Hey, everybody, Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Italy, Via de Costa, via della Costa, excuse me, the old Roman road that went all the way to Spain.
Since I’m leaving the country tomorrow, today, we’re going to talk about European politics.
You guys may have noticed that we have far right parties, which based on which country, you’re in what your politics are either anywhere from conservative, to moderate to Nazi taking power, or at least doing very well, in any number of electoral competitions in the European Space. In some cases, seizing outright power.
Here, among others in Italy.
There are a couple of reasons for this, the first one is almost boring and statistical. It’s because there’s a different electoral system, and a different approach in Europe, when the United States recovered from the Civil War, and when the US was created in the first place, there is this idea that how you force modernity or how you force moderation, is by forcing political groups to appeal to the largest number of individuals possible. So the United States has something called a first past the post electoral system with single member districts, which is a fancy way of saying that you vote for a specific person who’s going to represent a specific group of people.
That’s not how it works in Europe, in Europe, most of their electoral systems were designed in the aftermath of the world wars in the aftermath of a series of revolutions and conflicts that killed millions of people. And so it was perceived as far more important to instead of catering to the vast majority, to have a society that was more inclusive of everybody. So instead of voting for a person, you vote for a party. And if that party gets 20% of the votes, they get 20% of the seats in Parliament, and whoever has the most seats in parliament then goes on to form the government.
And in doing this, you allow groups that are maybe not in the center, but can still get a lot of votes to be part of the governing system. And so most countries in Europe don’t have two parties, they’ve got four or five, or six, or eight or 12, or whatever it happens to be. And so you get a lot more diversity in the decision making system, a lot more diversity, and the politics of the parties that make up the system. And that means your people from the extremes as well, anywhere from socialists and communists on the left to reactionaries and maybe even fuming on Nazis on the right. That’s by design, it’s not by accident. And so you’re always going to have this element of the election system of the electoral system of the voters who are willing to support candidates that other people might find little distasteful. And sometimes they form a government because they’ve got enough support. Now, that’s piece one. Piece two, Shakur is more demographic.
When you industrialized and urbanized, you start moving from the farm and into the city. And then the farm kids are free labor in the city, kids are an expense. And so as time goes on, you have fewer of them. Well, a good portion of Europe didn’t get serious about the business of urbanization and industrialization until after World War Two. So whereas the Germans and the Brits kind of led the way in that process, and the birth rate has been dropping fairly slowly, for a long period of time. In places like Spain and Italy, the process really didn’t start into the latter half of last century, and has proceeded at a much, much, much, much faster rate. Well, if you’ve got a birth rate that is less than two children per women, for a decade or two, it’s not a big deal. But if you do that for, say, seven or eight decades, all of a sudden you’ve got a problem. And the issue we have in a lot of Europe, is that the drop below replacement, as far back as the 50s, and the 60s, and they dropped past 1.5 children per woman, as far back as the 70s in the 80s. And you play that for another 50 years. And it’s not so much for that population reconstitution is impossible. It’s been impossible for decades. But we’re now at the point that the last people who were born in normal times are now turning 60 and 70. And nowhere is that more advanced than here in Italy. So it’s not that demographics, when they turn generate a more conservative population, it’s that when people retire, they give a little crotchety and we’re now seeing people across Europe, in vast numbers age past that point, and they didn’t have enough children to generate a more economically pragmatic population. And since those people don’t exist, there was not another generation born below to be more liberal. So if you remove the liberality of the youth, and the moderation of the middle aged folks, and all you’re left with crunchiness, you get more reactionary
Politics, electoral systems and ultimately governments. Its furthest along here in Italy. Coming up a close second is Germany. And I’m sure there’s no one worried about that. And after that, you got places like Portugal, Austria, the Netherlands and Poland, which are aging to this in a similar rate, but from a slightly younger base. So we are going to see more and more conservative politics more and more socially conservative politics, more and more populist politics moving on. Because if you are
turning 70, this year, you’re really not concerned about things like social rights, or economic development. You want your train ticket to be a half a Euro, and no more. Oh, yeah, that reminds me, having something like the common currency requires a more balanced economic system. And if you look back demographically, at the period, we’ve been in the post Cold War period, we’ve gone through a couple of interesting phases, because from roughly 1990, until roughly 2015, we saw these people aging, but no one had really hit retirement yet, which meant they hadn’t become interested in no change yet. In fact, if you’ve got people who are age 50 to 65, and who don’t have kids, their income is huge. You’re saving loads of money for retirement, the tax base is massive. And the financial wiggle room in that sort of system is absolutely huge. And that’s the same era when the Europeans decided that, hey, let’s do the common currency. And if you think back at how insane that sounded at the time, you have industrialized Germany, you’ve got technocratic Luxenberg, you’ve got post industrial, Portugal is based entirely on tourism. Who would ever think in a normal system that all of those systems could be under the same currency union. But when there was a huge amount of financial or just flooding around because of all these middle aged but not yet retired people, you could try a lot of things. And they did. One outcome was the common currency. But now a lot of the people who were generating all that capital to give them wiggle room have moved into mass retirement, and with them the hopes for the currency go as well.
