The European Dream

THE EUROPEAN

FUTURES

OBSERVATORY

THE EUROPEAN DREAM

Jeremy Rifkin

ISBN 0-74-563425-7

It would be hard to argue against a proposition that something is happening in Europe. There is a force that first emerged after the Second World War that gathered momentum during the final quarter of the Twentieth Century, and is now starting to assert itself on the world stage. Defining exactly what that force is poses a much larger problem. We know that something is there, but we can’t quite say what it is. This lack of clarity on my part drew me to this book. I hoped that it would help me to define the essence of the European Project.

The book is structured in three parts. Part one looks at how the American Dream has fared in recent decades. Part two considers the forces that are shaping the modern age, and part three considers the place of Europe in the global world of the future.

The American Dream is a concept with which we are all familiar. It is an expression of ideology – it tells us what America is about. In coining the phrase “The European Dream”, Mr Rifkin attempts to do just the same for Europe – to pin down the central ideology of the European Project. If we can grasp the European Dream, we can understand what it is that Europe is about. The book goes about this task by first defining the American Dream and by looking at its origins.

The American Dream, Mr Rifkin asserts, is meant to be exclusive to America. The US was the land of God’s Chosen people. This belief infects the personal values that shape the way in which Americans behave in the world and the ways in which they think about it. For example, it has helped to make the US a very patriotic nation. It informs the belief that everyone in the world wants to be like Americans, and that they should conform to the American way of life.

The US is stamped in Benjamin Franklin’s view of how America should be. It is based upon self-improvement. Salvation would be the fruits of hard work and diligence. Self-improvement and self-reliance would be the basis for happiness in this world, and salvation would be the basis for happiness in the next world.

In the US, according to Mr Rifkin, people tend to pursue material wealth as an end, whilst in Europe people tend to pursue a better quality of life. In many ways, this reflects the differences between the American Dream and the European Dream. The American Dream is a hankering to preserve and older era, whilst the European Dream is a preparation for a new era. It would be wrong to view developments in Europe from the perspective of an American lens. The European Dream is still a work in progress.

As the book moves into the second part, the nebulous concept of the European Dream starts to become more clearly defined. Mr Rifkin makes his point by contrasting the American experience with the European experience. It would appear that the Americans tend to value autonomy and exclusive space, and strive to be self-contained and self-reliant. The Europeans, on the other hand, seek inclusive space – privacy is less important than engagement.

Europeans have been keen to develop the speed, flow, and connectivity of human exchange. The new technologies have been used as tools to facilitate this. This is revolutionising commerce as business now looks to adopt and adapt the network model. This is in contrast to the old system of organisation, which had its origins in the factory movement. The US took to the industrial revolution readily. The concept of efficiency appealed to the American psyche. This gave an underpinning to the American Dream – you live to work rather than work to live. The Europeans have not been so devoted to the concept of efficiency. Europeans tend to find happiness in personal achievements and their relationships with others.

An important part of the book is this assertion that the key difference between the American Dream and the European dream is that the American Dream emphasises the accumulation of wealth, whilst that European Dream emphasises the quality of life. Although it originated in Europe, the market economy became most established in the US. Capitalism is not held in as high esteem in Europe as it is in the US.

In America, the nation could develop in an environment where the capitalist class controlled the political institutions. Americans see the market economy and the American government, acting within the Constitutional framework, as guarantors of the American Dream. If either the market economy or representative government as outlined in the US Constitution were to falter, the American Dream would be seriously undermined. It is precisely this that Mr Rifkin claims is happening.

The third part of the book is an examination of the how the world will develop in the near future, and how Europe might fit into that world. We now find ourselves at a point in history where an older order is starting to fade away and a new order is starting to come to the fore. New technologies are redefining how we perceive time and space. The nation state now appears to be parochial in the global economy. The world is becoming more and more inter-connected. The market economy and the nation state are not designed for instant global communication.

The market economy is too slow to take full advantage of the new technologies. The market mechanism has become outmoded. In pure networks, property remains with the sellers, but is used by the buyers in time segments. Transaction costs and operating margins fall rapidly in the network model. Networks of autonomous agents tend to be co-operative in nature. The keys to a successful network are reciprocity and trust. They operate in a spirit of co-operation. Knowledge (the output of networks) increases through collaboration. Time scarcity is pushing us towards a network model of operation. Networks spawn creativity and innovation because they have a larger pool of minds to draw upon.

