Why are Continental Europeans so against Anglo-Saxon capitalism when you consider that out of the countries with a population of of over 10 million, four of the five richest countries in the world, per capita, are Anglo-Saxon countries, and out of those countries with a population of more than 20 million the top four richest are Anglo-Saxon countries?
Except from "My virility doesn't matter - the EU's does" by Mark Steyn
June 28, 2005
Telegraph
There's simply no precedent for managed decline in societies as advanced as Europe's, but the early indications are that it's going to be expensive: environmentally speaking, it's a question of sustainable lack of growth. Listen to the European political class defend the status quo on the Common Agricultural Policy, and then tell yourself these are the folks you want tackling the real crises just around the corner.
For Britain and Ireland, two relatively dynamic provinces of a moribund continent, there are only two options: share the pain and expense and societal upheaval, or decide that you're not that "European" after all and begin the process of detachment or at least semi-detachment. When the Continentals bemoan "Anglo-Saxon" capitalism, they have a point. Of the 20 economies with the biggest GDP per capita, no fewer than 11 are current or former realms of Her Britannic Majesty.
Admittedly, some of the wealthiest turf is the pinprick colonial tax havens - Bermuda, Guernsey, the Caymans. But, if you eliminate populations under 10 million, the GDP per capita Top Five are, in order, America, Canada, Australia, Belgium and the United Kingdom. And if you make it territories with over 20 million, the Top Four is an Anglosphere sweep. In other words, the ability to generate wealth among large populations does indeed seem to be an "Anglo-Saxon" thing. That being so, which is more likely? That Blair will transform a Europe antipathetic to Anglo-Saxon ways? Or that Europe will drag its Anglo-Saxons down with it?
A political entity hostile to the three principal building blocks of functioning societies - religion, family and wealth creation - was never a likely bet for the long term. Contemplating the deathbed demographics in the EU and wondering what can be done to reverse it, a correspondent of mine, Jim Ellinthorpe, suggests that President Bush give regular speeches mocking the virility of European males...
= = = =
And a great piece on the Anglosphere from Sully a while back...
Andrew Sullivan: Come on in: the Anglosphere is freedom’s new home
The Sunday Times
London
I received yet another anti-French e-mail last week. It was part of a spoof press release. It began: “Paris — in a stunning reversal of policy, French President Jacques Chirac announced today that the French government will be supporting the war on terror after all.
“Five hundred soldiers from the elite French Surrender Battalion of the Foreign Legion are in the process of shipping out to Iraq where they will assist the Iraqi Republican Guard in their inevitable surrender to the overwhelming might of the American armed forces.
“Chirac also announced that his government will send 3,000 advisers from the French Collaboration Force to assist the Iraqis in collaborating with the Americans while pretending to be part of a non-existent resistance movement.”
Brutal, non? But certainly not rare. I’ve lived in the United States for almost 20 years and have rarely heard anything but condescension towards successive French governments. But now that condescension has turned to contempt.
A cover piece in the liberal online magazine Slate last week had the headline “Why they hate us”. It referred to France. In a recent online poll people were asked which other countries they would place next to Iran, Iraq and North Korea in the “axis of evil”. France won by a mile.
And then Donald Rumsfeld blurted out what many privately think: France and Germany are the old Europe, with sclerotic economies, anachronistic aspirations for world power, and terribly weak leaders, shored up by appeals to crude anti-Americanism (Schröder) or to the fact that they’re not actually neo-fascist (Chirac).
That’s why when The Wall Street Journal and The Times published a letter from eight European leaders calling for unity in facing down Saddam, it was big in the United States. The chattering classes began to talk about another kind of international coalition: not one based on power-politics, or geographic proximity, but on a shared commitment to civil society and free economies, and a determination not to appease but to confront international terrorism.
The word for this nascent international alliance is the Anglosphere. The Anglospherists have been stirring discussion among Washington’s conservative think tanks. Their vision of the future of the West is starkly different to that envisioned by the Euopean Union or even, in some respects, the United Nations.
The Anglosphere is not a revived version of the “special relationship” between the US and the UK. Nor is it some racist contraption uniting “Anglo-Saxons” or even “English-speaking peoples”. It is, rather, a notion of an expanding group of nations and countries that share basic principles: individualism, rule of law, honouring contracts and covenants, and the elevation of freedom to the first rank of political and cultural values.
