June 18, 2005
AGHAST? TRY AGLEE:
Europe 1, American Right 0: Conservative pundits aghast at European voters’ EU snub don’t want to grapple with what those voters might be saying about unchecked capitalism. (Jim Sleeper, 06.16.05, American Prospect)
“Ranting like yours against capitalism is so over,” a vaguely neoconservative friend and writer of learned essays chided me last winter as I ranted, indeed, against proposals to privatize Social Security. Recently, another writer-acquaintance, David Brooks, chided French and Dutch voters for rebuffing “higher living standards” (more jobs and consumer goods) by refusing to ratify the European Union’s proposed constitution, in an effort to defend their outmoded social-welfare networks and their ineffable “quality of life.”But if resistance to global capitalism isn’t as “over” over there as EU elites thought, couldn’t its cheerleaders be missing something over here, too? I don’t mean a demand for socialism, thank you, but, far more modestly, stirrings of a civic republicanism that has often had to save capitalism from itself, both here and abroad. Maybe the European majorities -- not just the French and Dutch but also the Danes and the Brits, who’ve kept out of the Euro currency -- are sending signals worth heeding. How can my opinion-maker friends tout “democracy” abroad but call it backward-looking whenever it rears its head? Yet they’re pouncing so defensively on every doubt about the global cornucopia of competitiveness that you begin to wonder if there’s something they’re trying to hide.
Actually, I think I know what that is. But first, consider the signals from abroad. Shouldn’t patriotic American conservatives, of all people, loathe the EU’s unelected, post-nationalist, corporatist bureaucracy, whose sway Brooks once mocked as “Belgian cultural hegemony”
Wha'happen? Is there anyone on the Right who isn't doing a victory dance over the corpse of Europe? Posted by orrinj at June 18, 2005 8:32 AM
Actually, in 1776 we tossed out a government by unelected elites and haven't looked back since.
Posted by: erp at June 18, 2005 9:31 AMThey were elected.
Posted by: oj at June 18, 2005 9:35 AMWith rare exceptions of limited power like the House of Burgesses, the colonial governments were unelected. You do remember all that stuff about 'No Taxation without Representation' don't you?
As for Europe. If they want to go down the toilet, they won't be missed.
Posted by: bart at June 18, 2005 10:18 AMAmerican Prospect 1, Strawman 0
Posted by: Brandon at June 18, 2005 10:20 AMSleeper must be asleep.
Every conservative I know was chuckling at the peasants' revolt!
Posted by: Jack Sheet at June 18, 2005 10:20 AMEU officials were elected?
Posted by: erp at June 18, 2005 10:41 AMHey we're capitalists. If the Frogs and the Krauts want to say "no mas" in the fight for global market share who are we to stand in their way?
Posted by: H.D. Miller at June 18, 2005 11:04 AM"Shouldnt patriotic American conservatives, of all people, loathe the EUs unelected, post-nationalist, corporatist bureaucracy"
Yes we do. what's the point?
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at June 18, 2005 12:32 PMProbably more of the French were voting against the constitution because it was too liberal than because it was too statist. But that doesn't mean that, in fact, the result of defeating the constitution won't be good for Europe generally and even for the French, specifically.
Posted by: David Cohen at June 18, 2005 12:33 PMIf not a victory dance, at least a Nelson Mutz.
And if the politcal roles were reversed,you know Leftists wouldn't just be dancing, but claiming they composed the tune and played the instruments. (Which they hand-made, of course.)