The EU is a unique political body. It is not a territorial bound entity. This allows it to continually integrate new members. Some see it as bounded by ‘historical Europe’, but it is not clear exactly where that area is. Some see it as a cultural entity, but Europe has always had a variety of cultures. It is uncertain where the EU will end. The EU was created so that it did not compete with nation states. Instead, it was constructed as a network of relationships and interdependencies that is ideally placed to take advantage of an increasingly networked world.

The EU has embraced the new technologies to develop decentralised models of governance. The hierarchies of the old nation states are too slow to govern effectively in a network era. The polycentric model developed by the EU allows continual feedback from within the system. It gives the EU a role as rule-maker and gatekeeper rather than governor and enforcer. It turns out that the EU is more a process than a place. It is an organisation that governs through consent rather than force. It works because it reflects the aspirations of European people.

Politics in the nation state era developed along two axes – the market and the government. The realm of the civil society perched uneasily between the two. The materialists saw the market as the prime arbiter of human relations. However, culture is not an extension of the market or the government. Instead the market and the government reflect cultural norms.

The European model is being exported to other parts of the world. It is replacing the crucible of US soft power as the ideal to which the world aspires. The European Dream still has a long way to go before it replaces the American Dream, but the trend is in this direction.

American hawks see Europe as a diplomatic lightweight. With the end of the Cold War, both American and European interests have started to diverge. This divergence is the result of much deeper differences between Europe and America. Europe is mistrustful of American unilateral action in foreign policy matters. The US and EU have different views over how foreign policy and security ought to be handled.

The EU is keen on international laws. However, cynical Americans see this as a free ride on the US security umbrella. European policy has managed to lay aside deeply held international rivalries. However, Europe is starting to accept that it has to create its own security effort. The US wishes this greater effort to be part of NATO, and under US control. EU nations are resisting this. There is, in development, an EU rapid reaction force, outside of the NATO command structure. NATO, however, is starting to become an organisation without a mission. As the EU strengthens its defence posture, it will increasingly wish to assert its own agenda in the world, even if it contradicts US policy.

In many ways, this is the result of ideologies that have always have been different. The differences were laid aside during the Cold War with the common perceived threat from the USSR. However, in a Post-Cold War world, with the absence of a common opponent, the differences in ideology have started to show through.

The American Dream seeks autonomy at all costs. It can be wasteful and destructive; it is self indulgent and overconsumes resources. It places a premium on uncontrolled economic growth and rewards the powerful in a “winner takes all” society. In this, it has sown the seeds of its own destruction. The stifling of social mobility in America is undermining the basis of the American Dream.

The European Dream is quite different. This seeks to be globally connected without losing the sense of cultural identity and locality. Freedom comes in relationships with others and the pursuit of the quality of life. It leads to the championing of human rights and the rights of nature. The support of the environment to the detriment of commercial interests has become an important part of European foreign policy.

Mr Rifkin creates the impression that the American Dream is the ideology of the past, and that the European dream is the ideology of the future. It remains to be seen if he is right. At times, the arguments in the book were quite esoteric. The book is relatively long (just under 400 pages), and, in my opinion, could have enjoyed some severe editing without losing the central argument. Indeed, I would go as far to say that, by losing the more ephemeral parts, the book could be better in presenting its case.

However, this is an important book. Although we might not quite agree with all of the arguments, although we might not be able to see the points that Mr Rifkin was making, we cannot disagree that the central tenet is correct. There is something stirring in Europe. Something that makes nations want to pool - or surrender, depending upon your viewpoint - their sovereignty. Something that makes them want to abandon their ancient currencies for a new, common, and untried currency. Something that makes them want to abandon the Westphalian System of international relations.

Mr Rifkin uses the shorthand of “The European Dream” to encapsulate this “something”. I’m not sure that many would agree with his definition of what that “something” is. However, I am sure that many would agree that there is a “something”, and that it would be quite important to attempt to define it. For this reason, Mr Rifkin has written an important book.

The book itself is a very hard read. The prose flows, but the topics can be a bit obscure at times, which makes the book difficult to follow. Were it to be revised with a very severe edit, the book would be a much better proposition as a literary work. However, the book does contain some very important themes, and it is on this basis that we would recommend it.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

stephena@eufo.org

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