The American-Western European Values Gap

I'm talking about values, Janpor. Most Americans believe with greater ferocity in equality of opportunity over equality of result. In practice, Europe is more successful in ensuring social and economic mobility for all. However, I would argue that this social and economic mobility is due to equality of result more than equality of opportunity. In the United States, we don't believe we can put a limit on one's economic success even if it leads to economic inequality. In Europe, people believe that there should be limits to ensure to some extent economic equality. Why is GDP per capita in European nations so high? Government upholds high minimum wages, and higher income tax rates. They attempt to provide a minimum standard of living for all their citizens, and one that's above the United States minimum standard of living.

 

I do find some logical disconnects in the opinion put forth as "American" in the OP.

How can you be free to pursue your life's goals if everyone is in need? If everyone is in need, then a responsible person is going to have too many responsibilities to really be free.

And how can you say that the state shouldn't be involved in peoples' lives, not even to help them when help is asked for, yet also believe that military intervention is called for all the time? What form of state interference is bigger than dropping a bomb on someone's house?

And since I'm an American, myself, I have to suspect that the poll is not entirely accurate in its depiction of American values.

 

Like anything, individualism has rational limits.

America has pretty much stretched them as far as possible with regard to economics.

 

Thank God for that. What a disgrace to be liked by racist, bullying scumbags. On the other hand, there are actually lots of educated Americans who get on with civilized people just as if the Republican Party didn't exist and the US was a normal place.

 

If we've become such extreme individualists, then perhaps you can explain why half the country is receiving some kind of government benefit.

Do extreme individualists often depend on others for their well-being and security?

 

Believing in individualism and living like it are different.

In effect, a lot of Americans are hypocrites, but because they believe in individualism while not actually living it, we end up with crappy public amenities and a lot of debt.

 

Always, surely - they live off surplus value, for instance, i.e. other people's work. They drive on roads other people make, and so on and so on. No man is an island, nor no woman either.

 

So, the problem isn't extreme individualism but extreme hypocrisy.

 

Ok, I can agree with that.

 

It's true actually. In a society, individualism is limited by practical concerns like public roads and police, for example.

Most of the First World would also consider public education and public healthcare to be practical concerns.

 

If that's the case, you might want to do some deep soul searching.

 

Yes, as far as literature goes, the US have many greats who express our national character, Hemingway and Mark Twain are two favorites of mine. I would argue that Europe has more of a tradition of artistic achievement in film with more existential and moving auteurs, but then I am into deep existential and slow moving films more than action or genre films so really it is just personal preference.

Maybe so, but most of Western Europe copied our model of governance, so, it can't really be said that that differentiates us that much. Most of Europe adopted similar constitutions and republics.

"Lastly, there is little doubt that the American Revolution of the 1770s and the formation of a republic in the 1780s served as a profound example to all European observers. Hundreds of books, pamphlets and public lectures analyzed, romanticized and criticized the American rebellion against Great Britain. For instance, in 1783 the Venetian ambassador to Paris wrote that "it is reasonable to expect that, with the favourable effects of time, and of European arts and sciences, [America] will become the most formidable power in the world." American independence fired the imagination of aristocrats who were unsure of their status while at the same time giving the promise of ever greater equality to the common man. The Enlightenment preached the steady and inevitable progress of man's moral and intellectual nature. The American example served as a great lesson - tyranny could be challenged. Man did have inalienable rights. New governments could be constructed. The American example then, shed a brilliant light. As one French observer remarked in 1789, "This vast continent which the seas surround will soon change Europe and the universe."

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture11a.html


Even Britain before the revolution was becoming more democratized - the problem is they wasted a bunch of money on the French-Indian war and wanted to recoup losses through taxation, the relationship was no longer mutual between the colonies and our supposed "mother country", all of which Thomas Paine's Common Sense elucidated.

I have to disagree with this, also Nietzsche and Marx are diametrically opposed figures. I would say the radical individualist stance of Nietzsche is more something Americans want to advocate. Marx was highly influential even to capitalists as he was an undisputed genius in the field of economics.

http://www.econguru.com/the-influence-of-karl-marx-on-economics/

Machievelli's ideas seem to more in use in current US politics in my opinion. I have no doubt that people like Karl Rove worship "The Prince".

I really have to disagree here. Most of Western Europe still has standing armies after all, even neutral countries. I think you overestimate the benefits Europe receives from having US bases in Germany and other countries.

