THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE: Where Are the Kids?
Scruton, Roger
HE COMMENTATORS WHO WRITE aboutEuropeandits future are united in the view that the continent is facing a "demographic crisis," and that this crisis will unfold, with devastating effects on the...
...Maybe Europe is being drawn by its own instinct for survival towards a smaller population, more disposed togivetosocietythantoreceivefromthestate...
...And as the present citizens get older and more inneedofcare,andthefuturecitizensgetsparserand less inclined to give it, a great gap will open between the consumers and the providers of goods...
...Of course, the message needs to benotonlyheardbutalsolistenedto,andnotonlylistenedto,butalsoobeyed.Butsincewearedealinghere with something in the nature of Durkheim's consciencecollective,itisquitepossiblethatthecollective will move against the welfare state with the same determination as it has moved against reproduction...
...T H EP U R S U I TO FK N O W L E D G E 4 4 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 7...
...You, as employer, must take charge of the entire life of your employee, compensating him for not working with the same impartial concern as you pay him for his occasional spasms of industry...
...by Roger Scruton T N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 4 3 that cannot be honored, but the dishonoring of which can be postponed by mortgaging the country's future...
...The few young people easily find work, provided they are willing to take the risk of it and register themselves as self-employed...
...Young people in Germany and Sweden can live comfortably on welfare, which matches the minimum wage, and may even be higher than what they would receive from unskilled work, after the taxes have been deducted...
...But the unions belligerently insist on them as "rights...
...The need for Europeans to take collective charge of theirfuture,toworkoutwhatisinthecommoninterest, and to pursue it calmly and self-sacrificingly as theymightdointimesofwar--thisneedforaprudential approach to their crisis is transformed into clamorousandconflictingdemandsforjustice,asnowone group, now another, lays claim to its fictitious rights...
...For the first time in my life I had to discover ways of inducingpeopletopayformyskills.Itwashardatfirst, butsoonIfoundthatIwasablenotonlytofeedmyself, but also to employ others...
...The old Europe of small villages and winding roads, of cultured cities and lively markets, of quiet landscapes and noisy squares--this much-loved byproduct ofsmall populations and frugal piety--is rapidly giving way to another and far less agreeable Europe, in which people are too much in evidence and too eager to grab...
...And in our neighborhood in England, where farmers are struggling to survive and the postmodern consultants are struggling to support them, our neighbors have arrived at the same conclusion...
...Either resourceswilldwindle,orlaborwillbeimportedfrom outside the continent, to do the jobs that the natives arenolongerabletoperformforthemselves.Thefirst alternative will mean a slide into shortages and poverty...
...But what about those dire prophecies...
...the second will mean mass immigration, probably from Islamic countries whose populations neither understand nor care for the European way of life...
...There are too many people in Europe: far too many...
...The path back from large-scale errors is never easy,asM.Sarkozyisdiscovering.Thepromisesmade by the French state to its citizens cannot be honored...
...A demographic crisis that is not about demography...
...Maybe Europeansareawakening,attheeleventhhour,tothe direconsequencesofrelyingoncheapimportedlabor to supply their appetites, and to the need to face up to thefuture.Hereandtherethemessageisbeginningto be heard, that an aging population is no bad thing, if it isalsoaworkingpopulation,thattoretireintheprime of life, with skills painfully acquired and everywhere needed,istomistreatnotonlysocietybutalsooneself...
...And the best way to stop is to stop reproducing...
...VerysoonIcametoseethattheonlypersonyoucan reliably employ is either someone old enough to retain the marks of that pre-socialist morality according to which you were paid for what you did rather than for what you merely promised, or else someone self-employed...
...In itself a declining birth rate is no bad thing...
...Now when you promise a person that he can retire at 55 and enjoy a pension for the remainder of hisdays,youareassumingeitherthathewon'tlastfor very long or that someone else is around to pay the bills...
...No one aware of what Europe has meant, as a way of life and a cultural icon, can roam the highways and bywaysofthecontinentasitistodaywithoutwanting to shout "stop...
...I don't say that those prophetic thoughts are entirely without foundation...
...Thestatepromisedearlyretirementforallitsemployees and a secure pension thereafter...
...HE COMMENTATORS WHO WRITE aboutEuropeandits future are united in the view that the continent is facing a "demographic crisis," and that this crisis will unfold, with devastating effects on the economy, the social life, and the culture of the place that was once called Christendom...
...That is why there is widespread unemployment among young people in Europe, even though the supply of young people is dwindling...
...My right to a pension for life," "my right to employment," "my right to welfare," "my right to this, that or the other that the state, in its madness, has promised me"--all these rights will one day have to be exposed for what they are: not rights at all, but gifts, promised in vain by a bankrupt...
...The first will kill the body of Europe...
...To answerthatquestionweneedtolookatwhathasreally gonewrongwithEurope,whichisthewelfarestate...
