The Europe Syndrome

So America is abandoning its traditional principles of limited government and free enterprise economics in favor of the European ideology of Social Democracy, with its welfare state and semi-socialism. But is that so bad? European countries, for the most part, are pleasant places with an enjoyable lifestyle. What’s wrong with going European? Well,

Charles Murray contends that “the European model. . .drains too much of the life from life”:

The stuff of life — the elemental events surrounding birth, death, raising children, fulfilling one’s personal potential, dealing with adversity, intimate relationships — occurs within just four institutions: family, community, vocation and faith. Seen in this light, the goal of social policy is to ensure that those institutions are robust and vital. The European model doesn’t do that. It enfeebles every single one of them.

Drive through rural Sweden, as I did a few years ago. In every town was a beautiful Lutheran church, freshly painted, on meticulously tended grounds, all subsidized by the Swedish government. And the churches are empty. Including on Sundays. The nations of Scandinavia and Western Europe pride themselves on their “child-friendly” policies, providing generous child allowances, free day-care centers and long maternity leaves. Those same countries have fertility rates far below replacement and plunging marriage rates. They are countries where jobs are most carefully protected by government regulation and mandated benefits are most lavish. And with only a few exceptions, they are countries where work is most often seen as a necessary evil, and where the proportions of people who say they love their jobs are the lowest.

Call it the Europe Syndrome.

Why would countries that subsidize child care have such low birth rates? Why would countries with lavish job security have such low satisfaction with work? And why is the current administration–with the apparent support of the American public–so willing to throw out the American model in favor of the Europe syndrome?