One of the critical elements of an Anglospherist nation is a healthy and vibrant civil society; by which I mean voluntary associations, private schools and colleges, charities, sports clubs, churches and so on — the “little platoons” of liberty that Tocqueville so admired in England and America.
Why Anglosphere? Simply because these political values — by accident of history — originated in England and subsequently Britain. But these values need not be restricted to English-speaking countries. High on the list of countries eager to join are those in formerly communist eastern Europe who value freedom more dearly for having been denied it for so long.
Others include centre-right governments in Italy and Spain. But countries where civil society is weak — Latin America, Asia or (as yet) Russia — don’t make the grade. Nor do those societies where personal freedom is close to non-existent — the Arab world. France and Germany are standouts against such a concept as well. Why? Because the state in each country is too powerful, scepticism about individual freedom and civil society deep, and economic rigidity is maintained at the expense of employment and growth.
That’s why the coalition to disarm Saddam is a sign of a changing world. Terrorism threatens societies that value freedom more than those that don’t. Citizens of free societies have more to lose from terror — more civil liberties, more personal freedom of movement and thought.
Religious terrorism is also anathema to free societies, because it threatens freedom of religion by equating it with violence and intolerance. So I don’t think it is surprising that, say, China and Russia are more ambivalent about disarming Saddam than, say, America or Australia. And it is equally unsurprising that the European Eight are those countries most sympathetic to an Anglospheric worldview.
Should this mean a formal alliance? Not necessarily. After all, one of the other ingredients of an Anglospheric view of the world is that voluntary associations are often better than forced ones. Anglosphere nations should co-operate when necessary. But just as they value freedom at home, they also value it abroad.
National sovereignty is a freedom as well — one that free countries are reluctant to give up without some tangible gain. So this concept will never yield something like the EU, an institution that can only make sense to a Gallic or German mind that sees the chaotic liberty of a diverse Europe in need of false coherence and discipline.
But for these reasons the Anglosphere is also durable. It springs from the values people hold, not the concepts their leaders impose upon them. As we move slowly out of a post-cold war era, the coalition emerging against Saddam today may well mark the future of international relations. Here’s hoping.
ww.telegraph.co.uk
Except from "My virility doesn't matter - the EU's does" by Mark Steyn
June 28, 2005
Telegraph
There's simply no precedent for managed decline in societies as advanced as Europe's, but the early indications are that it's going to be expensive: environmentally speaking, it's a question of sustainable lack of growth. Listen to the European political class defend the status quo on the Common Agricultural Policy, and then tell yourself these are the folks you want tackling the real crises just around the corner.
For Britain and Ireland, two relatively dynamic provinces of a moribund continent, there are only two options: share the pain and expense and societal upheaval, or decide that you're not that "European" after all and begin the process of detachment or at least semi-detachment. When the Continentals bemoan "Anglo-Saxon" capitalism, they have a point. Of the 20 economies with the biggest GDP per capita, no fewer than 11 are current or former realms of Her Britannic Majesty.
Admittedly, some of the wealthiest turf is the pinprick colonial tax havens - Bermuda, Guernsey, the Caymans. But, if you eliminate populations under 10 million, the GDP per capita Top Five are, in order, America, Canada, Australia, Belgium and the United Kingdom. And if you make it territories with over 20 million, the Top Four is an Anglosphere sweep. In other words, the ability to generate wealth among large populations does indeed seem to be an "Anglo-Saxon" thing. That being so, which is more likely? That Blair will transform a Europe antipathetic to Anglo-Saxon ways? Or that Europe will drag its Anglo-Saxons down with it?
A political entity hostile to the three principal building blocks of functioning societies - religion, family and wealth creation - was never a likely bet for the long term. Contemplating the deathbed demographics in the EU and wondering what can be done to reverse it, a correspondent of mine, Jim Ellinthorpe, suggests that President Bush give regular speeches mocking the virility of European males...
= = = =
And a great piece on the Anglosphere from Sully a while back...
Andrew Sullivan: Come on in: the Anglosphere is freedom’s new home
The Sunday Times
London
I received yet another anti-French e-mail last week. It was part of a spoof press release. It began: “Paris — in a stunning reversal of policy, French President Jacques Chirac announced today that the French government will be supporting the war on terror after all.