...The language of rights ensures that a questionofprudenceisdressedupasaquestionofjustice...
...Over50percentoftheFrencheconomyismanagedby the state, and more than half of those in employment areemployedbythestate.Thestateachieveditsdominance by ever more fantastic promises--promises T H EP U R S U I TO FK N O W L E D G E 4 2 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 7 WhereAretheKids...
...Hospitals, agribusinesses, construction companies, and others in need of unskilled labor are increasingly driven to look outside the system--among illegal or semi-legalimmigrantswho,notbeingentitledtowelfare payments, are motivated to look for a job and who, not being officially on the payroll, don't enjoy the security of tenure or impose the costly employment taxes that prevent businesses from hiring the indigenous youth...
...If he is ill R O G E RS C R U T O N MaybeEuropeansareawakening,atthe eleventhhour,tothedireconsequences ofrelyingoncheapimportedlabor tosupplytheirappetites...
...Either way, Europe has no future...
...And the population is dwindling to the levelthatthefieldscanbear...
...In every way he is more useful to others and more useful to himself, than the usual product of the welfare culture...
...That is the real cause of the "demographic crisis," which is not a demo-graphic crisis at all, but the immediate and inevitable effect of socialist ways of thinking...
...Modern medicine has ensured that life expectancy is constantly rising, well beyond the estimates of those who were first foolish enough to think that the state ought to supply our pensions...
...No country in Europe--leastofallthoselikeSpain,Italy,andGreece that were renowned for their fertility--is producing the number of children needed to maintain its population...
...The Europeans have therefore hit on the solution to their self-inflicted problem...
...it promised free healthcareforever,andfreeeducationatevery level from the first steps in reading to the aggregation, and it guaranteed employment for teachers thereafter...
...One sign of this is the rapid growth in selfemployment...
...Can societies in which consumption has reached modern--or rather,postmodern--levels,reallyendure,withoutthe young work force that supplies the geriatrics with their needs, and titillates their jaded appetites...
...To invite people to retire aged 55, the age when they are most usefultotheeconomy,whentheirskillscannoteasily be replaced by those of people younger than themselves, and to promise to pay them for what might be 30 or 40 years thereafter, is to court disaster...
...If he is old and with skills that are needed he has the incentive to work;ifheisyoungandwillingtolearn,heismotivated to work after hours...
...It promised every kind ofsecuritytothoseinemployment,andpromisedtomaketheemployerbearthecost...
...or malingering, he himself pays for it...
...Maybe that is already happening...
...And they consume too much of everything: too much food, too much water, too much fuel, too much land...
...Somewhere deep down in the conscience collective, theyhaveformedthepolicytohavefewerchildren,to retreat to a level of population that might just be sustainable without destroying what remains from the centuryofcivilwar.Welldone,Europe!Thereishope for your future...
...In short, the welfare state has made older people redundant before their time, and younger people unemployable...
...We live in a community where nobody is employed by anyone else, andwhereeverybodyisemployedbyhimself.Itisacommunity that is aging, but in which nobody retires...
...Nevertheless, it seems to me that they mistake the nature of the threat...
...you mustcontributetohishealthcareandhispension;and ifyoufirehimhehasathousandgroundstosueyoufor"unfairdismissal"andsosethimselfupforlife...
...that to cushion the young against failure is to ensure that forever they fail...
...And I discovered that employing others, if conducted according to the rules ofthewelfarestate,isagreatmistake.Theemployment contractisinterpretedbythesocialistmoralityasmore sacred than the vow of marriage...
...The new Europe is a wasteland of suburbs, of ghost cities supplied by floodlit supermarkets and landscapes rubbed out by motorways, warehouses, andbusinessparks.Peoplearestampedingoverevery inch of land, scraping off the topsoil with no thought for the future and still less thought for the past...
...All in all, a success story, and one on which the welfarestatehasturneditsback,knowingithasnothing to offer us save its store of old resentments...
...MOREOVER, WHEN THE STATE COMPELS you to offer security of tenure to your employees, tobearthefullcostoftheirabsences,andto make a full contribution to their health-care needs andtheirpensions,itissendingaverydirectmessage to employers: Don't employ young people...
...Roger Scruton, the writer and philosopher, is most recently the author of Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life (Continuum...
...You must pay for his holidays...
...He is someone who seeshisownlifeasarisk,andwhotakesthatrisk.And from that gesture a new and more healthy moral order emerges...
...A self-employed person falls outside thewelfaresystem.Heisresponsibleforhisownpension, his own holidays, and his own budget...
...Besides, unemployment benefitsensurethatyoungpeopledon'thavemuchof an incentive to look for work in any case...
...I left my paid job as a university professor in 1991...
...the second will kill its soul...
Vol. 40 • November 2007 • No. 9
