is closely linked to a strong army. It's our religiousness. Most Americans believe that God has chosen America as a promised land, that there really is evil in the world. They aren't metaphors, good and evil forces really exist. That's why you need a strong army. You can't beat the devil with humanitarian aid. Europeans say: that's not how it works, we've been killing eachother for a thousand years and we've learned that we must keep the peace, not prepare for war.
The European dream is about being involved with people. That means: not just letting people suffer under the free market, respecting diversity (even though you are much too afraid of immigrants), quality of life for society, durable development for the planet, social rights and ubniversal human rights.
Is Europe adhering to these principles? Of course not. It's a dream. We could talk for hours about all the things that are failing, and the hypocrisy at times. But the fascinating thing about the European dream is that it's different from every other dream in history. It's a new way of thinking that's a lot more appropriate for the present than the American dream."
ML: "It all sounds great: cooperation, solidarity. But a lot of Europeans are saying that those social aspects need to be corrected, that we should emphasize individual respnosibility."
JR: "That's true. Then you hear: there was a dream, yes, but it's over. We should be more sober. We can't afford it. The economy is lackluster, there are no new jobs. We need to move towards the old American model of the market without limitations. We should deconstruct the social security. It may be draconic and darwinistic to let everyone take care of themselves, but in America they at least know how to make the economy grow."
ML: "Exactly, that's what you're hearing in the Netherlands as well."
JR: "To those people I say: there is no correlation between the deconstruction of the social advantages and postive economic growth. They're incomparable. You can remove all the social security, you can give people more money to spend, but that'll only give you negative growth. More crime, more jails, worse health care, infrastructure and education."
ML: "But we need to take action to get Europe back up and running?"
JR: "It's a myth that America is a huge economic superpower and that the EU is about to collapse under the weight of social programs. The European BNP is equal to ours. It was larger than ours in 2003, about the same now. The EU is the largest exporter in the world, not the USA. Of 140 largest Fortune-500 companies 61 are European and only 50 American. 14 out of 20 largest banks are European. Europe is the largest in the insurance sector, in airplanes with Airbus, building and technology, chemical industry, and distribution.
America is the biggest in computers, software, cars and medicine. But the problem is perception. We mustn't compare the seperate European nations with the US. I teach entrepeneurs on both sides of the Atlantic. The Europeans amongst them see themselves not as Dutch or German but as European, because their rules come from Brussels. We should now compare Germany with California, the largest European nation with the largest American state, and Germany wins easily. Then the UK with New York. The UK wins. Then France and Texas. When I told in San Antonio, Texas, that France would easily win, I thought people would have a heart attack. The comparison state by state shows how large ad important the EU has become."
ML: "But our economy is still down."
JR: "Of course, Europe will have to adjust some of its social programs. Such as the ten years of unemployment benefits they used to have in Denmark, that's just ridiculous, and changed with reason. But you mustn't abolish such things. See what happens when you adopt the American model. You surrender: education. The American universities may still be the best, but on the llevel of primary and secondary education the 15 most developed nations within the EU overtook us some 10 years ago. Last year 18 European nationalities scored better on maths test than the Americans.
You're also surrendering healthcare. If you're seriously ill and can afford it, you fly to the States. But for normal health care? The USA is one of two industrial nations without general healthcare: the other one is South-Africa. In the USA 40 million people don't have health care. You live more doctors on average in the 15 most developed nations of the EU. You live a year longer than us, even though you smoke more. Your child mortality rate is a lot lower, because we have more absolute poverty: mothers are abandoned and their children die when born. Spare time: we get about 5 years of payed leave per year, although the employer can of course give you more, and it can go up to two weeks. You get four to six weeks.
Americans say, we're more productive. In the first 50 years of the last century we beat everyone in the area of productivity. We had cheap soil and resources. mBut from the late 50s to the late 90s the 15 most developed European nations did better than we did almost every single year. In second half of the 90s we caught up, and we did that dramatically in the past two years, but now our productivity has stalled. In 2003 17 EU-nations, amongst whom Germany and France, had a higher productivity than us per annum.
Look at the environment. The EU is lightyears ahead of us. The EU supported Kyoto and the treaty on biodiversity, we didn't. The EU is working on the transition to a hydrogen economy with renewable energy, to organic farming, we aren't.
And finally security. The percentage of murders is four times higher with us. A quarter of all prisoners in the world is imprisoned in my country. That's 2 percent of our male, adult work force."
ML: "But the USA has dropped in the 90s."
JR: "The successtory the neo-cons tell is false. America growing after the 89-92 recessions didn't happen because of the deconstruction of social security. The economy grew because of debts. Early 90s we gave everyone a creditcard, the averafe savings-quote (the percentage of income being saved) of an American family was 8 percent in 1990. It is 0 to 2 percent now. In Europe the average savings-quote is 15 percent. The American economy is growing on the basis of debts. It's a house of cards. This year more Americans will file for bankruptcy than will get a divorce, a heartattack, graduate or hear that they have cancer. Is that a healthy economy?"
ML: "But still, the jobs."
