Emmanuel Todd on Europe

 

moon of  alabama

In 1976 Emmanuel Todd predicted the down fall of the Soviet Union. In After The Empire, first published in French in 2001, he predicted the (relative) decline of the United States. From a 2003 review:

Todd makes the following key points:
...
3.  The United States economy is headed for a crash and is only buoyed up by foreign investments. The United States trade deficit is a disaster that is fed by US firms which push their factory jobs overseas and gut the nation’s industrial base. Some 10% of American industrial consumption depends on foreign goods for which there is no corresponding balance in national exports. America no longer has the economic and financial resources to back up its foreign policy objectives. The United States is becoming a nondemocratic, arch-conservative society split between the very rich and the service sector;
...
5. The United States is economically dependent on those countries which hold its bonds and debt–China, Japan and Europe. The US needs a certain amount of global disorder to offset this dependence in order to maintain the US political-military presence in the Old World; and,

Seems like he got some things right.

Now Todd published a new book, this time on Europe. I have not yet read it, but this from a Financial Times review sound interesting:

In his latest book, Après la démocratie (After Democracy), [Todd] conjures up the alarming possibility of a post-democratic Europe reverting to ethnic scapegoating and dictatorship.

...
Mr Todd paints a picture of a collusive political-media elite that benefits from globalisation while being disconnected from the people who suffer from it. As arrogant as the aristocracy on the eve of the 1789 revolution, this elite blithely ignores the views of voters whenever it suits them. French voters rejected the European Union’s constitutional treaty, but a modified version was later adopted by parliament. Britain’s voters protested massively against the war in Iraq, but the government sent in the troops regardless.

Ordinary workers blame cheap-wage China for killing jobs and compressing wages. Instead, France’s leaders scapegoat Muslim immigrants and target militant Islam, justifying an unpopular intervention in Afghanistan. Employees want Europe to protect their jobs but, in spite of his increasingly protectionist rhetoric, Mr Sarkozy – and the opposition Socialist party – still adhere to the free-trade dictates of the EU and the World Trade Organisation.

In Mr Todd’s reductionist view, globalisation is simply the exploitation of cheap workers in China and India by US, European and Japanese companies. He is therefore an unabashed champion of European protectionism. Erecting trade barriers would increase European wages which, in turn, would increase demand and boost trade, he argues. The “social asphyxia” that is sucking the breath out of democracy would disappear.

The British, whose very identity is wrapped up in free trade, will never buy protectionism, Mr Todd suggests, but Germany and the rest of the EU could be persuaded.

Hmm ... Possible? Likely? What do you think?

Posted by b on December 19, 2008 at 12:04 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2008/12/emmanuel-todd-on-europe.html