Flashback Franck Biancheri, 2008: Peace in Europe = EU + Social Security

In these times of rising global economic and financial crisis, at a time when the French elites wallow in an americanist [1], ultra-liberal model, which is in full implosion on the other side of the Atlantic [2], it may be useful to recall a fundamental equation of which the current generation of European leaders seems to ignore one of the terms: thanks to European integration and generalization of social security systems, Europe has managed to avoid its traditional civil wars since 60 year.

With the other terms, European integration and peace, no problem. The credo is well established and the slogan is repeated endlessly at any European political event: the referendum, the European anniversary, ... in the publicity of the Commission. "Europe is peace" is even shown on posters [3]. Our current national elites do not understand the European project, but at least they have retained this basic idea, taught to them by the generation of their parents.
 
However ragarding the rest of the equation, that is to say the social security system, there they have forgotten everything.

Yet there is not need to be a great expert in European history to know, that social security systems, generalized to the entire population of a country, have been set up in Europe after the Second World War [4 ]. The three basic principles on which rest the European systems (which may vary in their practical implementation) are universality, unity and equality. And it is no coincidence that the "invention" of this modern social protection corresponds to the longest period of peace and prosperity on the European continent. Indeed, the rise of fascism in the 1930s had highlighted the serious threat to democracy and peace that represented millions of poor, jobless and without income, easy prey to dictators and xenophobic and ultra-nationalist ideologies. Beyond the moral and social demands, implementation of the social security system was also for the leaders of the post-war a way to remove the breeeding groupd of future Hitler, Mussolini, Petain ...

Thus, contrary to the ideas "ready-made in Washington", which our poor European elites have consumed during the last twenty years, it turns out that universal social protection is just as important as the European construction to the preservation of peace in Europe.

This does of course not mean that we should not adapt and transform social protection systems in Europe; on the contrary! Indeed they need to be improved to make them compatible with the European society of the 21st century. But to do this, we need to find an Einstein, who extends and develops the basic principles of gravitation discovered by Newton; not an Attila, who makes a clean sweep of everything he finds on his path. So the Americanism is Attila, not Einstein.
 
To realize this, it is sufficient to observe the results of twenty-five years experience of ultra-liberal americanist ideology:
- a rate of social inequality like in the Third World
- a third of Americans without health insurance (and this percentage is rising)
- life expectancy declining relative to other developed countries
- health expenditure per capita highest on the planet (and thus the Americanist model wastes even more money than rhe European systems)
- an education system in collapse.

And I'll stop here for this article, which does not intend to make the autopsy of the "socio-economic Americanism".

The principles put forward after 1945 to found the European social systems (universality, unicity and equality) are still relevant  because they define a coherent system: everyone benefits from it, everyone is in the same "boat" and everyone receives as his neighbor. However, new dimensions and new methods must be integrated into the existing systems. The individualization of benefits and contributions is now feasible thanks to new information technologies, while the three fundamental principles need to be respected. A greater responsability of the actors of the system is possible, because the socio-economic education of the current and future generations is definitely more sophisticated. The interaction and evaluation of all parts of the system is now feasible by involving beneficiaries and providers .

Finally European solidarity, as socio-economic consequence of the Euro, will be the next dimension to be integrated into the European system of national social security systems. This is also one of the components of the major axes of the socio-economic program recently adopted by the members of Newropeans.


Other developments are certainly needed. But in any case, we Europeans must keep in mind that the sorcerer's apprentice who praise us Americanist failure as a model want to ignore that the dismantling of our social security systems "à l'Européenne” lead straight to the unevitable return of the grandsons of Hitler, Pétain, Franco, Mussolini and Stalin. The captains of industry ans the generals love the armies of the poor who have nothing to lose! They are docile and without principles.


Franck Biancheri (24/01/2008)
President Newropeans
 
 
[1] see about this subject my article in Newropeans-Magazine: “Europe: La trahison des élites - Les Américanistes sont les pires amis des Américains”
http://www.newropeans-magazine.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7279&Itemid=110
 
[2] It is sufficient to check the shocking Attali report (http://www.liberationdelacroissance.fr/files/rapports/rapportCLCF.pdf), a collection inspired by a perfect Americanist vision of society: not a word about Europe, attack according to all rules of art on social or local solidarity, Paris-centric vision, bias toward the interests of large distribution groups or franchise networks, reducing the citizen to consumer,  ... and a litany on "growth", a sort of deity to which history, culture and citizenship must be sacrificed. This is certainly a perfect recipe for creating a "France subprime" as we now already have a "United States subprime", "third-worlded" countries with an ultra-rich minority, an anemic middle class and large class of poors.
 
[3] See the following articles: 1936: Nazism brings Peace/1956: Communism is Peace/2006: Europe makes Peace (NM 6/10/2006) & Europe 2009: Quand les petits-fils d’Hitler, de Pétain, de Franco et de Mussolini prendront pouvoir (NM 10/5/2007)
http://www.newropeans-magazine.org/content/view/4683/309/          
http://www.newropeans-magazine.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5714&Itemid=84
 
[4] Initiated by Bismarck in Germany in the late 19th century to counter the influence of the socialist and communist movements, the system has been formalized in the UK in its modern form by William Beveridge in the early 1940s based on 3 key principles: universality, unicity, equality. It has been generalized into the whole Europe after 1945.