February 2006: Is “Old Europe” Doomed?

Is Old Europe Doomed?

» About This Issue: Is Old Europe Doomed?

Lead Essay

» Is "Old Europe" Doomed? by Theodore Dalrymple

Reaction Essays

According to historian Timothy Smith, author of France in Crisis, the main problem of Old Europe is that overregulated labor markets, alleged to "humanize" capitalism and promote "solidarity," instead work to consolidate economic privileges for tenured labor unionists and state employees, and exclude broad swathes of the population, especially immigrants, from the work force. Smith is careful to distinguish the relative stagnation of France, Germany, and Italy from their more successful Scandanavian counterparts, and argues against Dalrymple that the U.K. is really in pretty good shape.

» Reply by Charles Kupchan

Disagreeing sharply with Theodore Dalrymple's grim diagnosis, Georgetown University international affairs professor and Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Charles Kupchan maintains that "it is simply not the case that the continent is populated primarily by sclerotic, dysfunctional economies on their last gasp." However, Kupchan argues that Dalrymple's essay "considerably underestimates . . . the challenge of integrating Muslim immigrants into European society." The Paris riots and the Danish cartoon imbroglio demonstrate that Europe has "embraced multiculturalism in fact, but not yet in spirit."

» Reply by Anne Applebaum

In her reply to Dalyrmple's lead essay, the Washington Post's Anne Applebaum lists "three factors which could, over the next decade, help reverse Europe’s course." Market-friendly leaders, "an acknowledgment of the possibilities presented by the new members of the European Union", and ditching "their increasingly bizarre obsession with the evil United States," would, Applebaum argues, go a long way to "help Europe escape its current economic and psychological slump."