Clive Crook on the End of American Exceptionalism
I think that "American exceptionalism" really came to an end on two dates now long ago: March 4, 1933 (the inauguration of FDR) and June 5, 1947 (George Marshall's "Marshall Plan" speech). Ronald Reagan tried to widen the trans-Atlantic difference (or said he did) but failed (or, rather, his directors and cameramen soon decided that any serious effort to do so was a political loser).
Clive Crook more-or-less agrees:
The End of the American Exception: That the United States stands apart... goes back to Tocqueville.... America is to Europe as private enterprise is to the public good, as selfish individualism is to social partnership, as "compensation" is to work-life balance. Modern America has limited government, weak unions, high-powered incentives, capitalism red in tooth and claw. Post-war Europe has tax-and-spend, transport strikes, six-week vacations, and the welfare state....
Living in the U.S. for several years after decades as a restless Brit, I continue to be struck by two things. First, this idea of rival economic paradigms appeals to both audiences.... [But] in economic matters, America is far more like Europe, and Europe more like America, than either cares to admit. Moreover, the differences continue to shrink, and the pace of convergence seems about to accelerate.... Universal health care, if it happens, will be an enormous change in its own right, of course, but also one with further implications. It is going to push taxes up....
"Europe" is a gross simplification, so think about Britain--which continental Europe regards as a mid-Atlantic offshoot of the United States--and, say, the Netherlands. U.S. taxes are 27 percent of national income, British taxes are 37 percent, and the Netherlands' are 39 percent....
Roughly speaking, Britain and the Netherlands spend about 10 percentage points more of their national incomes on taxpayer-financed social spending. But if you allow for the higher taxes that Europeans pay on their benefits, and for cash-like tax reliefs that the United States freely uses to advance social goals, the difference shrinks by nearly half. This, to repeat, is before the Democrats have done their health reform....
Worker protections are weaker in America than in Western Europe, where employers are far less free to fire at will; and the floor that the minimum wage puts under incomes is lower here than there. But think about product-safety regulation, or environmental regulation. Think about the FDA. In many areas, America regulates its businesses at least as tightly as Europe.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration did make a serious attempt to deregulate parts of the economy. Particular industries, notably banking and the airlines, were transformed.... But these were exceptions to an ongoing trend of regulatory accretion....
Could the lines even cross? Could America ever become more European than Europe?.... Elements, at least, of the programs outlined by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during their nomination contest are significantly to the left of where Britain's Labour Party, post-Thatcher, post-Blair, now stands. (Think about that.)... For good or ill, the era of the American economic exception is coming to an end.
