Europe's economic ideology could doom it to collapse.

Welcome to the first post of Hard Truths are Beautiful. In the spirit of the blog, today's entry will cut to the bone of the European situation. As we have seen, Spain and the UK have slipped back into recession. There is a great deal of blame being placed upon the various austerity measures that have been adopted by various national governments (firmly among them are Spain and the UK) for the lack of growth and economic movement on the continent. Many Euro politicos are asking whether stimulus is the correct solution, such as French Socialist Francois Hollande, who hailed a "reorientation towards growth". The excellent WSJ article "Europe's Phony Growth Debate" determined that it is a fallacy that government spending (or reductions therein) can determine economic growth. The article concluded that structural reform is what is needed, involving deregulation and a reduction in government intervention in the economy. This, the WSJ concluded, leads to growth "driven by reforms in taxes, labor markets, regulation, pensions and more". 

This is not to repeat the excellent analysis that the Journal has already provided, but to detail a serious flaw in the Journals expectation. While indisputably necessary, the solution proposed by the Journal is unfeasible. The reason for this is that such a solution would be rejected by European populations due to its politics. A free-market solution will fall foul of the naturally socialist, welfare-statist ideology that is so typically European. Europeans have the tendency to ask for a solution from Vater Staat, the Father State. The reason that Europeans can only countenance a stimulus solution or an austerity solution is that they do not trust themselves to find the solution in an entrepreneurial free market; they would rather trust in the state to provide and dictate. This misplaced faith in the state is one of the reasons that Europe is on the brink of economic disaster. Rather than wanting the ability to choose the services and accommodations they wish to in a free market, Europeans would rather ask the state to provide them with a donation of that state's choosing, and when European states cannot afford  to donate any more, they accept the lack, rather than wishing for a choice of their own.

Until Europeans begin to realize that the state is not the giver of all things good, and demand the right to choose their own arrangements, European states will continue to spend more than they can afford to. When they must, they will then reign in that spending, and the people will suffer. Europeans must understand that each person has to take ownership of their life, and cannot rely upon the state to manage it for them. European states can no longer afford to provide for their people! It is time to deregulate, and allow the people to choose provision of their own.