La Monde Misses The Point Of A Democratic Republic

Not only are the Leftists here in the U.S. shocked and disappointed in Trump's victory, but so are the European elites. An example of this is an op-ed from the editors of the French paper Le Monde, entitled "The end of an American world." Of course, it isn't the United States that they mourn--it is not going anywhere soon (I hope) but the end of a unilateral world order controlled by the bureaucrats. That is, they lament a blow to what the elites call "our democracy," which, as I've discussed before, does not have anything to do with the will of the people, and everything to do with the will of the elites and their army of technocrats.

 

Source: Wilder, Wealthy & Wise

    You can see it in the editorial from Le Monde. First, they criticize American voters for electing Trump because they "know[ ] where this president is going to take them, and want[ ] more." And their primary problem is that "[t]he path on which Trump, strengthened for his second term by his party's success in the Senate, will take his country diverges fundamentally from the one charted by the United States since the end of the Second World War." 

    But what was that path and why is divergence so bad? The editors say that it was an America committed to being "an open superpower committed to the world, eager to set itself up as a democratic model." But Trump has never urged that the United States abandon the military and economic dominance that made it a superpower. His election is a triumph of democracy (as that term is used in modern parlance) not the end of it. No, to understand what is meant here is to dig into what American led system arose after World War II. 

    First and foremost, World War II gave us the modern bureaucratic state. There had been bureaucracies before, but as Bruce D. Porter explained in his book, War And The Rise Of The State, as wars became more costly and complex--necessitating obtaining greater control over finances, industry, and the people in order to prepare for and prosecute wars--they forced the expansion of a centralized bureaucracy and its authority. And there has been no war greater in that regard than World War II. 

    Second, because the U.S. came out of World War II unscathed and the dominant military and economic power, it naturally became the leader of the industrialized nations (mostly European and Japan) that fell outside the Soviet Empire. In other words, the United States was able to create an economic bloc that largely fell under its dominance with Western Europe and Japan as secondary partners. While the United States held the dominant position, the weaker European powers likewise had greater influence over American policies than previously. And, of course, it benefited the wealthy and powerful elites by creating a long period of peace and relatively easy trade with the rules set by the biggest players. 

    What the editors of La Monde fear, then, is not the end of America, but the end of this super-national hegemony controlled by the bureaucrats. This is why they complain that "Trump views the world solely through the prism of American national interests. It's a world of power struggles and trade wars, which scorns multilateralism. A world where transactional diplomacy replaces value-based alliances." Trump is therefore to be damned because he might elevate the concerns of ordinary Americans over the interests of an international elite.

    But do the editors of La Monde offer a reasonable argument against Trump's threatened "America first" policy? No. They instead resort to fear. Specifically, that Trump negotiating a peace in Ukraine might fracture Europe and encourage Russia to be more aggressive. But even here, the editors reveal their true colors, because ultimately the worry is that "[t]his threat is existential for the European Union." Not France, not Europe, but the European Union. 

    Of course, I believe that such arguments are nonsense. Russia couldn't even successfully invade a third-rate military power like Ukraine before the U.S. and NATO started supplying aid. The huge population that allowed Russia to overwhelm the Germans in World War II no longer exists, and its weapon systems appear to be much inferior to Western weapon systems. I don't believe that Russia would even have the strength to successfully prosecute a war against Poland, let along the whole of Europe. No, the real complaint here is that European nations might have to rely on their own military might rather than the United States' blood and treasure.

     They also complain that "Trump's victory at the end of a campaign of unprecedented populist, misogynist and racist virulence also bodes ill for women, immigrants and democracy in general." La Monde does not support any of these points with facts or argument, and each is easily dismissed. First, Trump's presidency doesn't bode ill for women (at least is certainly didn't during his first term and I haven't seen anything to indicate that it would be different this time around). This is instead a veiled remark about access to abortion. But Trump has never said that he would ban abortion. Rather, his position has been that it is an issue better left to the states. That is exactly the way it is handled in Europe--each European state determines its abortion laws, not the EU. Or is La Monde suggesting that Brussels should determine French abortion laws? 

