Essay From my UC Davis International Relations of Western Europe Class

The European Union: A Rising American Rival

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Published July 20, 2007 by:

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Essay From my UC Davis International Relations of Western Europe Class

Traditionally, unification of states occurred through invasion and conquering. This kind of integration by domination lead to continual warring for centuries throughout the world. The voluntary alliance of the colonies in the United States was the beginning of the longest-standing democracy currently in existence to date. For the beginning of the existence of the young nation, the great colonizers in Europe still held large shares of the global power pie. The devastation caused by two back-to-back world wars in Europe reduced the global political spectrum from a multi-polar system consisting of the major players in Europe to one of bipolarity between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the USSR, the United States rose as the single dominant superpower. While many states have since rapidly industrialized in attempts to catch up to the success of the American capitalist market, the once-great nations that cyclically dominated Europe for ages started to voluntarily unite to create what would eventually become the largest supranational intergovernmental organization (IGO) in the world. The European Union is growing and solidifying in such a way that within the coming decades it may surpass the United States in economic and political power.

The gross domestic product (GDP) of a country speaks a great deal about its economic strengths and successes. According to the CIA World Factbook, the GDP for the United States in 2005 was $12.31 trillion, controlled for purchasing power parity (PPP); with a population of just under three hundred million, the GDP per capita stands at a sturdy $41,600 per person. [1] There is no question that The United States has the single largest and strongest economy in the world. The European Union, however, is not a single market, rather it is comprised of several independent markets that function free of bothersome barriers such as border control, taxes, regulations and exchange rates, to name but a few. It is difficult to accurately compare two economies that differ in exchange rate, power purchasing parity and even state participation. Be that as it may, the CIA cites the collective GDP/PPP for the 25 member states of the European Union as $12.18 trillion, and the GDP (official exchange rate) as $13.31 trillion; with an overall market population of more than 450 million, the average GDP per capita comes out at around $28,100. [2] Plainly stated, not only does the European Union have the larger market population-which means more people to purchase goods and services-it also has a larger GDP than the United States.

But what about the GDP per capita? At a glance it appears that the United States has a GDP per capita that is greater by nearly half that of the European Union. Looks can be deceiving. The 2003-2004 GINI index-a measurement that ranks governments according to equality in income distribution in which the lower the number, the lower the level of inequality-the United States ranked 45 and the European Union ranked 32. [3] To put this in perspective a bit, a ranking of 45 places the United States between China and the Philippines, countries whose average GDP per capita combined is still less than half the average United States GDP per capita. [4] The European Union's higher ranking means that even though the average resident of the of the United States makes more money than the average resident of the European Union, a larger number of residents in the European Union make the same as or perhaps even more than the majority of residents in the United States. This is because a greater portion of the wealth in the United States lies in a small portion of the population, which greatly skews the average. Mark Twain wasn't joking when he said that there are "lies, damn lies and statistics." [5] The reason for the lack of such vast disparity in the European Union can be found in the government's ardent anti-monopolization policies. Unlike the American governments that have favored large corporate capital over human and environmental capital, the European Union has consistently fought legislation that may bring harm to the environment or the welfare of its inhabitants.

Many cynics criticize the progress of the European Union, citing that the United States has fewer unemployed citizens, or that the social welfare programs that the European Union implements inhibit the kind of rapid and stable growth that the United States experiences as an economic superpower. These Euroskeptics observe selective data that fails to encompass the big picture of the development of the European Union. Just as GDP per capita is a one-dimensional indicator of true wealth of a population, the above listed critiques neglect to accurately depict the true nature of the situation in the world's largest governmental system.

The United States has fewer unemployed occupants than the European Union in terms of both percentages, as well as sheer numbers. Here's the breakdown according to the trusty CIA World Factbook: The United States has a workforce of about 149.3 million persons, including the unemployed, who make up an astonishingly low 5.1% of the population. [6] Meanwhile, the European Union's labor force consists of 218.5 million persons, also including the unemployed, who make up a disappointing 9.4% of the population. [7] Clearly the United States wins the prize for a lower level of unemployment, right? Not necessarily. The labor force is generally considered persons of a workable age (probably those above 14 years old) who are actively seeking work but cannot find it. This does not include such people as full-time college students who do not work but are of age, nor does it include stay-at-home mothers whose "job" it is to care for their homes and families. More importantly, it does not include the incarcerated. Ask any prison inmate, chances are he or she would rather be out looking for work-and many of them would probably find it-than rotting in a jail cell. This is where the United States and the European Union differ economically and socially. In October of 2005 the United States Department of Justice reported an overwhelming 2,267,787 people incarcerated in the various types of American prisons. [8] Compare that to the measly 67,383 people incarcerated throughout the entire 25 member states of the European Union [9] -keeping in mind that the population of the European Union is greater than the population of the United States by about half!-and it's easy to see how greatly it would distort employment data if prison population numbers were calculated into the total. Factoring in the more than two million people out of work in the United States due to incarceration drives up the unemployment rate twenty-seven percent, yet adding the fewer than 70,000 unemployed in the European Union due to incarceration does not even raise the unemployment rate one full tenth of a percent. Figures can indeed be misleading.