JR: "The past four years we've had a net decrease of jobs in the USA. The last time that happened was in 1929."
ML: "In the 90s the number of jobs grew strongly."
JR: "The university of Chicago, rather conservative, has researched that. Even in the Clinton-years, when unemployment supposedly decreased to 4.5 percent, the real unemployment was 9 percent. That's comparable to the 15 EU-nations. How can this be? In Europe you get unemployment benefits for a longer time, so you're counted as unemployed for a longer time. In my nation the benefits last 6 months. Then you end up in a different category that isn't counted as unemployed.
We did get a lot of people back to work after 89-92, but those were largely part-time jobs. You work for a couple of hours in the week, and you're counted as emplyed. Most European nations, except for the Netherlands and a few others, don't have flexible work hours. You either work fully, or you're unemployed. Plus we put two percent of our male, adult population in jail. They aren't counted.
The evidence for my being right is the money. We said the Euro would be toilet paper after 6 months, but why, then, is the dollar still losing ground to it? The financial world sees we have tons of debts. Millions of Americans spend more than they earn, and we financed our houses with low interest, and the now the interest is up, so when that bubble bursts we're in trouble. Then the Bush administration gave us tax-cuts, and the national debt rose quickly. Our trade deficit is going completely the wrong way. That's why investors are saying: your economy is built on a wrong foundation, so we're depreciating the dollar versus the euro.
ML: "Isn't this discussion about Europe and the USA becoming irrelvant because of the quick rise of China and India?"
JR: "China is in enormous trouble. There are colossal internal paradoxes, and I think we'll see huge economic shifts in the next years. Massive unemployment is a threat. The coubtryside is becoming empty, millions move to the city where they don't find jobs."
ML: "But Western companies are moving their factories to China."
JR: "Technology has cost 15 percent of China's workers their jobs in the past seven years. The cheapest Chinese worker isn't as cheap and efficient as the technology thatcan replace him. There;s a basic change going on around the globe. Massive working is being stopped: in farming, factories, services. Software can do the job of an architect or accountant, voice-recognition makes a lot of administrative jobs useless. Everywehere we have to start thinking differently about work. China is in the middle of this debate. The country is as the canary in the mine, once the canary dies it becomes dangerous. It isn't unlikely that China will be the first victim of massive political upheaval as a consequence of massive unemployment."
ML: "What should Europe do?"
JR: "Europe has a golden goose [translator: translation is starting to get a lot harder. Fuck it.] that is barely being fed. The alternative model to the bankrupt, indebted American model is the integratie of what is potentially the richest inernal market in the world, from the Irish Sea to the doorstep of Russia: 455 million consumers."
ML: "Sounds good. Just like the plan to have the most competitive economy of the world in 2010."
JR: "That was said 10 years ago, and nothing has happened since. After Lisbon, the European leaders started seeing national politics as the most important again. They started to capitalise on xenophobia, on the unrest with unions, corporations en regions, and said: we are losing too much to Europe. That always works politically, whether you're left or right."
ML: "But there are some serious questions you can ask about the constitution and how it came to be. A lot of people see it as a plan made up by a bunch of bureacrats they have no control over."
JR: "but does anyone seriously believe that the future welfare lies in returning to the small national market? That's something you don't hear a single politician about.
This is what Europe should do: establish an integrated communications, energy and transportation network within 15 years. Establish one set of rules for trade and labour within 10 years. English should become the lingua franca in business within 10 years. That isn't going to solve all the problems. The immigration fear should be conquered, because a lot more immigrants and children are needed to prevent Europe turning into an old people's home. Bbut you;re giving yourself a couple of years extra to build a durable economy, to think about the role of labour and all the other consequences of globalisation, and create a new energy-system based on hydrogen."
ML: "Okay, so you're still saying that Europe should dare to dream. But we aren't dreamers, we're sceptics and pessimists."
JR: "Everything I'm saying is irrelevant if the younger generation of Europeans doesn't believe in the new vision of the world. Excluding no-one, diversity, quality of life, universal human rights, peace. That's what Europe is about, that's the core of the European dream. There's too much talk about laws and marketforces. it makes people fall asleep. It has nothing to do with their life. What it's really about, is whether you are chasing a dream to become the first transnational space [ugh, translation] in history, to set a new standard in a globalising world.
This is where Americans can help. We can be optimistic in a naive or arrogant way. We like to take chances. Europe could have some more of this. You can't cherish a dream when you're cunical, skeptical, pessimistic, defeatist. Then you've given up on the future. I don't know whether Europe will do it. it may become the Napster of poltiics: a good model that failed, but was later adopted by everybody. A large part of the world is looking at Europe: what's happening there, is this the way the world will look? If Europe can't sustain this vision of a interdependent world, then we might fall back into the 19th century idea of everyone for himself. Why the skepticism, Europe? it's a challenge. You get what you ask for."
There, that took me bloody long enough.
I really see very little I can disagree with in this article, but I am quite certain that you people can. The only thing I dislike is the spraying about with facts without mentioning any sources.