And for those of you who are finance nerds out there, you think the Germans were obsessed with inflation before most of the working age population retired, just wait till they’re all retirees because that is something that happens within the next 10 years. When that goes down. There isn’t much hope for the euro. So you know, visit while you can make the most of it. And I’ll see you on the other side of the punch. Take care
Peter Zeihan
Geopolitical Strategist
Europe’s rising far right is alarming and will get worse
Peter Zeihan
Geopolitical Strategist
By Straight Arrow News
The global rise of far-right political movements has alarmed observers here in the United States and all around the world. In Europe, that concern is exacerbated by memories of World War II, particularly in formerly Axis nations where fascist dictators succeeded in overthrowing their republics.
Watch the above video as Straight Arrow News contributor Peter Zeihan explains how European parliamentary systems work and then reviews the rise of European far-right parties within those systems.
Be the first to know when Peter Zeihan publishes a new commentary! Download the Straight Arrow News app and enable push notifications today!
The following is an excerpt from Peter’s June 7 “Zeihan on Geopolitics” newsletter:
I know there’s plenty of issues with the American political system, but let’s take a break from all that and talk about European politics for the day. Given the ongoing European Parliament elections, let’s look at the far right’s footholds in Europe.
The Europeans designed their electoral system following World War II to provide inclusivity, but that opened the door for multiple parties, not just two big ones, to gain power. Combine that with aging populations and not enough young people to balance power in the political sphere, and the far-right has been able to gain influence throughout Europe.
When older generations rule, conservative and reactionary politics follow. Much of Europe is seeing this unfold and will have to work through these ever-increasing challenges brought on by demographic shifts.
Hey, everybody, Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Italy, Via de Costa, via della Costa, excuse me, the old Roman road that went all the way to Spain.
Since I’m leaving the country tomorrow, today, we’re going to talk about European politics.
You guys may have noticed that we have far right parties, which based on which country, you’re in what your politics are either anywhere from conservative, to moderate to Nazi taking power, or at least doing very well, in any number of electoral competitions in the European Space. In some cases, seizing outright power.
Here, among others in Italy.
There are a couple of reasons for this, the first one is almost boring and statistical. It’s because there’s a different electoral system, and a different approach in Europe, when the United States recovered from the Civil War, and when the US was created in the first place, there is this idea that how you force modernity or how you force moderation, is by forcing political groups to appeal to the largest number of individuals possible. So the United States has something called a first past the post electoral system with single member districts, which is a fancy way of saying that you vote for a specific person who’s going to represent a specific group of people.
That’s not how it works in Europe, in Europe, most of their electoral systems were designed in the aftermath of the world wars in the aftermath of a series of revolutions and conflicts that killed millions of people. And so it was perceived as far more important to instead of catering to the vast majority, to have a society that was more inclusive of everybody. So instead of voting for a person, you vote for a party. And if that party gets 20% of the votes, they get 20% of the seats in Parliament, and whoever has the most seats in parliament then goes on to form the government.
And in doing this, you allow groups that are maybe not in the center, but can still get a lot of votes to be part of the governing system. And so most countries in Europe don’t have two parties, they’ve got four or five, or six, or eight or 12, or whatever it happens to be. And so you get a lot more diversity in the decision making system, a lot more diversity, and the politics of the parties that make up the system. And that means your people from the extremes as well, anywhere from socialists and communists on the left to reactionaries and maybe even fuming on Nazis on the right. That’s by design, it’s not by accident. And so you’re always going to have this element of the election system of the electoral system of the voters who are willing to support candidates that other people might find little distasteful. And sometimes they form a government because they’ve got enough support. Now, that’s piece one. Piece two, Shakur is more demographic.
