--- "Marvin Long, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, 5 Feb 2003, Gautam Mukunda wrote: > > > The US has consistently (and > > mistakenly, in my opinion) encouraged the creation > and > > expansion of the European Union. > > Why mistakenly? > > Marvin Long
Several reasons. First, I think the European Union is profoundly anti-democratic. It concerns me greatly, actually, as I think it might be the single most important challenge to democracy in the world today. The central thrust of the European Union the way it is structured is a transfer of power from the elected representatives of the various nations of Western Europe to an unelected bureaucracy in Brussels. It's worth noting that European publics consistently reject joining the Union whenever it is put to a vote - look at what happened in Ireland, where the first vote rejecting the Union was simply ignored. This stifling hand of the bureaucracy is something that Tocqueville warned against in _Democracy in America_, interestingly enough, but it seems to me to be happening far more strongly in Europe than it ever has here in the United States. Second, I would say that the European Union forces on its member states economic policies that are actively harmful to their economies. It encourages heavy regulation and micromanagement of economies - failed policies that will further weaken the already slothful economies of Western Europe. It forces them to adopt cyclical monetary and fiscal policies that will (and are, in fact, currently) exacerbate any recessions. It is fundamentally an economic zone designed to keep foreign goods out of Europe. Walter Russell Mead once said, correctly in my opinion, the the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy does more harm to the world's poor than any other single act of the West. Third, if it succeeds in fully unifying Europe, that might actually be the worst outcome. This would inevitably become a Europe essentially run by France and Germany as a co-Dominion. It would probably convince them (incorrectly) that they had the capacity to challenge the United States. In my opinion, the only stable and peaceful global power structure is a unipolar one - one with one dominant country. Which country it is matters, because the international system will take on the characteristics of the dominant state, and other states will imitate the dominant state. It matters whether the US or China is the pole. But a unified Europe would, for a short time (until demographic trends caught up to it) be a plausible challenger to the United States. This would, I think, lead almost inevitably to a confrontation between the US and Europe. I am confident that the US would win any such contest - but I am _certain_ that any such confrontation would be bad for both, and bad for the world. So that's why I think the EU is a bad idea, the short version :-) Gautam __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
