Anatole Kaletsky’s column in The Times is—how shall I put it?—interesting. In his considered opinion,
While America has been run by one of the most doltishly ineffectual governments in history, it has forged ever further ahead of Europe in terms of wealth, science, technology, artistic creativity and cultural dominance.
How can this be, or, more precisely, why does America’s prosperity and self-confidence seem to bear so little relationship to the competence of its government? Kaletsky has the right answer:
The obvious answer is that America, founded on a libertarian theory of minimal government, has always had low expectations of politicians. In America, it is not just business that thrives independently of government, perhaps even in spite of government. The same is also true of other areas of excellence which in Britain are considered quintessentially in the public domain — higher education, leading-edge science, culture and academic research. Because Americans expect so little of their government, they are rarely disappointed. They do not slump into German-style angst when their governments fail to find solutions to the nation’s problems.
Furthermore,
American politicians may be incompetent and venal, even by European standards, but this is not true of the public realm as a whole. America has a host of public institutions, ranging from government bodies such as the Federal Reserve and the National Institutes of Health to charities such as the great universities, museums and hospitals, that are driven by a sense of public service that puts British and European bureaucracies to shame.
Kaletsky raises a question: Would an America not run by a “doltishly ineffectual government” be better or worse off?
Oh, brother. How condescending can you get? It must be hard on the aristocratic ego to find that the we ill-bred peasants can do just fine without them.
As for our President being a dolt, well gosh darn it, I voted for the fella myself ‘n I think he’s doing a real fine job there in that big o’ White House, yessiree.
Fine, it’s not as dramatic as saying, “No, I’m Spartacus!” but you get my drift. Now, I need to find a way to calm down. Where can I find an Englishman to slap?
Anatole may not like Bush, but he recognizes the reality that the US is vastly outperforming Europe and is willing to say so in print. That’s more than most Europeans are willing to do. So I take his words as a compliment.
Yeah, I think he throws in the Bush-whacker as a necessary tempering of his admiration of America. I doubt he could get published in Europe if he praised both US citizens AND President Bush in the same opinion piece! So feed the audience a little anti-Bush candy to get them in and then shine the light on how great Americans are (never mind that the majority of us “great ones” voted for Bush).
I agree with his conclusions like you do, but it still didn’t stop me from calling him a limey bastard in the email I just sent him.
What I found most telling was his use of the word “anarchic” to describe the iconic quality at the root of that uniquely American notion of the rugged individual or the self-made man. The average European is too shackled by a cultural need to have order imposed from above to make that psychological leap out of his long festering malaise. The problem with Europe is not economic, it’s spiritual. I’m not talking religion, but the deeply ingrained pessimism and feeling of helplessness in the European worldview.
I’ve been talking to one of the editors at the Atlantic Review blog about this Iranian crisis. He’s against any military option due to the risks it entails and is deaf to any suggestions that it could succeed. This obsession with avoiding risk and expecting failure has infected European foreign, economic and social policies and they are suffering the consequences of their lack of faith and courage. For all his faults, this are two qualities that Bush does not lack in. Anatole should have acknowledged that.
In the area of economics, these two qualities have value; the courage to take risks and the faith of eventual success. After all, why would anyone start a new business if he just knew it was doomed to fail.
Hopefully, standing up to the threatened Muslim boycott over these Danish cartoons will do something to European confidence and self-respect. If Anatole is really serious about what he said, he should convince the Times to publish those cartoons. That’ll take more balls than safely sniping at the President. Limey bastard.
Mr. Kaletsky’s noting of the obvious—that the US is less fettered in business affairs—is largely what separates the EU from the US.
The vaunted EU Lisbon set of goals (economic, technological, and educational leadership by 2010)has been put aside simply because the EU can’t get there under its current business and political climate.
Nations in the EU generally spend far less on a percentage basis on R&D than does the US. Same for education—where they seriously lag the US (if I recall correctly, California alone had more schools in the top twenty than did all of Europe).
A major difference in outlook is that the US continuously looks to the next challenge while Europe thinks that once they get things set up the way they like, history (and competition) will stop.
He should go follow his line of questioning further and look to why Europe can’t compete. It’s not just our fine public institutions and charities. The hard truth is that even with its wonderfully trained politicians, Europe’s economic model is unsustainable. With competition like that, even dolts can thrive.
