Europe Sticks With Socialism

For all the ground that traditional socialist parties have lost, the European Union remains a profoundly socialist organization that believes in strong worker rights at the expense of corporations -- at least judging from its latest mission statement.

The European Commission has presented the final version of the European Pillar of Social Rights, a document in which Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, aware that the EU has been stumbling, seeks to define anew what the whole project is about. Europe has traditionally distinguished itself from the U.S., as well as emerging Asian and Latin American economies, in its social bent: high taxes, strong social safety nets, tightly regulated labor markets. Although this approach has been denounced as a drag on economic development, the new EU document -- meant as a set of guidelines primarily for the euro area -- seeks to enshrine it.