In A Study of History, the great Arnold Toynbee explained that the role of “elites” in any society is to handle challenges that allow the group to survive and move on to the next phase of their shared journey.
If bad solutions are offered up, then problems will intensify, and pressure will arise for a change in the elite. This can happen in various ways: through elections in a best case scenario; a change of regime as with France’s Fourth Republic which failed to properly handle decolonization; a collapse in the political structure such as befell the Austrian empire at the end of WWI; or, most dramatically, the overthrow of a civilization as in South America with the arrival of the Spaniards or in Egypt when the Muslims took over.
In Europe, the main problem for a century or more was the internecine rivalry between Germany and France, which led to three wars that became progressively more destructive. By the time Europe’s exhausted elites reached 1945, it was obvious that war was not going to solve anything and hence a new solution was tried in the shape of “political” Europe. The plan worked to such an extent that new challenges were spawned such as the handling of Germany's reunification, managing the effects of an aging population, and integrating lots of immigrants from a genuinely different civilization.
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