Below are a couple of different articles, from entirely different sources and apparently entirely unrelated issues. However it seems to me that there is a lesson in the two of them that is not apparent from either article alone.
It is this, the first article happens to compare the military spending of the US with that of Europe, particularly continental Europe. It makes the point that the European Union is "hugely endowed with both money and experience. It is capable - if it had the purpose - of being a global [military] player on a near-par with the United States. What is lacking is the will."
The article is disapproving, it derides Europe for being critical of the US, while refusing to "pay its share of the bill". As if wasting a huge share of its GDP on military expenditure (in the absence of any credible military threat) were somehow an obligation, let alone sane and moral.
The second article casts some light on the different priorities of Europe, particularly continental Europe. Its welfare expenditure. The article, written from an Australian perspective, is chiefly concerned to highlight the great disparity between the conditions of the poor in Australia and their treatment in Europe. But in passing it mentions that "Only the US, where the well-off had 5.6 times more than the poor, Italy (4.7) and Britain (4.5) had an income distribution more skewed towards the rich than Australia (4.3)."
This hints at who really pays for the obscene military expenditure of the US government. At the heart of this gargantuan military machine is an obscene immorality - the suffering and impoverishment of a huge proportion of its own citizens. In the US we know this goes to the extent of the virtual enslavement of the poor through 'workfare', effectively stripping their citizenship rights. Because slaves cannot be citizens, except as a legal fiction.
Though one should be careful not idealise the European welfare state(s) either. Europe might look respectable in comparison with the US, but that is no great achievement. They are not exactly the promised land of the poor and downtrodden in objective terms. And neither, incidently, is the Australian welfare system quite so bad as Tim Colebatch's article might suggest to the uninitiated. (There's always plenty of sheep to steal.) Though he isn't far from the mark. But its not nearly so oppressive as the US welfare system designed by the "imbecilic" government.
No, Europe is no utopia for the poor. What it amounts to is merely different strategies being employed by different national ruling classes. In Europe the strategy seeks to maintain a large degree of social consensus by making concessions to the population. In the US of course the strategy of the ruling class is to maintain power, and popular consent for that power, by the more primitive divide and rule of the population. Which usually depends on being able to conjure up an enemy of some kind.
The lesson of history is that the latter strategy confers greater power and riches on the ruling class in the short term. But you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
The imperiums of the past collapsed primarily due to their own internal economic deficiencies. One should not be overly impressed by the military shell, which is utterly dependent on the economic infrastructure of an empire. The great strength of the US is, and always has been, its enormous economic powerhouse. And that economic greatness grew out of and rested on, an innovative and progressive society.
The 'rollback' of the welfare state is not a progressive step, it is an early symptom of decay. Symptomatic of a reversion to primitive economic imbecilism that bodes ill for the future. The Roman empire was destroyed largely by its internal economic contradiction, its dependence on slavery and tributes from conquered and subject peoples rotted its own economy, destroying home industries and thus destroying the original basis for its greatness.
Are we seeing the same thing happening to the US empire? The imbecilic and immoral emperors are a bad sign.
Judge for yourself.
Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas
http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,656058,00.html
Inside Politics
How to deal with the American goliath
Downing Street's intelligent diplomacy with Washington is more grown-up than European whining at the megapower
New: debate the columnists online
Andrew Rawnsley
Sunday February 24, 2002
The Observer
Just over 10 years ago, a tremendously distinguished professor of history at Yale University shocked the rest of the inhabitants of the most powerful nation on the planet. He warned that the American Empire was destined to follow the same trajectory as the imperiums of Rome, Persia, Charlemagne, Spain, Britain and every other empire on which the sun eventually set. In his bestselling Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Paul Kennedy forecast that the coming challenge for American leaders would be managing relative economic decline and the diminution of military might.
