Is Europe’s Model Better Than America’s Shock Capitalism?

In every economic system, big corporations and managers bring together natural resources, labor, and technology to produce and distribute goods and services. But the way these different elements are organized and used reflect a nation's political ideals and its culture. It comes to no shock that America is categorized as having a capitalistic economy. The term capitalist is used to describe a system in which a small group of people control the large bulk of money and make the most important economic decisions. In America we call this small group the Federal Reserve, which is our central banking system that controls our money supply. In this article, Gilbert Mercier compares the American capitalistic approach to economy with the European's "new vision." He speculates on how in our economy it seems that the wealthy-few get richer, while the vast majority of Americans grow poorer, which correlates with what we discussed in class about the gap between the two groups growing larger. While America's economic system is experiencing a downturn, Europe is experiencing an economic boom post WWII. It is now the world’s wealthiest trading block, almost as large as the US and China combined. Mercier also states that Europe arguably has "the best health care and other social supports for families and individuals; widespread use of renewable energy technologies and conservation; and an unmatched regional network of trade, foreign aid, and investment that link one-third of the world to the European Union’s 27 member states and nearly half billion citizens." Europe operates as a union, which according to political writer and program director at the New America Foundation Steven Hill, "is an entirely new species of human organization, the likes of which the world has never seen." The European Union marks a "new evolutionary stage in supranational development" in the way it closely integrates entire regions of nation-states economically and politically. Europe used America and an ideal when forming the first stages of this union, but I believe its our turn to step back and what we can learn for their success story.

-Rebecca Jania

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/04/07/is-europes-model-better-than-americas-shock-capitalism/