State Obligations WINTER 2015 Severe material deprivation rate in Europe in 2011 and Figure 1 20124 50 40 30 _- -- 22011 C')Est'ma!e5 S 2012 2012 cCBgeakintimesenes,2012 (E dat n ,able. 2012 Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset in the 1930s framed what, aptly and accurately, describes the current European financial crisis. He wrote in his seminal work The Revolt of the Masses that: Europe has been left without a moral code. It is not that the mass-man has thrown over an antiquated one in exchange for a new one, but that at the centre of his scheme of life there is precisely the aspiration to live without conforming to any moral code. Do not believe a word you hear from the young when they talk about the 'new morality.' I absolutely deny that there exists to-day in any comer of the Continent a group inspired by a new ethos which shows signs of being a moral code. When people talk of the 'new morality' they are merely committing a new immorality and looking for a way of introducing contraband goods. 5 The gap between the southern and northern parts of Europe reflects the difference between these states' financial obligations and their obligation to respect socio-economic rights. In the modem era, a state's financial obligations take precedence over state obligations to respect economic and social rights. Many describe liberalism and generosity as 4 Eurostat, People at risk of poverty or social exclusion, 2013, Figure 4, http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics-explained/index.php/People-at risk of povertyor social -exclusion and http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=ilcmddd I1 &Iang=en. available at 5 Jose 0. Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses, 136, (1930) http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/libraryl /revolt.pdf.