More important than statistics are the social and economic implications of such a huge number of Americans being jailed. An estimated 460,000 Americans were incarcerated for drug-related offenses, a number that is five to eight times larger than the number of European drug convictions, proportionately United States, more and more Americans are reduced to incarceration and subsequently released into the population with diminished likelihood to be significant contributors to society. Meanwhile in Europe, drug abuse is treated as an illness to be remedied rather than a crime to be punished. Thus European drug offenders are being successfully rehabilitated and reintroduced into society to go forth and be productive. In other words, the European Union is actively working to reduce drug addiction and consequently the number of ex-cons that need societal rehabilitation, and the United States is squandering tax payers' dollars and potential human capital on the overincarceration of persons arrested for drug-related crimes. As the drug conviction rate continues to rise in the

That the social standards for the member states of the European Union is detrimental to the success of the economy is but another cynical interpretation of the value the member states place on human capital. One of the requirements of member states in the European Union is to provide universal health care for all citizens. [11] Though this is an expensive practice for taxpayers to maintain, more than 46 million Americans lack health insurance. [12] Without the means to stay healthy, millions of Americans become less productive when they get sick. In this situation, determining which government is more successful depends on one's values. If the bottom line is all that matters, then the United States pays the lesser amount of money to maintain the health of its population. But if the quality of health is more important than a dollar figure, the European Union has the better system. Many Americans prefer private health care, but chances are that about 46 million of them would like to see their government care more about whether they make it to work or call in sick.

Environmental capital is another value that the United States government considers less so than the European Union. The fact that the United States did not sign onto the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union members did is only the beginning of the differences on the way the governmental bodies deal with environmental policy. The European Union prides itself in having the highest efficiency requirements for electronic appliances continuously researching alternative renewable energy sources, [14] and disallowing any product to come onto the market that contain elements that are hazardous to the environment. [15] This environmentally conscious attitude recognized the short-sightedness of the status quo for many industries. Failure to adopt such policies in the United States will eventually result in dwindling resources and pollution as an externality. The European Union factors in the cost of damage to the environment, something that would drive up productions cost drastically for many U.S. Corporations.

The economy-unemployment rates, productivity, the measure of externalities-certainly influences policy, but economy alone does not determine political leverage. While states (or IGOs as the case may be) with larger economies tend to have more political pull during international negotiations, the ability for a state or IGO to impact an international decision comes from a combination of two types of power: hard power and soft power. Hard power is simply brute force. When the United States didn't like the communistic government that was brewing under the democratically elected leader Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala circa 1954, the CIA organized a coup d'état to replace him with a more capitalist-friendly head. [16] No need for negotiations: brute force achieved the exact goals for which the United States government aimed. This is a prime example of hard power. When executed correctly, it is highly effective. The only problem is that hard power more often than not makes enemies, not friends. Following the conclusion of the Second World War and the rise of the United States as a political superpower, America has consistently used hard power, sometimes as a last resort and sometimes seemingly as a first, in Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Southwest Asia, Northeast Asia, and Northern Africa. No military force compares in numbers, technologies, and capabilities to the United States militaries. Consequently, over the years America has made many enemies and distanced many friends. And while the United States is gaining a reputation for its quick temper and strong hand, the officials in the European Union are building up soft power. Soft power is derived from diplomacy and negotiations. At the printing of this essay, the United States is trapped in a occupation of Iraq with no clear way out. The occupation began as an invasion with the intent to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, done before the United Nations Security Council could reach a formal decision on the issue. [17] This brazen decision, reached without the approval of the UNSC, angered many of its members and aggravated the United States' relations with some of the key European and Asian powers. Essentially, America lost some of its soft power by disrespecting the authority and influence of the UNSC in order to wage war against a state in an already unstable region. The European Union, however, prefers to maintain its diplomatic relations with other states by respecting both the guidance of the UNSC and its members, as well as the peoples and governments of the Middle East. The European Union officially maintains that "the Middle East itself is a region with which Europe has long-standing political, historical, cultural, economic and commercial ties, and whose stability and security are essential to Europe's own stability and security. This is why the EU and its Member States are fully committed to the Peace Process." [18] Thus the United States is losing friends by using force, and the European Union is gaining more and more soft power by exercising diplomacy before brute force.

The time of the United States as a single superpower is near its end. The economies of several East Asian countries have begun to rival that of the United States, but the collective European Union is already ahead. And as the European Union continues to progress and mature, it grows in world political strength through soft power. The strategy to rehabilitate rather than penalize and to place value on human and environmental capital holds potential to structure the economy for more stable, long-term productivity than many of the short-sighted policies the United States implements. Ultimately, the controversial and highly criticized policies that the European Union supports both politically and economically will give it the edge to get ahead of the United States.

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