The European Nation-States were destroyed in 1918. Economies in the Entente Allies and in the Central Powers sunk. The growth of national indebtedness, both internal and external, of the Entente Allies and the Central Powers rose from 27.883.000.000 USD in 1914 to 224,174,000,000 in the period 1918-1919. US economic output doubled in 4 years and became the leading economy of the world after the war. Before World War 1 European Nation-States had 55% of the World GDP, and in 1918 the US hold 45%. In 1914the US imported more than exported to Europe. In 1918 it was the other way round. Since 1918 the US became the leading World Power. It would remain so until 1945, and then will share world supremacy with the USSR. Until 1989. But the fall of the Communists regimes did not led to a unique American leadership and today we are facing a multipolar world where China, India and the Russian federation are challenging US supremacy. The problem is how Europe is facing the 21st century as a huge market (first GDP in the world) but with no leadership, as lacking of a strong Executive.
We start studying the consequences of the crisis of the Laissez faire regimes replaced by totalitarianism in Russia (from 1917) and then in Italy (from 1922) and Germany (from 1933). As a result of this Europe saw tensions grow between the Communist and the Fascist models of Dictatorship. Tensions that exploded for the first time in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) in which Stalin supported one side and Hitler and Mussolini the other one, while European and American democracies followed the non intervention principle. The Spanish carnage was only the prologue of a much greater global confrontation: World War 2, the result of Russian imperialism (founding of the Kommintern by Lenin in 1919) and the Mussolini’s expeditions in Libya, Abyssinia and Ethiopia, and especially Hitlerian Lebensraum.
The paradox was that Stalinist Russia emerged on the side of the victors, after having started the war as Stalin ally (invasion of Poland two weeks after Hitler’s, and Katyn’s massacre from March to May 1940). Because Hitler made the same mistake as Napoleon invading Russia on 22 June 1941, being stopped at Stalingrad (actual Volvograd) in the fiercest battle of the whole war (From August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943). This paradox explains why Soviet Dictatorship was accepted by intellectuals in the Western world, and the Communist Parties depending on Moscow spreaded in Western European democracies. At least until the advent of Eurocommunism, with leaders as Italian Enrico Berlinguer, as a reaction to USSR intervention during the Dubcek’s Prague’s Spring (January-August 1968).
The Marshall Plan (1947) will be the detonator of the Cold War (1948-1989) as Stalin would not accept American aid for developing market economy in Eastern Europe. The result was the iron curtain (Churchill) and the Berlin Wall (1961-1989).
What is interesting is that Western democracies adapted to the Social Question through the development of the Welfare State Model, that paradoxically started in the US in the 1930’s with the New Deal policy of FDR. What made nevertheless European Welfare State different was the fact that the Tax payers supported the Welfare state, which made the state much stronger in Europe than in the US, where private sector is overwhelmingly bigger that the Public sector. In Europe is the other way round. From 1945 Social Security, and Public Welfare aids were supported all over Western Europe by tax payers. Something that was initially possible thanks to the extraordinary Economic growth of the Thirty Glorious years. The problem is that the 1975 Oil crisis stopped the expansionist cycle and European states could afford less and less the Welfare State System. Which brought the anti-regulation movement of the 1980’s spearheaded by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and bringing back Laissez faire liberalism. With dreadful consequences in terms of the rising of inequalities.
Another model was developped paradoxically in the Communist’s regimes that survived by joining the market Economy, following the example of Chinese head of State Den Xiaoping (1978-1992) who invented the new system of Market Socialism that has transformed China in a leading World Power in the 21st century. A very powerful state that surprisingly is playing full the Market rules. An amazing contradiction. But so far it works. After the collapsing of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the only two real communist countries are Cuba and North Korea.
The “socialization” of Western capitalism and the “capitalization” of Eastern Communism has led in very efficient way to the globalization of the World, though Capitalism after the neoliberal way has produced a substantial rising of economic and social inequalities, that is leading to a new oligarchic model of the State, despite the interesting theories of the Legal and Political American thinker John Rawls who developped a very peculiar way of making compatible the Laissez faire principle and the protection of equality. Have you heard about the Universal income? He was the guy who brought the idea into our contemporary world.