When you industrialized and urbanized, you start moving from the farm and into the city. And then the farm kids are free labor in the city, kids are an expense. And so as time goes on, you have fewer of them. Well, a good portion of Europe didn’t get serious about the business of urbanization and industrialization until after World War Two. So whereas the Germans and the Brits kind of led the way in that process, and the birth rate has been dropping fairly slowly, for a long period of time. In places like Spain and Italy, the process really didn’t start into the latter half of last century, and has proceeded at a much, much, much, much faster rate. Well, if you’ve got a birth rate that is less than two children per women, for a decade or two, it’s not a big deal. But if you do that for, say, seven or eight decades, all of a sudden you’ve got a problem. And the issue we have in a lot of Europe, is that the drop below replacement, as far back as the 50s, and the 60s, and they dropped past 1.5 children per woman, as far back as the 70s in the 80s. And you play that for another 50 years. And it’s not so much for that population reconstitution is impossible. It’s been impossible for decades. But we’re now at the point that the last people who were born in normal times are now turning 60 and 70. And nowhere is that more advanced than here in Italy. So it’s not that demographics, when they turn generate a more conservative population, it’s that when people retire, they give a little crotchety and we’re now seeing people across Europe, in vast numbers age past that point, and they didn’t have enough children to generate a more economically pragmatic population. And since those people don’t exist, there was not another generation born below to be more liberal. So if you remove the liberality of the youth, and the moderation of the middle aged folks, and all you’re left with crunchiness, you get more reactionary
Politics, electoral systems and ultimately governments. Its furthest along here in Italy. Coming up a close second is Germany. And I’m sure there’s no one worried about that. And after that, you got places like Portugal, Austria, the Netherlands and Poland, which are aging to this in a similar rate, but from a slightly younger base. So we are going to see more and more conservative politics more and more socially conservative politics, more and more populist politics moving on. Because if you are
turning 70, this year, you’re really not concerned about things like social rights, or economic development. You want your train ticket to be a half a Euro, and no more. Oh, yeah, that reminds me, having something like the common currency requires a more balanced economic system. And if you look back demographically, at the period, we’ve been in the post Cold War period, we’ve gone through a couple of interesting phases, because from roughly 1990, until roughly 2015, we saw these people aging, but no one had really hit retirement yet, which meant they hadn’t become interested in no change yet. In fact, if you’ve got people who are age 50 to 65, and who don’t have kids, their income is huge. You’re saving loads of money for retirement, the tax base is massive. And the financial wiggle room in that sort of system is absolutely huge. And that’s the same era when the Europeans decided that, hey, let’s do the common currency. And if you think back at how insane that sounded at the time, you have industrialized Germany, you’ve got technocratic Luxenberg, you’ve got post industrial, Portugal is based entirely on tourism. Who would ever think in a normal system that all of those systems could be under the same currency union. But when there was a huge amount of financial or just flooding around because of all these middle aged but not yet retired people, you could try a lot of things. And they did. One outcome was the common currency. But now a lot of the people who were generating all that capital to give them wiggle room have moved into mass retirement, and with them the hopes for the currency go as well.
And for those of you who are finance nerds out there, you think the Germans were obsessed with inflation before most of the working age population retired, just wait till they’re all retirees because that is something that happens within the next 10 years. When that goes down. There isn’t much hope for the euro. So you know, visit while you can make the most of it. And I’ll see you on the other side of the punch. Take care
Is the US looking for a war?
With conflicts, skirmishes and tensions simmering around the globe, and with the United States playing supporting roles in several of them, the question of whether the country getting involved directly is legitimate. The war in Ukraine, for example, has forced several European countries to reintroduce mandatory military service to confront the growing threat from Moscow.…
7 hrs ago
How future generations could shift US support for Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint meeting of Congress on July 24, calling for increased bipartisan support for Israel amid its 10-month war with Hamas. He praised President Biden’s “half century of friendship to Israel” and referred to Hamas as “sheer evil.” In the video above, Straight Arrow News contributor Peter Zeihan analyzes…
Yesterday
Why election of European Commission president is so important
Ursula von der Leyen has been reelected to another five-year term as president of the European Commission after a vote by EU lawmakers. Von der Leyen will now preside over a coalition that shifted to the right after recent European elections, where ultra-conservative parties won a record number of seats. In July, von der Leyen…
Wednesday
Protests in Bangladesh signal more trouble ahead
Public protests in Bangladesh against government hiring practices — and against the government’s military response to those protests — have left at least 174 dead and 2,500 jailed. Bangladesh’s people face an acute jobs and unemployment crisis, so public disagreements over hiring practices carry significant weight. The regime recently enforced a nationwide internet blackout as…
Tuesday
In US election, early polling doesn’t tell us anything yet
From President Joe Biden’s declining health to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, there’s been a series of major political developments in the United States that might impact the results of the November election. These developments have led to renewed confusion, concern and debate regarding which candidate might win, and in the Democrats’ case, which…
Jul 19
Underreported stories from each side
Group accuses Pa. teachers union of illegally using money to back Shapiro’s 2022 campaign
8 sources | 0% from the left
Getty Images
Some House Republicans slam Vance as Trump’s VP pick: ‘The worst choice’
8 sources | 0% from the right
Reuters
Latest Stories
Congress still trying to figure out how to reduce wasteful military spending
Watch 2:29
2 hrs ago
US Navy, Air Force making waves with new weapons at RIMPAC
Watch 6:03
2 hrs ago
Israeli PM Netanyahu meets with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Watch 2:54
2 hrs ago
Growing US nuclear power resurgence reaches the nation’s heartland
Watch 1:19
2 hrs ago
Beer from the sun, other solar thermal projects get government funding
Watch 2:04
2 hrs ago
Popular Opinions
In addition to the facts, we believe it’s vital to hear perspectives from all sides of the political spectrum.
Trump has an excellent opportunity with Black voters
7 hrs ago
Star Parker
Don’t fall for GOP’s cheap racist attacks on Kamala Harris
8 hrs ago
Dr. Rashad Richey
Americans must reject Trump to defend our democracy
Yesterday
Jordan Reid
Why all the changes in European parliamentary governments?
Wednesday
Newt Gingrich