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3/21/09

The Economist: Is America turning European? - More nonsense about Europe and America

For the complete report from the The Economist click on this link

Is America turning European? - More nonsense about Europe and America

A spectre is haunting the United States—the spectre of Europe. Republicans such as Newt Gingrich, the grand old man of the party, and Mike Pence, one of its firebrands, say that Barack Obama’s Democrats are imposing “European-style socialism” on America. “As they try to pull us in the direction of government-dominated Europe,” says Mitt Romney, arguably the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2012, “we’re going to have to fight as never before to make sure that America staysAmerica.”

Still, the two planets have a very long way to travel before they meet. There is nothing particularly “European” or “socialist” about Mr Obama’s stimulus package. Countries the world over are spending public money in a bid to boost demand and shore up the banks. Indeed, some of the most stubborn resistance to deficit financing has come from Europe, particularly from Germany and the EU finance ministers. Messrs Gingrich and Romney might note that the man who set this ball rolling was not Mr Obama but Mr Bush, the most un-European politician imaginable. For all Europe’s Obamamania Mr Obama is, in fact, one of the least European-minded of American presidents. JFK studied at the London School of Economics with Harold Laski, a leading British socialist. Bill Clinton went to Oxford University and surrounded himself with Rhodes scholars who liked to discuss the German educational model. John Kerry was famously not just French-speaking but also “French-looking”. Mr Obama’s roots lie in Kenya, Indonesia and Kansas—any continent but Europe. His two books hardly mention Europe at all.

The fury about “European socialism” is not just wrong as a matter of fact. It is foolish as a matter of policy. Europe has plenty of things to teach the United States (particularly about running a welfare state), just as America has plenty to teach Europe (particularly about igniting entrepreneurialism). Indeed, a more telling criticism of the Obama administration is not that it is borrowing too much from Europe but that it is learning too little.

Europeans and Americans are never likely to coalesce: their cultural traditions are too strong and their solutions to the problem of regulating capitalism too distinctive. But they nevertheless have plenty in common—ageing populations, exploding entitlements and above all, at the moment, a wrenching recession. Europeans have thankfully toned down the America-bashing that was popular a few years ago. Americans might consider returning the compliment.

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