WEDDED TO THE SECOND WAY:

Europe's balancing act: The 'social model' is fraying, but the Continent is wary of raw capitalism. So now what? (Peter Ford, 6/02/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

For decades, European leaders have proudly offered their "social model" as a beacon to the world, marrying free markets with strong welfare systems to guarantee their citizens both prosperity and security.

But as the Continent ponders its future in the wake of voters' rejection of a European Constitution that sought to balance those two goals, the European model is fraying at the edges. Profound disagreement exists over how to make it meet the demands of a rapidly changing world. [...]

One constitutional phrase, guaranteeing "free and unfettered competition" across the EU economy, generated especially strong hostility in France.

Jeremy Rifkin, author of "The European Dream" and adviser to European Social Democratic governments, worries that the debate has been limited to a contest between unfettered market capitalism and democratic socialism. "Europe has lost sight of the need for a model that stimulates the market and understands its failure to distribute wealth fairly," he argues.

That was exactly what the "social market model" was meant to do. But under the pressure of global competition, it is under fire from both right and left, for being either too social, or too market oriented.

The core human conflict is, has been, and will always be, between security and freedom, but the notion that the modern Anglo-American model involves some kind of raw Social Darwinism, with the economically unfit left for dead, is simply deranged.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 2, 2005 12:00 AM