    The racist comments are also unwarranted. Trump's support among both black men and Latinos increased this election. And unlike the Left, that believe that American blacks and Hispanics are too stupid to succeed without the thumb of the government on the scales, Trump seems to believe that blacks and Latinos can succeed on merit. 

    Immigration is another red herring. Trump has never indicated that he would support any significant changes to the immigration system other than greater controls over illegal immigration. I believe that Le Monde's complaint here is an additional reveal that they are concerned more about the elites than the commoners, since illegal immigration only serves the purpose of keeping wages down in order to further enrich the wealthy and dilute the voting power of the native population.

    And their concern about democracy is laughable. La Monde's editors acknowledge that Trump is a populist politician. The election results show that he won the popular vote. What could be more democratic than that? But, yet, it comes around again to the elite's version of democracy being that the people pretend to vote and the elites pretend to listen to them. And in this case, it is the fear that Trump represents the vanguard of a new set of elites wanting to replace at least some of the current elites that strikes fear into the heart of the Left, even those in France. 

    But perhaps there is something deeper at play.  

    Back in 2014, I published a series of 6 articles reviewing and discussing Joseph Tainter's book The Collapse of Complex Societies published in 1988 (the link to Part 1). For those of you unfamiliar with his work, Tainter postulated that societies tend to become more complex (e.g., expanded government, higher taxes, more laws) in response to emergencies or crises. While a society is young and growing, these additional complexities bring benefits: e.g., a transcontinental railroad, an interstate highway system, public education systems, etc. But at some point, each additional level of complexity starts to deliver diminishing returns on investment, eventually leading to a point where negative returns set in--the costs outweigh the benefits of each new level of complexity. Once a state reaches this point, it essentially is living on its reserves; eventually a crises will arise that the society is unable to address because it lacks the energy or resources to do so. In short, the society collapses. 

    By collapse, Tainter didn't necessarily mean that the whole of the society would collapse into nothing larger than a village level and losing significant technology in the process (although it has happened), but that it will reduce in complexity (and often size) until it reaches a level of stability where it is able to arrest further collapse. 

    But Tainter also noted collapse can be impacted by how closely a society in collapse is tied to others. He explained:

In fact, there are major differences between the current and the ancient worlds that have important implications for collapse. One of these is that the world today is full. That is to say, it is filled by complex societies; these occupy every sector of the globe, except the most desolate. This is a new factor in human history. Complex societies as a whole are a recent and unusual aspect of human life. The current situation, where all societies are so oddly constituted, is unique. It was shown earlier in this chapter that ancient collapses occurred, and could only occur, in a power vacuum, where a complex society (or cluster of peer polities) was surrounded by less complex neigh­bors. There are no power vacuums left today. Every nation is linked to, and influ­enced by, the major powers, and most are strongly linked with one power bloc or the other. Combine this with instant global travel, and as Paul Valery noted, ' . . . nothing can ever happen again without the whole world's taking a hand' (1962: 115 [emphasis in original]).

Later on, he adds:

Collapse today is neither an option nor an immediate threat. Any nation vulnerable to collapse will have to pursue one of three options: (1) absorption by a neighbor or some larger state; (2) economic support by a dominant power, or by an international financing agency; or (3) payment by the support population of whatever costs are needed to continue complexity, however detrimental the marginal return. A nation today can no longer unilaterally collapse, for if any national government disintegrates its population and territory will be absorbed by some other.

(p. 213). 

    I would suggest that most of the larger Western European nations--certainly the U.K., France, Germany and Italy--have been in collapse since at least World War II and it is only by "economic support by a dominant power"--the United States--that they have not resorted to the other options. Perhaps the fear of the U.S. disengaging--even so slightly--is that Western Europe will then face the decline they have been putting off for so many years.