“Five hundred soldiers from the elite French Surrender Battalion of the Foreign Legion are in the process of shipping out to Iraq where they will assist the Iraqi Republican Guard in their inevitable surrender to the overwhelming might of the American armed forces.
“Chirac also announced that his government will send 3,000 advisers from the French Collaboration Force to assist the Iraqis in collaborating with the Americans while pretending to be part of a non-existent resistance movement.”
Brutal, non? But certainly not rare. I’ve lived in the United States for almost 20 years and have rarely heard anything but condescension towards successive French governments. But now that condescension has turned to contempt.
A cover piece in the liberal online magazine Slate last week had the headline “Why they hate us”. It referred to France. In a recent online poll people were asked which other countries they would place next to Iran, Iraq and North Korea in the “axis of evil”. France won by a mile.
And then Donald Rumsfeld blurted out what many privately think: France and Germany are the old Europe, with sclerotic economies, anachronistic aspirations for world power, and terribly weak leaders, shored up by appeals to crude anti-Americanism (Schröder) or to the fact that they’re not actually neo-fascist (Chirac).
That’s why when The Wall Street Journal and The Times published a letter from eight European leaders calling for unity in facing down Saddam, it was big in the United States. The chattering classes began to talk about another kind of international coalition: not one based on power-politics, or geographic proximity, but on a shared commitment to civil society and free economies, and a determination not to appease but to confront international terrorism.
The word for this nascent international alliance is the Anglosphere. The Anglospherists have been stirring discussion among Washington’s conservative think tanks. Their vision of the future of the West is starkly different to that envisioned by the Euopean Union or even, in some respects, the United Nations.
The Anglosphere is not a revived version of the “special relationship” between the US and the UK. Nor is it some racist contraption uniting “Anglo-Saxons” or even “English-speaking peoples”. It is, rather, a notion of an expanding group of nations and countries that share basic principles: individualism, rule of law, honouring contracts and covenants, and the elevation of freedom to the first rank of political and cultural values.
One of the critical elements of an Anglospherist nation is a healthy and vibrant civil society; by which I mean voluntary associations, private schools and colleges, charities, sports clubs, churches and so on — the “little platoons” of liberty that Tocqueville so admired in England and America.
Why Anglosphere? Simply because these political values — by accident of history — originated in England and subsequently Britain. But these values need not be restricted to English-speaking countries. High on the list of countries eager to join are those in formerly communist eastern Europe who value freedom more dearly for having been denied it for so long.
Others include centre-right governments in Italy and Spain. But countries where civil society is weak — Latin America, Asia or (as yet) Russia — don’t make the grade. Nor do those societies where personal freedom is close to non-existent — the Arab world. France and Germany are standouts against such a concept as well. Why? Because the state in each country is too powerful, scepticism about individual freedom and civil society deep, and economic rigidity is maintained at the expense of employment and growth.
That’s why the coalition to disarm Saddam is a sign of a changing world. Terrorism threatens societies that value freedom more than those that don’t. Citizens of free societies have more to lose from terror — more civil liberties, more personal freedom of movement and thought.
Religious terrorism is also anathema to free societies, because it threatens freedom of religion by equating it with violence and intolerance. So I don’t think it is surprising that, say, China and Russia are more ambivalent about disarming Saddam than, say, America or Australia. And it is equally unsurprising that the European Eight are those countries most sympathetic to an Anglospheric worldview.
Should this mean a formal alliance? Not necessarily. After all, one of the other ingredients of an Anglospheric view of the world is that voluntary associations are often better than forced ones. Anglosphere nations should co-operate when necessary. But just as they value freedom at home, they also value it abroad.
National sovereignty is a freedom as well — one that free countries are reluctant to give up without some tangible gain. So this concept will never yield something like the EU, an institution that can only make sense to a Gallic or German mind that sees the chaotic liberty of a diverse Europe in need of false coherence and discipline.
But for these reasons the Anglosphere is also durable. It springs from the values people hold, not the concepts their leaders impose upon them. As we move slowly out of a post-cold war era, the coalition emerging against Saddam today may well mark the future of international relations. Here’s hoping.
ww.telegraph.co.uk
