Political & Financial Freedom Must Be Earned

Eastern Europe was handed political freedom and the opportunity for financial freedom with their freeing from the Soviet tyranny that suppressed them since the end of World War II. The operative word here is “handed” not earned. A report now states that Eastern Europe is economically struggling, and that there are strong forces to dismantle economic reforms and to reinstitute old levels of welfare benefits. Gone is the dream of instant riches anticipated with the joining of the European Union. The result is political disarray.

Ever since World War II and the U.S. reconstruction of Germany and Japan, the American people may be suffering from a delusion that all people want or can handle the American style of freedom that we enjoy. Eastern Europe and the old Soviet empire may be proving the point. These people don’t appear to be psychologically prepared to stand on their own two feet. They seem wedded to the welfare state.

This is a good lesson for the U.S. as it goes about attempting to spread the American style of capitalist led democracy around the world. Even with a superior system, it is difficult to supplant old ways of thinking and strong tribal traditions. World peace may not be obtainable in the short run by force feeding new systems of government and economics. Japan may have been an aberration, or maybe it was simply a fact that we utterly defeated them in war first.