The Crisis of the European Union: Causes and Significance

Selected quotes from Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic who spoke to friends of Hillsdale College in Berlin on June 11, 2011.*

"Europeans today prefer leisure to performance, security to risk-taking, paternalism to free markets, collectivism and group entitlements to individualism. They have always been more risk-averse than Americans, but the difference continues to grow. Economic freedom has a very low priority here. It seems that Europeans are not interested in capitalism and free markets and do not understand that their current behavior undermines the very institutions that made their past success possible. They are eager to defend their non-economic freedoms -- the easiness, looseness, laxity and permissiveness of modern or post-modern European society -- but when it comes to their economic freedoms, they are quite indifferent. . .

"Of course, with the way your American government has been going, you might be able to catch up with us -- in terms of our problems -- very soon. But you are not so far along yet. So maybe seeing Europe's crisis today will at least help you in America turn back toward freedom."

Take heed.

*Reprinted in "Imprimus," Volume 40, Number 7/8 (July/Aug. 2011)