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10/31/17

Europe, the US or China? - by Steven Hill

The United States has many strengths and admirable qualities, but the nation’s politics is plagued by paralysis and deep partisan polarization, even though the country has a well-established federal union.

The U.S. economy has benefited in recent years from low energy costs, but it has become bitterly divided into unequal camps of winners and losers. All these tensions have boiled over and resulted in the phenomenon of Donald Trump, whose erratic presidency is stalling badly needed reforms and furthering national division.

Meanwhile, China’s hybrid brand of “communist capitalism” remains an authoritarian puzzle of immense contradictions. While it has moved forward vigorously with renewable energies, a growing middle class is still proportionally small compared to the vast numbers of poor, even as inequality, corruption and cronyism thrive.

Impressive levels of industrial production have resulted in astounding levels of environmental ruin.

It turns out that a domineering executive leadership as in China and the United States is only great when it leads in the right direction. In comparison, the EU doesn’t always look so bad.

Europe’s social capitalism is clearly the global leader in several crucial dimensions, more so than either China’s state capitalism or America’s Wall Street-Silicon Valley capitalism.

Read more: Europe, the US or China? - The Globalist

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