Just How Left Wing is Europe?
Mitt Romney chose to wrap up his primary win last night with an extensive discourse on the evils of Europe, and of Barack Obama’s plans to turn the United States into a European-style socialist dystopia … but it’s worth noting that Europe is quite conservative in many ways
Conservatives will also find that Europe is much less open to immigration than the United States, that Europe generally has much lighter taxation of investment income, that few European countries uphold American-style strong separation of church and state, that European countries generally afford accused criminals fewer procedural rights, and that Europe has much less in the way of product liability and class action lawsuits. What’s more, though there are a few exceptions (Sweden comes to mind), Europe as a whole is more conservative in its gender norms in many ways. Women’s workforce participation rates are lower, fewer children are born to single parents, and there are many more legal restrictions on abortion.
One factor is worth noting: a welfare state has to be less open to immigration. There is something like five billion poor people in the world (probably more). If European welfare states had open immigration policies, its member states would experience a population explosion overnight as poor people from everywhere moved there to take advantage of better living conditions and generous welfare subsidies.
The general point is well-taken, but this article seems to casually blur social and political conservatism.
While social conservatism ususally equates with political conservatism, political conservatism can exist without social conservatism.
The assumption that political conservatives oppose women in the workforce is a poor one.
A few things in that article caught me by surprise:
“has much less in the way of product liability…”
I actually thought they would have more. But it makes sense though, when you think of the mass discontent with GMO products in Europe. Instead of holding individual producers liable for faulty products, they attitude they take is to just ban the entire perceived danger.
“….fewer children are born to single parents,…..”
That could be because the use of contraceptives is higher among single adults.
Fewer children born, period!
And Buster, you make a good point about the welfare state. What I’m curious about with respect to antipathy toward immigrants in Europe is what is the primary reason why Europeans have become less open to immigration.
Is it Islamaphobia on the Right? Or does it have more to do, increasingly, with a fear of centrist and left-center Europeans that Europe will see its welfare states bankrupted if they keep letting in so many immigrants?
I’m inclined to think that the latter is playing more of a role in anti-immigration attitudes than the European media is admitting.
I think it’s funny that, in spite of all of these conservative leanings, their stances on environmental regulations alone would drive me off the continent.