Rifkin contends the European Union could one day become a true economic rival of the United States of America.

The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream is a book, by Jeremy Rifkin, published in September 2004. Jeremy Rifkin (born 1943, Denver Colorado) the founder and president of the Foundation on Economic Trends (FOET is an American economist writer and public September 2004: January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Rifkin describes the emergence and evolution of the European Union over the past five decades, as well as key differences between European and American values. The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in The United States of America —commonly referred to as the He argues that the European Union, which he describes as the first truly postmodern governing body, has the potential to become a world superpower. Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement' While " Modern " itself refers to something "related to the present" the movement of modernism A superpower is a State with a leading position in the international system and the ability to Influence events and project power on a worldwide scale

According to Rifkin, the "European Dream", which champions communalism, sustainability, and human rights over property rights and radical individualism, is better-suited to 21st century challenges than the "American dream" of personal fortune, which may be obsolete. See also Communalism (South Asia. In many parts of the world communalism is a modern term that describes a broad range of Social movements Sustainability, in a general sense is the capacity to maintain a certain process or state indefinitely Human rights refers to the "basic Rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled Property is any physical or virtual entity that is owned by an individual The 21st century is the current century of the Christian Era or Common Era in accordance with the Gregorian calendar.

Rifkin explains Europe's opposition to the death penalty in a historical context; after losing so many lives to wars in the early and mid-20th century, Europe is opposed to state-sponsored killing as a matter of principle. Capital punishment, the death penalty or execution, is the Killing of a person by judicial process as Punishment. History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology War is an international relations Dispute, characterized by organized Violence between National Military units The twentieth century of the Common Era began on He also discusses the European commitment to "deep play" ^[1], a notion which is absent in the United States.

Criticism and commentary

The French philosopher Bernard Stiegler is an admirer of Rifkin's work, referring in a recent essay on the future of Europe to The European Dream:

As Jeremy Rifkin’s recent work The European Dream suggests, the world expects a great deal from Europe, and Europe will not be able to constitute itself as a power unless it gives itself the means with which to respond to this demand. Bernard Stiegler (born April 1, 1952) is a French Philosopher and Director of the Department of Cultural Development at the Centre But, what is being asked of it? The world does not expect good intentions. It expects Europe to invent a new industrial model which is capable of interrupting the destructive process unleashed by the capture and unlimited exploitation of the libidinal energy of producers and consumers which will lead, in all domains, to a vast process of desublimation.

As this quotation already indicates, Stiegler argues that Rifkin, while recognizing the critical importance of Europe to the question of the global future, nevertheless does not penetrate to the crucial question, because he does not see the capturing and channelling of desire as the central destructive feature of contemporary capitalism. Rifkin fails to grasp that what consumer capitalism destroys first of all is primordial narcissism, a narcissism which is the foundation of desire as such, and hence the foundation of all dreams (including the European dream) and all future (including the European future):

If we must rethink motivation or, in other words, desire, then we must rethink the incommensurable as the best, and define the best as that which aims at a consistency and, in this consistency, aims at multiple consistencies (to on pollakhos legetai), a different plane, one which is not reducible to the calculability of the finite (in other words, reducible to comparisons). Consumer capitalism describes a theoretical economic and cultural condition in which consumer demand is manipulated in a deliberate and coordinated way on a very large scale Narcissism describes the trait of excessive Self-love, based on Self-image or Ego. However, just as there is no question of a Providence here, there is no question of calling that which is true in the other plane a simple dream. This other plane cannot be a dream, or at least not in Jeremy Rifkin’s sense of a dream—unless we make this dream the principle of all politics and economics—but then it would be necessary to elaborate a general libidinal economy, which would be very unevocative of Rifkin, who seems not to see the libido as an issue in the world of capitalism, even though he is American, and who in any case supports his arguments with the summary analyses of narcissism proposed by Christopher Lasch. Christopher (Kit Lasch ( June 1, 1932, Omaha Nebraska – February 14, 1994, Pittsford New York) was a well-known American What Rifkin misses, along with Lasch, is that narcissism is the precondition of all dreams and all psyche, as the etymology of the word alone indicates.

Notes

1. ^  "deep play" is the idea that culture, cultural institutions and community have value in themselves (look at for instance the various historical trusts in European buildings, or the widespread support for the welfare state). This article refers specifically to the Welfare state of the United Kingdom. In the US it tends to be undervalued in favor of commerce and utilitarianism. Commerce is a division of trade or production which deals with the exchange of goods and services from producer to final consumer Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall Utility, that is its contribution to happiness Put bluntly, if something "makes no money, it has no value"; incidentally, this is very similar to the "philosophy" of ancient Romans, one of the most important civilizations in the history of Europe, who often quoted cui prodest?, in Latin "what is it for?"

External links

• "The European Dream: The New Europe has its own Cultural Vision—and it may be Better Than Ours", an article on page seventy-six of the September, 2004 – October, 2004 issue of Utne, copied from the book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream by Jeremy Rifkin
• Constitution and Individuation by Bernard Stiegler
• Book review by Stanley Hoffman
• Book review by Kirk McElhearn
• a discussion with Jeremy Rifkin in the European Parliament about the European Dream