Europeans tallest, North Americans smallest brains?

Recently, according to a study Europeans, The Dutch in particular, are now the tallest people in the World.

North Americans were always the tallest, but haven't grown since the last 25 years and are 2 inches shorter than their Dutch counterparts.

We're used to the notion of the United States as the world's dominant power, a land of untold resources, wealth and consumption.

And one reflection of this abundance is the fact that for most of the past 2 1/2 centuries, Americans have been literally the tallest people on the planet.
Feeding off the abundant wild game and rich agriculture of their vast new land, colonial Americans measured a full three inches taller than Europeans.

Not so any more.
Compared to Europeans, Americans have effectively shrunk.
Indeed, among all advanced industrial nations, Americans are now at the bottom end of the height scale.

And, no, it's not the influx of short Hispanics. The height pattern is the same for Americans even when the sample is limited to non-Hispanic, native-born Americans.

It seems to be a reflection of something more basic.
According to an influential paper in Social Science Quarterly last June by economic historians John Komlos and Benjamin Lauderdale, "height is indicative of how well the human organism thrives in its socioeconomic environment."

The relative shrinking of Americans on the world scene is perhaps then an indicator of something Americans are doing badly, not in Iraq, but right at home.

And that something should be of more than passing interest to Canadians as we continue, consciously and unconsciously, to shape our economic and social systems with the U.S. in mind.

Actually, Canada has traditionally been a blend of the U.S. and European approaches.
But in the last couple of decades, as we have focused increasingly on cutting taxes and have adopted the attitude that individuals must make it on their own in society, we've veered more closely to the U.S. model.

We tend to view the low-tax, low-spending U.S. model as simply the norm in the era of globalization. But in fact it is only the U.S. norm.

Europeans, particularly northern Europeans, have traditionally done things differently.
They have been imposing much higher taxes and delivering much more generous social programs that provide a striking array of benefits to every member of society.

Contrary to our impressions here in the West that globalization has fundamentally redesigned the world, the Europeans have stuck with their high-tax, high-spending model in the globalized era.

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