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Audio presentation
Welcome to “European Dawn – After the Social Model”. My name is Johnny Munkhammar and I am the author.
I hope that the book will contribute to an insight that there is a vital need for change and that we can have good hope for the future. I look forward to any comments you may have.
More information about the book can be found at the Internet at munkhammar.org, timbro.se, timbro.com or stockholm-network.org.
The book deals with the debate on the future of Europe. In almost every country in Western Europe, there is an intense discussion about economic and social problems. Yet most politicians want to keep the so-called European Social Model.
My message is that the European Social Model is the cause of most of our problems, not the solution:
High taxes give low growth. A regulated labour market creates unemployment. High taxes on work and high contributions to people who don’t work create a dependency on the state. Having public monopolies deliver welfare services leads to higher prices and worse quality. And, not least, when the state is big, people’s freedom is small.
The big state of this Social Model was a mistake from the start. Taxes increased throughout Western Europe from about 20 % in 1950 to 40-50 % in 1980. Since then, we have had problems.
Now, powerful forces make the need for reform imminent. To compete in a globalised world, we need low taxes and a free labour market. The demographic situation implies that social security and welfare services should be private, not public.
These are challenges. But how to meet these successfully is no secret. Radical reforms that decrease the size of the state can bring about a new dawn for Europe. Other countries have done it.
Ireland, Britain, The Netherlands – to name a few Western European countries. Estonia, Slovakia, Hungary – to name Eastern and Central Europe. And in the world we have New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong and also the US.
Taxes can be decreased and growth increased. We can have more and better new jobs than the ones that disappear. We can have people being free and not dependent on the state. And we can have better welfare services without public monopolies.
In a time when the political debate tends to be short-sighted and politicians mostly deal with tactics, there is a need to have an clear analysis and a longer perspective.
Others have decreased the state. So can we. My book is intended to show how.
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