A second question he should put to himself: if Bush is a dolt, what level of intelligence produced Europe’s malaise?
With regard to higher ed, there was a big discussion about slumping German universities a few years ago. (This is ongoing, but I refer here to the initial discussion.) You would find one long newspaper article about how great some US school is and another reporting on some rinky-dink state school. What struck me at the time was how little understanding there was of the cultural underpinnings of our system. One item mentioned was the ability of schools to choose their students, but I don’t recall any mention that we had privately operated SATs to aid schools in their choices.
It seemed that much public opinion was formed by people who had spent a some time in the US but not enough to fully absorb how and why we do things. I think that is generally true of European perceptions of America: there are a few cliches that people reach for to explain us such as puritanism and capitalism. Things like the social status given to someone for endowing a hospital wing can’t be felt by visitors.
Once I was asked what the biggest difference was between America and Germany. My reply was offhand: Americans tolerate chaos better than Germans. The longer I’m here, the more I think this is a pretty good summary.
“But American public institutions try to maximise private activity and incentives, rather than rein them in, within their realms — whether it is universities encouraging professors to start businesses, or health administrators creating incentives for drugs companies to do medical research.”
The distinction between Europeans who expect gov’t to solve all problems and Americans who have an ethic of private activity was undertsood in the Founding Era. Gordon Wood writes in his Radicalism of the American Revolution:
“In the three or four decades following the Revolution newly independent American men and women came together to form hundreds and thousands of new voluntary associations expressive of a wide array of benevolent goals…people cut loose from traditional social relationships, it was observed as early as 1789, were “necessarily thrown at a considerable distance from each other, and into a very diffused state of society.”
...There was nothing in the Western world quite like these hundreds of thousands of people assembling annually in their different voluntary associations and debating about everything. In other countries, said Charles Ingersoll, such “various self-created associations” gave the authorities “so much trouble and alarm” that they tried to prevent their formation. But because their own society was so dispersed and loose, Americans found these associations “not only harmless but beneficial.” ”
Kaletsky marvels at the fact that the US can have an “incompetent” president and that this does not seem to affect our fortunes as a nation. But that was the Founder’s goal. They created a Constitution with the understanding that in the future there would be public officials who were lacking in the competence or virtue required for public office.
When Kaletsky mentions that in America private institutions take on responsibilities that Europeans expect the government to perform, he is touching upon an impportant element of self-government. Self-government is not just about electing public officials, but about citizens working together to solve problems and provide services within their communities independent of government. If you see a problem in you community, just go ahead and solve the problem (that’s the essence of self-government) don’t waste a decade or more lobbying for a government solution.
From the beginning, the USA was created under the basic belief “that which governs least giverns best.” So in that sense, we started out with the basic idea we don’t need or want much government.
But there have been more than few occasions when the designedly inept U.S. Government has outshone those of Europe. Like WWI, WWII, The development of nuclear weapons, the Marshall Plan, the Cold War, The Interstate Highway System, the Moon Race, the military utilization of space, Desert Storm, and the current war. For that matter, the combined forces of the US and the Confederacy probably could have taken over the whole of Europe way back in the 1860’s had we been interested in trying.
The U.S. Federal Government is pretty good at doing what government absolutely must do. And in our case that includes bailing out governments that are inept at doing what government must do.
As doltish as the Reagan Administration? Somehow every non-entity who can put words on paper is an expert on running governements. “American politicians may be incompetent and venal, even by European standards” Venal, may be; but as incompetent as Europeans? I guess our politicians don’t do “Sound of Europe”, or decide on VATs on hairdressers. “After stiff resistance by Poland, parties have agreed that reduced VAT rates on hairdressers and restauranters, and even minor construction works, can continue until 2010.”
http://www.wienerzeitung.at/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=4082&Alias=wzo&cob=216852
By whatever standards, it is hard to beat the Europeans in being incompetent.
Well, if it’s doltishly ineffectual for the government to lower taxes (that is, get out of money management) and lower regulations (that is, get out of the job of running business), I’ll take doltishly ineffectual every time. The government is a poor money manager and a poor business manager, and any government that at least tries to get out of the way is going to preside over an American boom period.