Europe’s New President: Unsolicited American Advice Norman Birnbaum

Europe’s New President: Unsolicited American Advice

Norman Birnbaum

(El Pais, 4 November, 2009)

The American habit of proffering unsolicited advice to other peoples seems incurable. Secretary Clinton, in Islamabad, spoke of Pakistan in exceedingly patronizing terms. The Europeans (recall “Eurosclerosis” and “old Europe”) for years have endured the arrogance of our elites, far less excusable than the ignorance and prejudice of ordinary citizens. True, the US has had its own fifth column: European academics, bankers, businessmen, generals, officials, politicians and publicists who reiterate our absurd claims to unfailing moral rightness and political wisdom. Is there a chance that, in the imminent election of a European President. someone will be chosen who will increase its independence of the US? .

Our own President increasingly resembles Gulliver, tied down by the Lilliputians. The Europeans are also suffering from political miniaturization. The European socialist heads of government were quite right to reject the candidacy of Tony Blair. His inexpungable fidelity to the US and his sacredotal self-confidence (above all, when he is mistaken) provide reasons enough. Still, the European leaders are evidently not looking for larger talents. . Chancellor Merkel will not nominate either Schroeder, Steinmeier, Steinbrueck or Fischer. Berlusconi will not hear of Amato. Sarkozy ostentatiously overlooks Aubry and Strauss-Kahn or Vedrine. The embarassing Polish President does not propose his distinguished predecessor, Kwasniewski. Zapatero does not mention his own party comrade Gonzales.

With the servant of the US and adversary of the European welfare state Barroso in charge of the Commission, all the more reason to name a larger figure to advance the modernization of the European social model, and develop Europe as an autonomous force in world politics. When was the last time that a major European instructed the US that its obsession with “terror,” its reverse Jihad in the Muslim world, its hostility to Iran, its unwillingness to restrain Israel, were disastrous? Instead, Europe accepts a subordinate role and complains, fitfully, of the consequences.

It would be inaccurate to attribute the financial crisis to American capitalism alone: plenty of European capitalists are as irresponsible and asocial as their Transatlantic partners. Not so long ago, we heard European leaders praising deregulation and privatization as if they had studied economics in Chicago. Now, as unemployment benefits and government subsidies enable some of the European Union nations to outperform the US, economically and socially, most are hesitant to draw the obvious conclusions. A civilized society requires not less but more public economic intervention. The first European President will be remembered if he or she can lead the European Union to a new equilibrium of market and state. The European heads of government, however, are debating the appointment in partisan terms likely to consign the new President to instant obscurity.

Larger currents of social ideas and practises have flowed in both directions between the continents. The American welfare state built by the first and second Roosevelts, and Wilson, owes much to European social Christianity and to European socialism. The post-1945 European welfare states copied, in turn, from the New Deal. Now, the US is in crisis. It can afford consumer society or empire, but not both. It can allow our terrible social Darwinism to intensify or construct new institutions of solidarity. Our own intellectual and moral resources remain considerable, as the election to the Presidency of the son of an African immigrant showed. Still, many of our citizens suffer an acute fear of dispossession and unless we repair the social fabric, acute symptoms of disintegration will increase.

American Presidents become prisoners in the White House, and although intelligent and open to the world, Obama is not an exception. Much of our elite is oblivious to experience: witness the argument on Afghanistan. However, a debate on the costs of empire, and the price of capitalism, is in course. A Europe more sure of its own historical distinctiveness, prouder of its post-imperial achievements, innovative in its social institutions and less complacent about its practice of democracy, could have considerable influence—again—on our future

One hopes for a European President aware of a moral constituency on our side of the Atlantic—and does so in the American interest.