by Kevin Morris

Created on: February 10, 2007

The European Dream
The European Dream, by Jeremy Rifkin, is a broad examination of the "New Europe," and a comparison of its political, economic, and social institutions to those of the United States. The European Dream draws on economic data, cultural attitudes, and Rifkin's own values to articulate its thesis that the American Dream, with its emphasis on property rights and individual material security is a dying facet of an industrial past, while the European Dream, with its emphasis on human rights and community, is the wave of our postmodern and postindustrial future. This is a bold claim, requiring broad strokes which Rifkin paints by examining the political philosophies, economies, and social structures of both the United States and the European Union.

Perhaps the most surprising argument Rifkin makes in The European Dream is that the economy of the European Union is stronger, and, in many ways, healthier than that of the United States. Rifkin makes this case by articulating many of the flaws and weaknesses in the economic future of the United States. For example, Rifkin mentions a survey that shows that while 55% of Americans under the age of 30 feel they will become personally wealthy, 71% felt there was no chance of that happening in their current employment. Moreover, Rifkin points out the fact that "the baby-boom generation is awash in debt," and that the National Research Council states that 3 million Americans are "lifetime" pathological gamblers (Rifkin 29). While these statistics may seem more social than economic in nature, debt, work ethic, economic expectations, and addiction do have significant impacts on economic productivity. But Rifkin does provide some more "traditional" economic data, some of which would be shocking to the average American. Rifkin identifies the fact that, of the top 20 industrial powers, the US was "dead last" in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s Even from 1995-2000, the so-called "boom years" of the 1990s, total compensation grew by 1.6 percent, slower than the growth of compensation in the top economies of Europe. Moreover, in the first years of the 21st century, America's wage growth is at its lowest rate in 40 years. In addition, one in six Americans lives in poverty, an unheard of statistic in any Western European nation. While the poverty rate comparison between Europe and the US has now become almost clich, there are undeniable economic implications for the United States having

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