Well, even Ivy League professors occasionally call it wrong. And even Ivy League professors are sometimes willing to fess up as much. Since the atrocities of 11 September, Professor Kennedy has adjusted his predictions. This acclaimed strategic pundit says that the fall of the American megapower 'seems a long way off now'. The largest naval armada assembled since 1945 currently cruises the Arabian Gulf. The decks of these warships bristle with weaponry of a sophistication and potency that no other state on Earth comes anywhere close to matching. The US spends more on its forces than the next nine biggest powers put together: a global imbalance without historical precedent. And that's even before George Bush has added another $48 billion to next year's military budget.
The challenge, it turns out, faces not America but the rest of the world. Rather than Americans having to handle decline, everyone else must try to manage this goliath. The challenge is made more severe by an American administration which, from tearing up international treaties to trampling over Geneva conventions, combines an instinct for unilateralism with absolute certainty about the justice and urgency of its mission. It's a moot kind of victory for the campaign against terrorism when Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and the CIA foresees Afghanistan spiralling into civil war.
But a great triumph it has been proclaimed in the heads of President Bush and those who are guiding him to unleash further hostilities against anyone that America identifies as her enemy. The voices of restraint in Washington are decreasing in number and influence. Colin Powell, the one American whom Europeans thought they could count on as an agent of caution in Washington, recently rang Jack Straw. The Foreign Secretary sought guidance about how the mind of the White House was developing. Powell replied with words to the effect that he had phoned because 'they are more likely to tell you guys than me'.
Relations between America and Europe, their oldest and most natural allies, are descending to a nadir not seen in more than half a century. Chris Patten lambasts the 'simplistic' Bush; the French Foreign Minister scoffs at the 'hyperpuissance'; the German Foreign Minister huffs about being treated as 'satellites'. When Americans can be bothered to listen, which is rarely, they dismiss as effete appeasement the European wincing over George Bush's blast at the 'axis of evil'. Americans react - and quite understandably - by asking who saved Europe from the evils of first Nazism, then of Stalinism. Europe fears that America has become a swaggering behemoth; the Americans despise Europe as an axis of whingers. And both are broadly right.
One European leader has set himself apart by refusing to utter a particle of public criticism of the United States. The wider the continental drift, the further Tony Blair stretches himself to straddle the chasm. He is sticking to the strategy that he instinctively formulated in a matter of minutes following the attacks on the Twin Towers. He continues to calculate that leverage over Washington is maximised by being the unswerving ally. That does not make him an unqualified admirer of this Oval Office. The intellectual capacity of Dubya is not highly rated within Downing Street. One of Mr Blair's most influential foreign policy advisers regards George Bush as 'imbecilic', a global village idiot. The Prime Minister might secretly agree. Even if he did, he sees as much point hectoring America as there is in heckling a juggernaut.
Those in his government and party who expect Mr Blair to restrain Mr Bush's ambitions to strike against Iraq are likely to be disappointed. The intelligence material that the Prime Minister sees makes him genuinely disturbed - it would not being going too far to say petrified - about Saddam Hussein's potential ability to use weapons of mass destruction. Mr Blair is not against removing the Iraqi dictator. He is only concerned that the Americans produce a plan that actually works.
When the British Prime Minister talks to the American President, he does not expend effort trying to divert George Bush from a new war against Iraq. The counsel from Mr Blair is that opinion needs to be prepared before hostilities commence. Just as he presented the case against bin Laden, the Prime Minister offers himself to the Americans as their global spin doctor-cum ambassador, suggesting that they first need to confront the world with the evidence against Saddam.
Where there is grit in the Blair-Bush dialogue is about American willingness to be as tough on the causes of terrorism as they want to be on terrorism itself. The Prime Minister knows he is dealing with an administration scornful of the idea of 'nation-building'. Even then, Mr Blair sees no gain from being in Bush's face about it. He senses that Europe's concerns aren't getting a hearing in America because Europe bleats with a voice which is both confused and hypocritical.
