We usually speak of the American Dream: regardless of where you were born, if you had a good education and worked hard, you could be a success. This was the ‘gold standard’: it was the covenant between the American citizen and his state, at least until the 1960s. It was a robust dream, based on middle class values, egalitarianism.
Since the 1960s it has come unravelled. Today, the US is the 24th industrialised country as regards income disparity. Only Mexico and Russia rank lower. Today, only 50 per cent of Americans believe in the American dream.
Today is seeing the emergence of a very powerful and different European dream, which is a complete opposite to the American dream. This European Dream stands to take over from the American Dream as the ideal in the coming years. It is a better fit for the new world order.
“You are Europeans,” Mr Rifkin told his audience, “and yet you spend half your time thinking about the US. We Americans, however, never think of you. You are not on our radar scan, except when we plan our vacations.”
The American understanding of Europe is that it is anti-market, filled with bias, with welfare blocking growth, with an ageing population: Eurosclerosis.
There are now new skies over Europe. After the recent EU expansion, it is now a continent of 450 million inhabitants from 25 countries. On 29 October the new European Constitution was signed: this is the first transnational constitution in European history. The EU is the strangest of animals: not even its architects understood where it was heading. It is an experiment, after 1,000 years of conflict, two world wars, the people of Europe got together and decided they wanted to build a new kind of Europe. Today, half of Europe’s young citizens declare they are European first and nationals second: this is truly remarkable.
The American dream is based on freedom, which leads to the personal accumulation of wealth, based on the inheritance of the Protestant and Enlightenment traditions, both of which see the individual at the centre of the universe, God and the marketplace, civil and property rights.
On the contrary, the European dream is based on the quality of relationships, on the strength of the community, the ability to hold various links at one and the same time. Europe is less about the accumulation of wealth, more about the quality of life.
In the US, people live to work. In Europe, they work to live.
The US is more religious, and also more patriotic. Europeans are more secular and much less patriotic.
One ought to start comparing the individual states of Europe to individual states in the US: Germany to California, UK to New York, France to Texas, Italy to Florida.
The US has much to learn from the Europeans about the quality of life: the US has now fallen into the 27th place as regards infant mortality. Europe is far safer: homicide in the US is four times that in Europe.
Following the recession in 1989, growth was ensured through the issuing of credit cards, as a result of which the Americans are spending and spending. They have mortgaged their future. More die of bankruptcy than of cancer. 1.6 million lost their jobs in two years.
Don’t follow the American dream, Mr Rifkin warned us. You have your own model. The integration of the European markets is a good thing, and, so is having common communications and energy grids. You will be the biggest market in the world by 2015.
Unless, Mr Rifkin concluded, reverting back to his native American way of thinking, you let politics intervene, say No to the Constitution, fail to create this great transnational space.
You must do something about your fertility rates or by 2015 two people will be working for every pensioner and the average age will be 54, not 24. To solve your fertility problems, go to Denmark where you cannot walk on sidewalks for pregnant women: the way they did it was through good quality childcare facilities. Take in more immigrants. Not even 50 million of them will do the trick!
Your governments should create stipends for university students to help immigrants integrate in their country of choice and to break down the barriers of intolerance and racial hatred.