We didn't really "beat" the soviets. We competed with them in amassing weapons to the point that both nations were in constant fear of some blunder or diplomatic foul that would ensure "mutually assured destruction". Both superpowers wanted to prove themselves as the greatest, and it is pretty sad that after the US won the cold war they abandoned things like the space program, because there was no longer the big "show" of who was the greatest super power.

The Soviet economy collapsed after perestroika and the revolutions of 1989. Although, yes, I think the world at the time considered market based Democratic Republics to be far superior to the dictatorship that was the USSR. Of course, that is the American point of view, and many of today's Russians long for the return of Communism.


http://www.gallup.com/poll/114430/russians-link-democracy-west.aspx

I think Americans forget the huge sacrifices Europe gave in WW2 as well. And the fact that we didn't enter the war on principals, we entered because we were attacked by Japan. Also, the fact that many captains of industry in the US during WW2 supported the Nazis and profited from concentration camps.

"Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there." - William E. Dodd, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, 1937.

The terms left and right are so convoluted now that it is hard to fit into either popular party because I would have to conform my personal beliefs and opinions to one party line or the other, and neither one really express these beliefs. I do think that government is a terrible intermediary between the interactions of individuals, if for no other reason than the fact that the government is not run by philosophers, it is run by opportunists and bureaucrats.

Which is why I believe it is up to individuals to work together to assure mutual rights and egalitarianism, not the state.

It is sometimes difficult to reconcile these beliefs because in political thought the ideal is in constant conflict with the necessary pragmatism associated with a corrupt and over-reaching administration and the concessions toward a better lifestyle for the majority, if you see what I am saying.

 

Nope. I'm referring to the European intolerance of American culture.

 

While there may be differences in culture and moral values, the graph doesn't lie. It is what it is in black and white. Its raw information, unbiased. The best kind.

 

The flaw in your argument is your acknowledgment of current reality.

 

Just shows the hipocresy of American society.

 

How on earth is your post related to the discussion and what is wrong wth allowing our main ally to station soldiers on our soil?

You evidently have a very anti-American, spiteful mindset. You obviously were not around during the Berlin Airlift, when the Americans helped an old enemy.I wonder if the Russians or the Germans would have done the same thing if the roles had been reversed? The Americans are certainly not perfect (who is?), but I would certainly prefer them to many other nationalities in times of need.Whom would you prefer, the North Koreans I suppose.

 

Americans (supposedly according to this study) are more likely to believe in military aggression but not government aggression (despite the fact that the military is part of the government), and other nations, vice versa.

Both are..weird positions.

 

Well, fortunately for America we're a nation of 310 million people(and growing) which no matter what gives us a ton of economic clout that Europe, even with it's bull(*)(*)(*)(*) monopoly currency that is about to turn into worthless paper, can't match.

Also, your snide comment to the Aussies about allowing American marines there to "mess around in China's business" is just wrong.

China has no business bullying around its neighbors and stealing their fishing zones and national resources that lie within their own territorial waters. Who gave China the right to just gobble up all the resources of the Western Pacific? Certainly not us and as long as our carriers ply the Oceans we protect the sea lanes and the rights of nations to exploit their natural oceanic resources from bullies like the Chinese.

China is sorely mistaken if it thinks one day America's carriers are just going to fade away and it will then just drive in with thier bull (*)(*)(*)(*) tin can navy and its second hand Russian garbage scow of an "aircraft carrier" and tell other nations their waters are now Chinese waters.

 

The only thing to discuss now is: is it worse to want little government force but high military force, or vice versa?

 

Millions of whom apply for government assistance (essentially, allocating resources to them for not being productive) due to limited low-skilled jobs. This is due to:

1. lack of marketable skills (as a whole) in the U.S., and

2. greed and corruption by the government and corporations.

EDIT: and 3. dumbass mother(*)(*)(*)(*)ers having 16 kids when they don't have a job, then doing anything they can, legal or illegal, to attain enough resources to support their kids.

 

All true, but that just shows how truly amazing the 53% who pay their income taxes are. How hard they work that they can support the needs of themselves and the needs of 47% of the country that pays no income taxes and still manage to protect the world's oceans from tyrants, dictators and petty Asian thugs.

 

In today's society of machinery and technology, it's not insanely difficult for that to happen, but it is unfair, although there are some situations where it is morally arguable that people should be allowed (temporary) welfare.

 

Or the Magna Carta, which probably made a larger step in human rights

 

Yeah right! All that did was grant some power to some nobles and did nothing to end Feudalism or free the Serfs, which continued to exist in Ireland right up until the 19th century.