The European Union has a larger population than the United States and a bigger GDP. Europe is hugely endowed with both money and experience. It is capable - if it had the purpose - of being a global player on a near-par with the United States. What is lacking is the will. As Jack Straw highlighted the other day, Europe's ability to take and implement decisions is poor. Europe asks to be treated as America's partner, but behaves like a dinner companion who always complains about the menu and will never pay its share of the bill.
Germany is still cutting an already paltry defence budget. The armies of France and Italy are, in the acid assessment of one highly-placed official within our own Foreign Office, 'youth movements in uniform'. Only because of the superior professionalism and resourcing of the British armed forces has Tony Blair been able to make himself an exception to America's disdain for European leaders. One of the best aspects of Blairite foreign policy was the intervention in Sierra Leone, where the democratic government was saved from murderous brigands whose speciality is cutting the limbs off small children.
When assistance was asked of the rest of Europe, the total support offered was a dozen Polish troopers. In Afghanistan, half the soldiers engaged in trying to keep the peace are British. The pathetic contribution from most of Europe makes ridiculous their complaints about American reluctance to put more of its sons and daughters on that hazardous ground. The Europeans are still squabbling over the funding of their so-called rapid reaction force, which is not going to be terribly rapid, nor much of a force.
There are evident risks in Tony Blair's approach. But it is a bit more dignified and intelligent than whining. He has come to the correct conclusion that resentful sniping at America has no traction on the megapower. The United States is not going to listen to lectures from Europe about American responsibilities. Not until Europe demonstrates a much greater willingness to start addressing its own responsibilities.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/02/24/1014471617184.html
Study shatters egalitarian myth
Tim Colebatch
February 25 2002
Low-income households in Australia are the poorest of almost any comparable Western country, a landmark international comparison of income distribution reveals.
Professor Timothy Smeeding, director of the government-funded Luxembourg Income Study, found that of 13 Western countries, in all but Britain the poor had more real spending power than their counterparts in Australia - in most of them, much more.
In nine European countries, a typical low-income household in the mid-1990s had a third more spending power than a low-income household in Australia, he said.
The Luxembourg-based study, in which 27 Western governments now participate, is the first attempt to compare income distribution in different countries using consistent criteria.
Its findings collide with the myth of Australia as an egalitarian country.
In seminars this week at the Australian National University, Professor Smeeding, from Syracuse University in New York, revealed that while the well-off in Australia live better than their counterparts in Europe, low-income households are far worse off.
Of 21 countries for which broadly comparable data is available, Australia was the fourth most unequal in its distribution of household income.
Only the US, where the well-off had 5.6 times more than the poor, Italy (4.7) and Britain (4.5) had an income distribution more skewed towards the rich than Australia (4.3). The most equal sharing of income, by contrast, was in Sweden, where the well-off had 2.6 times more than the poor, Finland (2.7), Belgium, Norway and Denmark (all 2.8).
Comparing the 13 countries whose statistical data is the most reliable and comprehensive, Professor Smeeding found that America's rich were the richest in the Western world, but its poor were close to being the poorest.
The average high-income family in the US had 2.65 times the spending power of the average Australian family, the study's figures show. But the average low-income US family was less than half as well off as the typical Australian family - and far poorer than the poor in Switzerland, Norway, Belgium or other European countries.
"Only in Australia and the UK do low-income persons have a lower real living standard (in money terms) compared to that of the United States," Professor Smeeding said.
The US fared worse when children's living standards were compared, with Australia's low-income children slightly better off than their US counterparts, who are mostly black or Hispanic.
The study found middle-income Australians were broadly on a par with middle-income Europeans, though they had well below the spending power of middle-income Americans. But high-income Australians had 5 to 10 per cent more income than high-income Europeans, ranking equal fifth of the 13 countries.
Professor Smeeding concedes that there are many limitations in the data used for the study, but concludes that nonetheless "our comparisons are about as good as any that could be done at this time".
The most important limitation affecting Australia's results is that the income measures take out income tax, which is relatively high in Australia, but not other taxes, which are relatively low here (18 per cent of GDP, compared with 30 per cent in Western Europe).
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