America is being poisoned by the same virus that ruined Europe

Striking dockers’ outrageous pay demands are just the tip of the iceberg of a new culture of entitlement

It is meant to be a country of rugged individualism, where self-reliance is everything, and where people can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. The United States has always defined itself as a nation guided by a spirit of small government and personal responsibility. And yet, it turns out that this has long since faded. As dock workers strike for outrageous pay demands, and as government hand-outs have surged, the blunt truth is this. America’s can-do culture has been poisoned by a very European sense of entitlement – and its fate will inevitably be European-style debt and stagnation.
Most people might think that the $200,000 a year an American dock worker can make is more than enough for a job that, while skilled, doesn’t exactly require a degree from Harvard or MIT. It turns out, however, that this is not enough for the quaintly named International Longshoremen’s Association. Its members have started a strike this week that will bring trade along the Eastern seaboard to a standstill. It has said it wants a 77pc pay rise over six years, along with a total ban on the automation of cranes, gates, and container moving trucks, even though China, with far lower labour costs, is developing ports that are run entirely by AI-driven robots.
But the attitude that other people owe Americans a living is far from isolated. In fact, entitlement culture is spreading almost everywhere. The latest figures from the Economic Innovation Group think tank show that government handouts now make up nearly a fifth of the average American income, double the level of 1970. While some of that can be explained by an ageing population, a far larger part of the story is surely the tendency of political leaders to shower favoured groups with “free cash” (it is hardly a coincidence that the swing states have the highest level of government dependency). Even worse, handouts have been growing at three times the rate of the more traditional form of income (otherwise known as having a job).
With the presidential election only a month away, both major parties are competing on who can offer yet more lavish benefits to key voter groups. Candidates for the White House used to at least pay lip service to reducing the deficit, and Bill Clinton even managed it for one year, the last President to do so. Now, even though the deficit is running at 6pc of GDP at a time when the economy has been doing well, it is barely even mentioned.
Sure, at the moment the US can afford it. And yet, the economy has been propped up by a boom in shale oil and gas that has turned America into the largest energy producer in the world, by the strength of its technology companies, and by massive borrowing that has seen the overall debt to GDP ratio soar to 122pc from 100pc only a decade ago.
France, Italy and the UK could all afford it as well when they started down the road of entitlement. The trouble is, while it might take a decade, or it might take 20 years, eventually a something-for-nothing culture catches up with you. The economy slows down, debts become unsustainable, and a country becomes trapped in a doom loop of stagnation and endlessly rising taxes.
The US still has the chance to escape from that, but it will have to start by standing up to the dockers, and curbing state handouts. The only catch is this. Right now, none of the country’s leaders show any willingness to grasp that – and unless they do, the culture of rugged individualism that made it the world’s richest nation will be lost forever.