Further down the tube

entitlement generation 28 Comments

Bret Stephens in the Wall St. Journal:

Lesson From Europe (Take 2)
No, social democracy doesn’t ‘work.’
‘The real lesson from Europe,” wrote Paul Krugman in January 2010, “is actually the opposite of what conservatives claim: Europe is an economic success, and that success shows that social democracy works.” Here are some postcards from the social democracy that works.
• In Britain, 239 patients died of malnutrition in the country’s public hospitals in 2007, according to a charity called Age U.K. And at any given time, a quarter-million Britons have been made to wait 18 weeks or longer for medical treatment. This follows a decade in which funding for the National Health Service doubled.
• In France, the incidence of violent crimes rose by nearly 15% between 2002 and 2008, according to statistics provided by Eurostat. In Italy violent crime was up 38%. In the EU as a whole, the rate rose by 6% despite declines in robbery and murder.
• As of June 2011, Eurostat reports that the unemployment rate in the euro zone was 9.9%. For the under-25s, it was 20.3%. In Spain, youth unemployment stands at 45.7%, which tops even the Greek rate of 38.5%. Then there’s this remarkable detail: Among Europeans aged 18-34, no fewer than 46%—51 million people in all—live with their parents.
• In 2009, 37.4% of European children were born outside of marriage. That’s more than twice the 1990 rate of 17.4%. The number of children per woman for the EU is 1.56, catastrophically below the replacement rate of 2.1. Roughly half of all Europeans belong in the “dependency” category on account of their youth or old age. Just 64% of the working-age population actually works…
For the U.S., none of this is yet in our cards: That’s guaranteed by the tea party that so many Europeans (and Paul Krugman) find so vulgar. But it’s worth noting what the fruits of social democracy—a world in which, as Kipling once wrote, “all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins”—really are. And in the wake of the U.K. riots, the rest of his prophecy also bears repeating:
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

The full poem is here. I’m not sure that Mr Stephens quite appreciates its message.

28 Replies to “Further down the tube”

  2. The collapse of the European welfare state is taking most liberals and socialists by complete surprise, just as the collapse of the Soviet Union did back in 1990. The elephant in the room in Europe has long been the unbelievably high rates of youth unemployment. There are something like 400,000 families in the UK today in which no one has ever worked. Now the elephant is starting to get restless and angry.

  3. The reference to Krugman’s comment just proves that he is insane beyond hope. The Kipling poem was rather insightful for 1919. Europe is a mess and not enough people get it. Here in N/A we’re just trailing behind a bit. Hopefully the lessons learned overseas will help us a bit but I’m not holding my breath.

  7. Demographic is everything, the rest is just details.
    As Steyn wrote in After America watch the Mexicans retaking the southwest US or muslims in Europe and here. Brief protest over islam being taught in Ontario schools/mosques yet they will only expand as we are punished if we complain as islamophobic.
    Death by a thousand leftist cuts.

  10. Whatever you do… don’t look at the Nordic nations though, or Canada for that matter. It makes it hard to cherrypick stats when you look at the broader picture, and who wants to go and do something like that?

  11. “…don’t look at the Nordic nations though, or Canada for that matter.”
    Been to a Canadian hospital lately John? Doesn’t work here either. Spectacularly.

  12. “Social Democracy” my ass.Only the lib-left douchbags at TWSJ could confuse statist socialism with democracy – these are mutually exclusive terms/concepts.
    What grips Europe’s population is authoritarian collectivist statism – a mutant form of communism and fascism where a elite political class runs a soft social tyranny.
    Why do statists always disguise their dystopian control systems with these abstract terms – heh “social democracy” GMAFB. Remember, even the Russian soviet tyranny had elections – no streah would tag it as a real democracy – does no good in a nation where all parties are just varying degrees of the same control system.
    Modern Europe (EU) is a dysfunctional amalgam of soviet bureaucracy, law and policing with the limited capitalism of the fascist state – capitalism restricted to an oligarchy of state-connected players – a crony capitalist system not unlike Communist China or Nazi Germany. The only difference between China and Europe is Europe has more political parties representing the authoritarian collectivist state.
    It’s not really a wonder they stare fiscal bankruptcy in the face while their subsidy addicted population riot when austerity measures are initiated.

  14. Occam:
    On the contrary, ‘democracy’ is how you get socialism in the first place. Promise people a free lunch, and they’ll vote for you. As long as ‘someone else’ pays. Once the freeloaders are in the majority, as is the case just about everywhere in the developed world, the statists/socialists are firmly entrenched.
    That’s why Europe is doomed, and even the USA is on an irreversible downward spiral.
    In 1981, Ronald Reagan, arguably the best president the USA had in the 20th century, had a golden opportunity to reverse the Great Society socialism. He did nothing. Sure, he cut taxes, but couldn’t bring himself to cut spending. He will be remembered as the president who won the Cold War; it is ironical that with each passing day, the USA resembles more and more its old nemesis, the USSR.
    No politicians will have the balls to turn things around, so it is up to us, as individuals, to take steps to protect ourselves. Land, gold and ammo: that’s what I’d invest in.

