“Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid.”
These are the penultimate sentences of Russian scientist Valery Legasov’s courtroom exposition in the spectacular 2019 Chernobyl miniseries. In his testimony, Legasov not only explains the physical processes that led to history’s worst nuclear meltdown, but also lays out the intricate web of lies, deceit, and warped incentives within the Soviet political system that led to the power plant managers’ decision to carry out an unsafe reactor cooling test.
In the Soviet Union, the lies that caused Chernobyl were told over the course of decades. Previous plant emergencies and near-misses were covered up for decades; known flaws in the Soviet RBMK reactor model were kept as state secrets. After the Chernobyl meltdown, bureaucrats refused to accept the reality of what had happened, delaying the evacuation, clean-up, and containment operations.
Throughout the West, post-Cold War complacency has increased tolerance for institutionalised untruths
On an individual level, lies do not usually cause catastrophe. But when they are systematised within the fundamental institutions of society, particularly the state, they can become lethal. Compared to closed and authoritarian systems like the USSR, western liberal democracies are much less likely to embed fundamental untruths into their institutions and more likely to expose them before they lead to Chernobyl-level consequences. But that does not render them immune.
Throughout the West, post-Cold War complacency has increased tolerance for institutionalised untruths, perpetuated by both the wider population and elites. Nowhere has this manifested to a greater extent than Western Europe. Across the region, institutions have created economic stagnation due to a toxic combination of complacency, risk-aversion, and interest group appeasement.
Take NIMBYism, one of the most significant forces behind Britain’s economic stagnation. When YIMBYs point out that Britain’s housing and infrastructure shortage is a major drag on growth and caused by state-imposed supply constraints, it is always greeted by a chorus of denial. These denials range from arguments that landlords or interest rates are the real cause of high prices, to outright refusal to admit that a crisis even exists. Here we see complacency.
Proposals for relatively mild deregulation to boost housebuilding are often rejected on the basis of smaller negative trade-offs. In 2023, for example, the House of Lords blocked the Government’s attempt to relax so-called “nutrient neutrality” regulations which could have seen 100,000 more homes built by 2030 than if the regulations were maintained. The blockers claimed that relaxation would lead to intolerable water pollution, despite housebuilding being a minor contributor to the problem. Here we see risk-aversion.
Of course, at the heart of Britain’s planning failures is an iron-clad belief, that residents of a community should have a “voice” in economic activity which takes place not on their property, but within a certain proximity of it. The “community” has a legally guaranteed ability to delay or block new planning proposals and this has not changed because central governments are afraid of upsetting the property-owning class. Here we see interest group appeasement.
Net Zero is another example, one which has gripped most Western European capitals. At its heart lies a belief that governments understand how to utilise energy-producing resources better than markets. Only by accepting this concept can policymakers try to claim that fossil fuels can be seamlessly replaced by renewables without causing energy supply shortages, higher prices, and reduced investment. Here we see complacency.
France, one of the few developed countries that has meaningfully reduced its Carbon emissions while keeping energy prices low, has done so by embracing nuclear energy. In the United Kingdom, attempts to remove burdensome regulations with delay and prevent new nuclear projects give rise to rapidly-organised anti-nuclear campaigns from NIMBYs and environmentalists. In Germany, ungrounded fears about nuclear safety and the belief that Russian gas and renewables would never stop producing has seen the atomic industry shuttered by the state. This has caused prices and use of carbon-intensive energy sources to rise. Here we see the consequences of risk-aversion and interest group appeasement.
There are so many of these stories to tell. From infrastructure and energy policy, to taxation, welfare, and tech regulation, Europe has embraced complacency, risk-aversion, and interest group appeasement over economic growth at almost every opportunity. But economic stagnation has set in for most of the continent, while the rise of Trump and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have confirmed that the post-Cold War era of American unipolar dominance is over. The lies incurred a debt to the truth that we are now paying.
But there are some signs that things may soon change for the better. Institutional lies can exist and persist for a long time, but actors within a liberal democracy can highlight untruths, set out an alternative based on truth, and pressure policymakers to enact change when popular frustration or economic realities become impossible to ignore.
There are signs that this has started to happen in Western Europe. The European Union Commission’s Competitiveness Compass, released last week, admits that European energy, tech, financial, and spending policies have undermined the continent’s economic dynamism and growth. The report echoes concerns raised by free market organisations like the European Policy Information Center that the “European Union’s declining influence in the global economy is driven by persistently low growth, demographic challenges, high public debt, and restrictive regulations that undermine competitiveness.”
The Competitiveness Compass does not address all of the institutional lies that have undermined the EU’s growth over the past few decades but it is encouraging. The report proposes a series of reforms to cut the bureaucratic reporting burden on businesses by 25-35 per cent; boost EU member states’ defence production; increase energy imports and exports within the Single Market; simplify EU regulatory approval processes and reduce regulatory hurdles for new businesses; and further integrate EU Single Market members’ capital markets to free up new investments.
In the UK, the Chancellor has confirmed support for plans to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport, new transport and research infrastructure in the all-important Oxford-Cambridge arc, and Britain’s first new reservoirs since 1992. If all three commitments prove to be successful, it will clearly demonstrate a new era for Britain, one which embraces growth rather than catering to radical anti-growth movements like NIMBYism and radical environmentalism.
Only time will tell whether both Brussels and Westminster’s new commitments will translate into action. But if they do, it will signal a shift away from the institutionalised lies that have undermined Western Europe’s economic and political flourishing since the end of the Cold War. The future of Europe’s economy, stability, and security tangibly depends on their success.