The consequence of globalization from the International Relations perspective is may be the beginning of a global constitutional history starting with the League of Nations (1920-1946) and following with the United Nations (since 1945), and a bunch of Treaties and International Organizations (WTO, GATT, IMF, World Bank), that seek to rule the world through negotiation and governance instead of through authority and military intervention.
The problem for Europe is that our old Nation States are doing very poorly at the global level. We are irrelevant compared to China, Russia, India. Fortunately the United States are keeping up the Western model but definitenly not Europe. And they did so, as we are going to see tomorrow because they invented a way of getting together in an efficiente way. Something that we Europeans have not been able to do so far.
The most important idea you have to retain of Teaching Guide 7 is how after 1945 Europe was left far behind World leadership, despite the fact that during the big economic expansion brought by the post war reconstruction of the Thirty Glorious years (1945-1975). Prosperity did not help European nation states to join the league of the leading protagonists of the World contemporary history.
INSTRUCTIONS: First read the text included in your Materials (pages 163 to 181), before proceeding to answer the Concrete Questions, the Concepts and the General Questions.
Concerning the Basic Chronology (pages 182-186) the crucial dates are the following:
1946 (Appearance of the Italian Republic), 1947 (Marshall Plan), 1948, June (beginning of the Berlin Blockade), 1949 (Creation of NATO, Appearance of German Federal Republic and Mao’s triumph in China), 1953 (Death of Stalin), 1958 (DE Gaulle’s in power), 1959 (Castro’s victory in Cuba), 1961 (beginning of the Berlin Wall), 1963 (JFK’s assassination), 1964 (beginning of the Vietnam War), 1966 (beginning of China’s Cultural Revolution), 1968 January-August (Prague Spring), 1973 (military coup in Chile against Allende), 1974 (Nixon’s resignation Watergate scandal), 1975 (end of Vietnam War and death of Franco), 1976 (Death of Mao), 1978 (Den Xiao Ping in Power and beginning of Market Socialism in China), 1979 (Founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran), 1985 (Gorbatchev in power in the USSR), 1989, November 9 (Fall of the Berlin Wall), 1990 (German reunification), ,1991 (Extinction of the USSR), 2001, September 11 (Islamic Terrorism hits the US), 2004, March 11 (Terrorist attack in Madrid), 2005 (Angela Merkel becomes German chancellor), 2008 (Obama becomes US President), 2014 (Juan Carlos I resigns on his son Philip VI as king of Spain, and Scottish referendum of independence), 2015 (Bataclan terrorist attack in Paris), 2016 (Brexit referendum and Donald Trump election), 2017 October 1st (Catalan independence illegal referendum), 2020, January 31 (The UK leaves the EU).
New dates: 2020, March (Expansion of COVID 19’s Pandemic all over the world), 2021 (January 6: assault on US Capitol by Trump supporters; January 20: Joe Biden takes office as the 46 US President).
TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION IN CLASS: Why Europeans despite being developed economies we do not have a decisive influence in today’s world?
Please consider the following aspects:
1. Remember the History of Europe in 1919-1939, and from 1945. Especially during the Cold War period. Try to think of the most influential European leaders during this period.
2. Think why a country like the Russian Federation where the average population is facing serious economic problems is far more influential than European nation-States today.
3. Do the US, China, Russia, India have a powerful national narrative? If so explain why and which one. And compare with the European reality.
4. Is the Welfare State a problem in terms of Economic growth? Read the pages about John Rawls theory (176) before answering. Is social justice (reducing inequalities) a problem for becoming a powerful country worldwide? Think about Boris Johnson following statement: "The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed, my friends." (24 March 2021)
5. Is democracy a problem for having a powerful State? Think of how Russia has been trying to destabilize Western democracies, taking advantage of local domestic conflicts (as US Presidential Elections, Catalan Conflict, Brexit).
Think as well of how China has dealt with Covid 19’s Pandemic. Is authoritarianism necessary to beat the epidemic?
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