Decline and fall

From The Brussels Journal:

A quote from Walter Laqueur in The Chronicle Review, 11 May 2007

True, the achievements of the European welfare state had been remarkable. Americans can only dream about a 35-hour work week or five weeks of paid holidays a year. But the problem was that all those social-assistance programs were affordable only as long as substantial economic growth took place. [...] Future historians may well be at a loss to understand why the sorry state of affairs was realized only late in the day, despite the fact that all the major trends — demography, the stalling of the movement toward European unity, and the crisis of the welfare state — had appeared well before the turn of the century.

The decline of the Roman Empire has been discussed for centuries, and it could be that the discussion about the decline of Europe will last as long. Decline often does not proceed as quickly as feared; there are usually retarding circumstances. But it is also true that, for better or worse, the pulse of history is beating quicker in our time than before.

Europe will not face what is happening because it does not wish to do so. Facing what is happening would mean either doing something about it or admitting, out loud, that they are too lazy or too weak to do anything.

They will do neither of those things because doing the first would require them to give up the comfortable welfare state which they are all hoping will somehow manage to last just a little bit longer than their own lifetimes and they will not do the second because that would mean surrendering the last scrap of pride which they still retain.

I urge you, gentle reader, to leaven your disgust with a bit of pity. They were once great. They once made great contributions to human civilization. America was at its founding the continuation and perfection of work they began. If the carnage of WWI and the effort of standing up to and defeating the Nazis and the Soviet communists were too much for them and their strength failed and they fell under the spell of the Siren song of collectivism and so lost their soul we can at least look back at their past achievements and be grateful.