America Has Lost Its Way.(The World We're In)

Will Hutton is a skillful surfer of the Zeitgeist. In 1995, his U.K. best seller "The State We're In" nicely captured the mood of hopeful anticipation as the British electorate prepared to vote out the Conservatives after 18 years and bring in Tony Blair's rehabbed Labour Party. Now he's riding another, bigger, fashionable wave: America- bashing. In "The World We're In" (Little Brown, London), Hutton embraces a series of arguments that are increasingly popular in Europe, especially among left-wing intellectuals: as a social and economic model, America has lost its luster. Europe is a better model for both a just society and a thriving economy, so Britain needs to loosen its ties to the United States and strengthen those to Europe.

All these arguments are worthy of discussion. But Hutton--a former editor of the left-wing Sunday Observer and now chief executive of the Work Foundation--is a provocateur. So he takes the new theology of the European left and ratchets it up to a rant. Hutton's America is a failed society, "the most unequal society in the industrialized West." As an economic model it is a failure as well; the obsession with short- term profits to satisfy shareholders has drained U.S. industry of innovation and long-term planning. Worse, American liberalism has collapsed, leaving the United States defenseless against Reagan-Bush conservatives, who are emptying the country of whatever good it had.

Hutton applies the same torque wrench to Britain and Europe. Having dissected the American model and found it lacking, he wants us to believe that Britain's only choice is to ditch America and become a full partner in Europe (read: join the single currency). Hutton prescribes Europe as the antidote to the American disease. The social- welfare "settlement" incorporated in Western European societies is superior to America's you're-on-your-own dogma. Government involvement in public services is necessary and good, writes Hutton. Europe, unlike workaholic America, has found a sensible and productive balance between leisure and work.

To his ranting Hutton brings a formidable intelligence, meticulous analysis and prodigious research. This is particularly true when he writes on economic matters. He argues that U.S. big business is sacrificing long-term gains and creativity to the ...