Written in 2004, “The European Dream” chronicles the rise of the United States of Europe and its increasing importance as a vision of what a truly global society might look like.

History

Perhaps the most engaging section of Mr. Rifkin’s argument is his historical analysis of the development of the world as we know it today. The rise of nation-states, property rights and free markets, individualism, and modern conception of time and space are all carefully detailed, without ever tipping into the realm of ‘too academic’. If I were to recommend reading only a portion of the book’s 400 pages, I would start here.

Economy & Lifestyle

Rifkin is quick to draw comparisons between America and Europe. While Americans enjoy higher incomes and higher levels of consumption, this is hardly seen as something to aspire to. Americans live to work, and very often work themselves to death, where in contrast Europeans are working to live, have reduced work hours and longer vacations.

Europe is hardly presented as some sort of utopia, and the author points out that most of its security needs in the past 60 years have been provided by Americans, a situation that is unlikely to last, especially as Europe aspires to the status of super-power. Nonetheless, Rifkin presents a compelling case that Europe is better off than Americans on most ‘real’ (i.e. non-GDP) metrics.

Immigrants

Perhaps the darkest cloud in an otherwise sunny forecast for Europe is the question of immigration. Native-born populations are shrinking, and unless the birth rate miraculously rebounds, the slack will need to be picked up by immigration. But immigrants do not receive a warm welcome in most European communities, and are eyed with suspicion and fear. This xenophobic outlook, if not adequately dealt with, could bring the whole house crashing down.

In early 2011, European governments are declaring their multiculturalism policies to be failures, and looking to the American “melting pot” as a more promising model for assimilation and cultural stability. As a Canadian, it makes me wonder if our experience is more of an accident of history, and less of a model to be adopted the world over.

Freedom & Property

In broad strokes, Americans are more ruggedly individualistic, seeing freedom primarily in terms of property rights, whereas Europeans are more communally minded, seeing freedom more in terms of universal human rights. Whatever your feeling might be towards these two sets of rights, Rifkin would argue that technology is shifting the balance towards the latter.

Property rights are rooted in 18th and 19th century concepts of nation-states, and emerged in response to the collapse of feudalism and the rise of the merchant class. If markets are all about defined borders and boundaries, enabling the buying and selling of property, the emergence of global networks like the internet and cultural diasporas erodes property rights (generally the purview of nation-states) and elevates the importance access to networks of relationships. This is not to say that property doesn’t matter, but it recognizes a growing shift in where we look for our security and wellbeing.

We have no governing model for these new distributed power relationships, but the EU is presented as an important first exploration into what such an extra-territorial jurisdiction might look like. (You might be tempted to say “that’s the UN”, but keep in mind that representatives to the UN are not elected, but the European Parliament is.)

The Future

Overall, Rifkin is cautiously bullish on the prospects of the European experiments. At the time of this book, 2004, he was anticipating the imminent arrival of a new European Constitution. That initiative failed after voters in France and the Netherlands rejected it in 2005. Still, the movement towards greater unification continues, even if in fits and starts.

Ultimately, in this book and others, Jeremy Rifkin is pointing to a fundamental shift in how humans conceive of themselves. We are moving away from more hierarchical structures towards distributed networks. We are rebalancing our vision of ourselves as autonomous free agents with one of networked relational beings. This shift is driven in large part by technological innovation, but also by a deep desire for a world of peace, justice and sustainable prosperity. As he sums up in his own book:

We Americans used to say that the American Dream is worth dying for. The new European Dream is worth living for.

God Bless Europa.