July 14, 2005

The Problem with Europeans
by Lorraine Berry

It's always great when an opinion columnist points out that Europe's falling birth rates means that the continent, as a whole, will soon be the withered old man on the world stage.

The rhetoric is so fraught with imagery that I can't resist parsing the column to bring to light the agenda behind such a piece.

It's hard to be a great power if your population is shriveling. Europe's birthrates have dropped well below the replacement rate of 2.1 children for each woman of childbearing age. For Western Europe as a whole, the rate is 1.5. It's 1.4 in Germany and 1.3 in Italy. In a century -- if these rates continue -- there won't be many Germans in Germany or Italians in Italy. Even assuming some increase in birthrates and continued immigration, Western Europe's population grows dramatically grayer, projects the U.S. Census Bureau. Now about one-sixth of the population is 65 and older. By 2030 that would be one-fourth, and by 2050 almost one-third.

Don't you love that word, shriveling? What was once tumescent and strong is now, well, withered. Hmmmm.

And those birth rates. You know. Those birth rates are frightening, because if European women aren't breeding, then those other people, the ones whose religions tell them to go forth and multiply, are breeding. And soon they will outnumber Europeans.

Hmmm. Wonder where I've heard hysteria about birth rates before? Could it be between World War I and World War II? Could it be the impetus behind pro-natalist policies in certain countries that embraced Fascism? Nah. Don't think so. That would be paranoid of me to think so.

Then, there's that problem with Europe's economy. After providing some details of slow growth, we get to this analysis:

Consider some contrasts with the United States, as reported by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. With high unemployment benefits, almost half of Western Europe's jobless have been out of work a year or more; the U.S. figure is about 12 percent. Or take early retirement. In 2003 about 60 percent of Americans ages 55 to 64 had jobs. The comparable figures for France, Italy and Germany were 37 percent, 30 percent and 39 percent. The truth is that Europeans like early retirement, high jobless benefits and long vacations.

Let's see. High unemployment benefits in Europe mean the jobless deliberately choose to stay unemployed. Whereas, in the US, because we drop the unemployed from the benefit rolls after several months (depending on how generous Congress is feeling that year) well, our number drops to 12 percent who are still unemployed after a year. And what happens to those 12 percent? Who cares?

Then, it turns out that Europeans don't want to have to work until they're too old to enjoy not having to work. They don't work until they're 70, which only gives them a few years before they drop dead, no, they retire in their fifties. AND THEY LIKE TO TAKE LONG VACATIONS. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Don't they realize their jobs are to be cogs in the economic machine so that rich people don't have to work?

There's more, of course, but this was one of my favourite paragraphs. (By the way, when he quoted other "scholarly" experts, they were from the American Enterprise Institute. Are you sensing a pattern here?)

The trouble is that so much benevolence requires a strong economy, while the sources of all this benevolence -- high taxes, stiff regulations -- weaken the economy. With aging populations, the contradictions will only thicken. Indeed, some scholarly research suggests that high old-age benefits partly explain low birthrates. With the state paying for old age, who needs children as caregivers? High taxes may also deter young couples from assuming the added costs of children.

The problem with Europeans, you see, is they're too damn civilized. They believe in taking care of their populations, believe government is there to aid its people, to help to create a society in which quality of life is valued above economic production.

And somehow, this means people are having fewer children. How can an economy run if there are fewer worker bees? How can morality be enforced if people are having sex and it doesn't make babies? That means they're having fun and clearly making choices about contraception. We can't have that! Our system is better! Sex is for babies! Life is for work! Make money! And if Europe doesn't start making WHITE babies, we can't possibly count on it to help us in our never-ending quest to kill non-white people!

Stupid Europeans!!!!

Posted by in Abortion, Conservatism, Culture, Economics, Ethnicity, Europe, Labor, Liberalism, Nationalism, Rhetoric, Welfare, World Economy
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