  15. Posted by: Occam at August 18, 2011 6:55 PM
    “What grips Europe’s population is authoritarian collectivist statism – a mutant form of communism and fascism where a elite political class runs a soft social tyranny.”
    You understand that what you wrote is as accurate and actual, then perhaps you or anyone else realizes.
    I know, I’ve been there.

  16. And another thing, the US govenment is catching up so fast, as the little guy from Texas said, “do you hear the sucking sound?”.
    It goes right over the heads ot the masses.
    There is one flaw in the American psyche, that is that nothing can hurt them because they are Americans. Unfortunately once they hit the wall, it will be late to realize otherwise.
    In this country, the would be elite or the cream that are the “journalists”,the politicians, the justice industry, the corrupt to the core union bosses and of course the socialists, does not have the critical mass to fool much of the population due to the web. They can procalim their propaganda, though the internet neutralizes that to an extent.
    That is not to say they are giving up. They have the mouthpiece and the propaganda machine.

  17. Greenneck: A functional populist democracy allows parties to form who are opposed to the status quo. Through messaging and social consensus a party can garner enough political support to supplant the status quo in an election – totally bloodless overthrow of a dysfunctional system. Parties opposed to communism/socialism were not allowed in Communist or fascist democracies making the bloodless overthrow of the government by ballot impossible.
    The US has the tea party, Europe or at least Britain has the renegade UK independence party either one has the potential to topple the status quo political class in an election.
    Democracy is all about systemic change without war or revolution.

  18. “It* is a catastrophic collapse,” said Rob Carnell from ING.”
    “*Bond markets signal ‘Japanese’ slump for US and Europe”
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2765778/posts
    …-
    Meanwhile, O washes his hands, with an exit stage left and “slipped out of Washington”‘s “Woes”.
    NewYorkSlimes:
    “Vacation May Provide a Break from Washington’s Woes
    NY Times ^ | 8/18/11 | MARK LANDLER
    VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. — President Obama slipped out of Washington on Thursday to join his family for a nine-day vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, leaving behind the most dismal stretch of his presidency and looking to recharge for what is sure to be an epic political battle this fall over the nation’s finances.”
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2765798/posts

  20. I’m shocked to hear that socialism in Europe has been a total disaster.
    Now THAT’S sarcasm!
    If they spent more money on their own defense instead of relying on America (which they hate) and trying to wrest the Eastern Bloc from communism, they might have their heads screwed on straight. Why plump up a welfare state that will collapse anyway when you can defend your own national interests and give people a reason to have dignity?

  21. HOSEA Chapter 8
    7 For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind:
    it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal:
    if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.

  22. In European health care systems, Death Panels are the least of your worries. They actually give you a chance to live. It’s the drug never produced, the procedure not developed, the equipment never bought, the care never provided, and the doctor not hired that kills you.

  23. I been wondering for a while what Kipling meant by the marketplace (as in “the Gods of the Market-Place”). Rereading the poem, I think he is referring to the agora or public square, which, from the ancient greeks on, was where people went to gossip and to argue politics, as well as perhaps do some shopping at the pedlars’ and farmers’ stalls. If so, Kipling is decrying populist politics, not the industrial revolution or the free market economy (nor for that matter the actual market located in the marketplace).

  24. I’ve been wondering for a while what Kipling meant by the marketplace (as in “the Gods of the Market-Place”). Rereading the poem, I think he is referring to the agora or public square, which, from the ancient greeks on, was where people went to gossip and to argue politics, as well as perhaps do some shopping at the pedlars’ and farmers’ stalls. If so, Kipling is decrying populist politics, not the industrial revolution or the free market economy (nor for that matter the actual market located in the marketplace).

  26. Try some life expectancy comparisons, education rates, gini index then we can talk about how successful Europe’s political/economic model is.

  27. Life expectancy is a function of genetics and lifestyle choices. It is NOT a measure of the quality of a health care system. Cancer survival rates are higher in the US than Europe. That’s a true measure of medical quality. The US has more Nobel Prizes in Medicine than the next 15 countries combined. That’s your measure of medical research. Twelve of the top twenty pharmaceutical companies are based in the US, and several of the European ones have research and production facilities here. That’s your measure of drug production.
    The US has the best universities in the world. The rest of the world’s best students come HERE for graduate school.
    China has higher income inequality than the US, and they are a communist state. Wealth generation is not a zero sum game. Income inequality is not a measure of “fairness.”

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