FES Analyse: USA 3 The Myth of Social Divergence In recent years both American and European writers have claimed that the differences in so­ciety and values between the U.S. and Europe are deep and growing. Similar claims are made by Americans hostile to Europe and Europeans hos­tile to America. Most of these assertions are not supported by the evidence. To begin with, it is a mistake to create a mythical“European” average and then to con­trast it with the United States. If individual countries are ranged along a spectrum of politi­cal values, from statist Sweden to libertarian America, Britain and the Netherlands are closer to the American side than to the Swedish side. American statistics in areas ranging from violence to poverty and inequality are distorted by three factors: failure to count employer-pro­vided benefits as part of the American welfare state, the inclusion of recent Latin American im­migrants and the American South. The U.S. would look more like Europe if em­ployer-provided benefits were counted as part of the American welfare state. Many social pro­grams like health insurance and pensions which are provided by the government in Europe are provided by tax-favored employer programs in the U.S. This system of social welfare leaves out many part-time workers and the unemployed. But when the spending of the“hidden welfare state” of employer-based programs is added to direct government welfare-state spending on entitlements for the elderly, the overall size of the American welfare state is similar to those of Western Europe. The claim that the American welfare system is uniquely small and ungenerous, compared to those of Europe, is simply not true. The U.S. would also look more European if post-1965 immigrants were factored out. Many of these immigrants have been poor people with little education from Mexico and other Latin American countries. While they have improved their condition by moving to the U.S., their pres­ence increases inequality and lowers the national averages of the U.S. in the areas of education, health and property ownership. Finally, the U.S. would resemble a Western Euro­pean country more if the American South were factored out. The South is still, to some degree, a Third World plantation economy within the borders of a First World state. Southerners, white and black, are poorer, less educated and more violent on average than most other Americans. The gun culture, which many mistakenly as­sociate with America as a whole, is part of Southern and Western culture, not of the culture of other parts of the United States. The South has the same distorting effect on American na­tional statistics that former East Germany has on nation-wide indices in the Federal Republic of Germany. In addition to making the U.S. as a whole seem poorer and more violent than it really is, the South makes the U.S. seem more conservative than it really is. The Republican Party is based primarily in the South and secondarily in the Western states allied with the South. The arti­ficial exaggeration of the political power of the Western states is the basis for the Republican Party’s control of all three branches of the U.S. government at present. As the 2000 election reminded the world, the American president is selected by the electoral college, not elected by a popular vote. The elec­toral college dilutes the political influence of the mostly-liberal populous states of the coasts and exaggerates the influence of thinly­populated, conservative Western states. The small populations of the same conservative Western states are over-represented in the U.S. Senate, which awards two Senators to each state, no matter its size. Wyoming, with half a million people, has as many Senators as California, with more than thirty million. Slightly more than ten percent of the American people elect half the U.S. Senate. Only Brazil has a more malapportioned upper house. The power of conservative Republicans is also exaggerated in the U.S. House of Representa­tives. The U.S. constitution permits each state to draw the districts of its representatives in Wash­ington, D.C. The party that controls a state government tends to“gerrymander” districts or draw them in order to favor its own candidates. The great number of Republican state legis-