Jason's last post on Germany made me speculate on some differences between Europe and America. Now that the Soviet Union is gone, the major contrast between economic models in the advanced world is the U.S. vs. Europe (if I can for simplicity group the varied OECD styles of welfare state into a single alternative model to the U.S.). Which is the proper contrast to be looking at, the Soviet Union was mostly just an old-style Russian despotism with little relevance to a modern economy (just as pre-Leninist Marxism would have predicted, the attempt to go straight to socialism in an underdeveloped nation and bypass the capitalist phase led nowhere). The right points to Europe's recent record of slow growth and comparatively high unemployment, while the left emphasizes high middle class quality of life, egalitarian wage outcomes, greater leisure, and in some cases lower crime. I'm mildly left of center in this debate. But there are lots of interesting arguments on both sides, and I'm not going to get into them here.
The point I want to make is that while America is *economically* far more unequal than Europe, we are in many ways a much more culturally egalitarian nation than Europe is, especially for non-blacks (still the great majority here). Indeed, I would argue the two facts are connected. The economic evidence seems to show through the 19th century white America really was a quite open and egalitarian business culture, with much higher wages and social mobility than Europe. One can argue that it is this heritage that has allowed business interests to have so much political power here. The only major period when labor got real traction politically (1930-1970) was due to the Depression. Europe's history of exploitation and inequality has led to a much more class conscious politics and established redistributive institutions firmly there.
Even though the formal institutions have switched places -- in my opinion the American "working class" is the one getting ripped off at the moment, though to nothing like the degree that took place in 19th century Europe -- cultural traditions don't move so quickly. It's my impression that America is in numerous subtle ways a more open culture than Europe. Openness to immigrants is an obvious example, as Jason's previous post mentions. But I think this is also true in terms of all kinds of hierarchies. I've had lots of friends tell me about more formal relationships between bosses and workers in Europe, with superiors being less open to criticism than they are here, and less opportunity to criticize traditional ways of doing things. "Eurosclerosis" might have as much to do with the cultural heritage of less open and more class-bound nations as it does with the contemporary economic institutions the right is so eager to fault for all of Europe's troubles. Likewise, American hospitability to innovation might have more to do with our traditions as a basically middle-class and egalitarian culture than with the opportunity for lucky CEOs to earn many hundreds of times what their workers do, without paying particularly high taxes on it.
The irony here is of course that American hostility to redistributive institutions, born out of the lesser need for them in our history, might in the long run create self-perpetuating class hierarchies like the ones our ancestors left Europe to escape. Certainly that was what the Founders thought when they instituted a redistributive tax on large inheritances...the so-called "death tax" the Republicans recently repealed.
Liberals might favor moving some moderate distance toward the European model in terms of formal economic institutions, but we also favor maintaining or increasing traditional American cultural openness. Unlike conservatives we deny that that cultural openness is dependent on a completely untrammeled free market; in fact over the long run some forms of redistribution might be necessary to maintain it.
Marcus
