[The Montana Professor 22.1, Fall 2011 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]
Daniel Hannan
New York: Harper Collins, 2010
200 pp., $24.99 hc
Linda Frey
History
UM-Missoula
linda.frey@mso.umt.edu
Marsha Frey
History
Kansas State University
mfrey@ksu.edu
In this provocative book Daniel Hannan cautions the United States: Don't make our mistakes. "Preserve the freedom of the nation to which, by good fortune and God's grace, you are privileged to belong" (187). He should know. Hannan, a member of the European Parliament since 1999, has published his political commentaries in The Daily Telegraph and in The Wall Street Journal. He consciously relies upon the pattern of political transformation laid down in Hayek's famous The Road to Serfdom (1944) in detailing how a "democracy progressively relinquishes its powers" (25). He chronicles "a comprehensive shift in power in the EU: from elected representatives to permanent functionaries, from local councils to central bureaucracies, from legislatures to executives, from national parliaments to Eurocrats, from the citizen to the state" (24) and he cites the multiplication of "quangos," quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations.
For Hannan, the concomitant expansion of functionaries has entailed the shriveling of representative government and the growth of a public sector, increasingly not answerable to the public. Britain has witnessed the creation of a separate political caste, more responsive to their leaders than to their constituents. It is a disturbing phenomenon that a prime minister today exercises more power than the proverbially dictatorial Stuart monarchs. For a democracy to function civil servants should work for their constituents, but British public servants tend instead to follow dictates set by their colleagues rather than the public.
What he sees is a shift of power from elected officials to appointed ones, to a bien-pensant elite increasingly divorced from and even disdainful of the public they purportedly serve. He notes that in the US constitution the Bill of Rights focuses on the liberty of the individual, that of the European Constitution on the power of the state. The US constitution empowers the individual, the EU the state. There are several examples but perhaps the most telling is the rejection of the referendum of the EU constitution in 2005 by France and Netherlands (54% and 62% respectively). The means EU's Parliament chose to overcome that obstacle was simple: no more votes. As that example illustrates, democratic accountability and personal freedoms are increasingly sacrificed to the goal of political integration. Within the European Union power is exercised by appointed officials, not responsive to the ballot or responsible to the populace. The result "uniformity, mandarinism, and central control" (52). 84 % of current German laws were promulgated in response to EU directives. The cost of such dirigiste government is of course now coming home to roost.
He is disturbed by the deeply anti-democratic propensities of the European Union as seen in the disdain of official referendum results, the vesting of power in 27 un-elected commissioners, the signature of treaties without consultation, and so on. The goal of transnational integration invariably trumps any democratic concerns. He is also disturbed by the self-deluding nature of the rhetoric, what he dubs "a creed of official self-deceit" (127) and the cost of what Kissinger called "the dictatorship of the virtuous." (144) He notes the chilling consequences of the shifting of power to a transnational elite and of unaccountable international institutions that would impose on states values and laws that national assemblies never would. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Hannan's book warns the United States about the consequences, often unintended, of copying Europe. This work has been hailed by conservatives and will probably be rejected by many of the liberal persuasion but that would be a mistake for this is indeed a warning that should be heeded by all who care about the health of the democratic system. He contends that the character of the US is bound up with its institutions and with its assessment of itself and both are being undermined. He begins his work by destroying many of the stereotypes about Americans so often held by Europeans. He cites the US quick response to the Haitian catastrophe and the response of the French minister that the US had "established an occupation" (xxvi). The absurdity of this assertion may say more about US-French relations, but some stereotypes are widely held and increasingly adopted by members of the U.S. left such as Americans are "heartless and greedy." In fact, the average American gives $300 to charity, the average European $80. When a member of the European Parliament suggested that each member donate a day's pay to the relief effort, the silence was deafening. Obama's initiatives have predictably not won over any critics of the US. The reason is simple, the opposition is existential for critics of the US reject "free elections, small government, private property, open competition, inequality of outcome" (15).
Still and for him unfortunately, the United States is becoming more like Europe and in ways that are detrimental. "The United States is Europeanizing its health system, its tax take, its day care, its welfare rules, its approach to global warming, its foreign policy, its federal structure, its unemployment rate" (xvi). He is concerned that America is becoming less American "by which I mean less independent, less prosperous, and less free" (xxiii). Moving toward "state intervention, higher taxes, federal tsars, government regulation" means in essence "abandoning the vision of your founders—a vision that has served to make your country rich and strong and free" (16).
The United States should not be complacent as power shifts to the White House at the expense of Congress and to the federal government at the expense of the states (46). Just as Obama has been ceding sovereignty on certain issues, that international change has been mirrored by the acceleration toward more federal spending and more central control. The transfer of power from elected officials to appointed officials is seemingly inexorable (think czars) and irreversible. We have forgotten our founders' concern with preventing the concentration of power and with a federal structure designed to check the growth of centralized power. As Jefferson argued, "public servants at such a distance...will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder and waste" (60). As he predicted, we have created an expensive administration, impervious to the public. He traces the shift in power to the federal government and notes how increasingly the states find themselves mere administrators of a national policy. He is particularly critical of the New Deal legacy noting that federal agencies are "easier to establish than to discontinue" and that government spending generally has a "pro-cyclical effect." In that spirit he argues that debt becomes a permanent drain on the economy and that governments tend to expand in time of crisis, especially in times of one party dominance. The democratic consequences of such state expansion are also deleterious. In short, "spending more, borrowing more, owning more and regulating more...left their peoples poorer and less free" (71).
His warning is simple, "Don't Copy Europe." The adoption of a European social and political model threatens the very institutions that define the United States. It brings with it "slow growth, high taxes, short working days, structural unemployment" (77). Shorter working hours, larger government bureaucracy, smaller payrolls. He points to the visible effects of government health care in Britain "the last place in the industrialized world where you'd want to be diagnosed with cancer, stroke, or heart disease" (85). Tellingly he notes that the British National Health Service is "the third largest employer in the world behind the People's Liberation Army in China and Indian Railways, employing 1.3 million people," but that the doctors and nurses are a minority, overshadowed by administrative and other non-medical personnel.
Eurostatism brings not just a sclerotic bureaucracy and deleterious economic effects but also undermines traditional authority figures, such as parents, clergymen. He tellingly cites examples of how the modern welfare state in Britain has bred terrorists. He deplores all policies, whether from a Republican or a Democratic administration, that shift power away "from the states to Washington, from the citizen to the government, from the elected representatives to the federal czar" (117). Although the debt crisis was just emerging among the so-called PIGS ( Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) when he was writing this book, he still has words of caution. An admirer of Jefferson, whose bust sits on his desk, Hannan cites Jefferson on debt: "To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude" (153).
Hannan also cites with approval Tocqueville's emphasis on the importance of a flourishing private sphere. Indeed in many ways he treads in Tocqueville's shoes. Alexis de Tocqueville who was born under one emperor and died under another, who witnessed the revolutionary upheavals of the nineteenth century, and who had lost many of his own family during the upheaval of 1789, asked the quintessential question: why had the French failed to be free? His answer was that they had sacrificed freedom for equality. In a democratic age, he cautioned, men must remain ever vigilant. Hannan would agree.
[The Montana Professor 22.1, Fall 2011 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]