11 ms·

Member of The European Union

329 points by matthewrudy 10y ago

fixermark 10y ago
It feels a little like there should be a simple, rational argument from politics and economics for retaining the EU as a single unit. "The world markets are dominated by a few forces. One is a country with the bulk of the world's population; its population is about sixteen times the population of the most populous European country. Another is a single country with territory approximately fifteen times the square mileage of the largest single European nation. Unifying the voices of all people in Europe under one political entity doesn't zero out the playing field, but it may very well decrease the absurd order-of-magnitude scales of difference between political entities as these two juggernauts stomp inexorably towards their desired world order while the individual nations of Europe debate their own individual selfish interests." But people aren't often rational about national ties.
- tomp 10y ago
  > Unifying the voices of all people in Europe under one political entity doesn't zero out the playing field, but it may very well decrease the absurd order-of-magnitude scales of difference between political entities as these two juggernauts stomp inexorably towards their desired world order while the individual nations of Europe debate their own individual selfish interests. The fallacy is with "unifying the voices". EU definitely doesn't feel that way. E.g. in the handling of the Greek crisis, it's mainly the German voice that's heard, and the voice of IMF (not even part of the EU!) echoes softly in the background. Sure, you might argue that Germany is so much bigger/more prosperous/more powerful/better than Greece, for the EU to stick together, it must be beneficial to every single nation within it. It's easy to champion "solidarity" when it's mainly their solidarity for you, but not the other way around.
  - mpweiher 10y ago
    Of course you have bickering, because you have different interests, just as with any group where number of members > 1. So if it doesn't feel that way, yes, because (a) you're looking at it from the inside and (b) we're not particularly integrated, yet.
    - tomp 10y ago
      But the main question comes from (b) - will we ever be integrated? Ignoring Britain and the rest of non-Euro countries, Germany and their unwillingness to even consider a fiscal union seems to be the main stumbling block. Can you imagine the US government introducing capital controls only in Alabama?!
      - mpweiher 10y ago
        Huh? I am fairly certain that fiscal union was always the plan, not achievable politically, so left for later introduction when it became obviously necessary. Anyway, I don't buy that it's Germany that's blocking. Of course, fiscal union means giving up a good chunk of sovereignty, which is where many of the member states balk. Fiscal union is OK if it means we get money, not so OK if we are no longer allowed to spend any way we want.
  - PaulHoule 10y ago
    This has a lot to do with it. The EU has mismanaged the Greek "Crisis" by not actually having a true crisis but rather having a crisis every six months. In a world where threats are coming from Russia, Syria, etc. it would be in in the interest of Europe to have Greece be stable and they really should have made everybody feel some pain, write off part of the debt, and take the punch bowl away.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      The biggest threats to the EU are not external, but internal. In a nutshell: - not enough buy-in of the population - too much corruption - too many languages - too many EU politicians getting 'money for nothing' (further reducing buy-in) - too many countries that slip their own protectionist measures in under the radar and get away with it - no unified tax system - way too many horses pulling in different directions at once And we don't have a slavery problem to get rid of so there most likely will not be a unification by force happening any time soon.
      - kennell 10y ago
        + massive bureaucracy How anyone can write a 4 page essay on the EU without mentioning the absurd bureaucracy and regulatory hell it has introduced to small businesses is beyond me. People outside of Europe may not be aware of how bad it really is, so just let me point you to the perhaps most prominent example, the "Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88 of 15 June 1988 laying down quality standards for cucumber" [1]. Let me pull some money quotes from the text: - "Slightly crooked cucumbers may have a maximum height of the arc of 20 mm per 10 cm of length of the cucumber." - "Cucumbers grown in the open must weigh 180 g or more. Cucumbers grown under protection must weigh 250 g or more. Moreover, 'Extra' Class and Class I cucumbers grown under protection weighing: 500 g or more must be not less than 30 cm long, between 250 and 500 g must be not less than 25 cm long." [1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:31988R1677&from=DE http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE...
        chrisseaton 10y ago
  - k__ 10y ago
    The question is, what is good for the others? Germany has the biggest population and the most wealth. The smallest countries seem to do well, too.
    - tomp 10y ago
      My answer: all or nothing, not something in-between like now. Either disintegrate the currency union, possibly Schengen as well, and let each country govern itself as it sees fit (seemed to work quite well 20 or so years ago) - simply by the virtue of common European heritage and values (at least compared to the rest of the world - China, US, Muslim countries), we'll end up collaborating quite well. Or establish a United States of Europe, where the federal government takes care of the budget (no more "Greece defaulting" and "Cypriot capital controlls"), military (no more "UK intervention in Syria") and probably a few other things. Of course, to implement this, we need to agree on a common set of values from the beginning, which IMO we should model on Germany/Switzerland/Denmark (i.e. direct democracy, strong military but non-interventionism abroad, publicly-funded schools and healthcare but allow private services as well, strong consumer and environmental protections, flexible employment but with a strong social net). Personally, I'd add freedom of speech and the right to self-determination (secession) as well, but most of Europe seems quite opposed to that...
  - prof_hobart 10y ago
    The UK doesn't feel that way either. The country is largely run by, and for, a small sliver of our society and does little to help vast swathes of it.
- lintiness 10y ago
  small, isolated, selfish interests have long been the drivers of global progress.
- Grue3 10y ago
  Poor Switzerland. It's small, has relatively low population, and not in a union with any other country. Moreover, everyone has guns. And yet, it's one of the most (if not the most) prosperous countries in Europe.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    Switzerland is a very interesting country, but it only exists by virtue of the mountains surrounding it and historically, if those mountains had not been there Switzerland as we know it today would not exist. What works in Switzerland my not necessarily work elsewhere. On another note, the Swiss neutrality has caused them to end up on the wrong side of history in more than one occasion.
    - Thimothy 10y ago
      No that I know much of Swiss history, but according to that argument, Poland would be by now a footnote in European history, and thy seem to manage...
      - jacquesm 10y ago
        > Poland would be by now a footnote in European history, and thy seem to manage... As much as I love Poland I would not consider them a candidate for the 'most prosperous' country in Europe, and I think that you'd agree with me given your choice of words.
  - MagnumOpus 10y ago
    > not in a union with any other country They contribute EU funds, they are in the Schengen borderless zone, they implement EU directives and regulations (without being able to veto them like members can), and they are part of the European free trade zone. Sure, de jure they are not in the union. De facto that is just a nice fiction to satisfy the ultranationalists from the Swiss People's Party.
  - Faaak 10y ago
    Switzerland takes _great_ advantage of the other countries. People living near the border go to other countries to buy their stuff (france, germany, italy). Switzerland also has economy incentives for companies which work if small countries implement-it, but not all. Switzerland is a exception, not the rule.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  > It feels a little like there should be a simple, rational argument from politics and economics for retaining the EU as a single unit According to Ronald Coase, people begin to organise their production in firms when the transaction cost of coordinating production through the market exchange, given imperfect information, is greater than within the firm [1]. One could extend this concept to subsidiarisation. People should elevate decisions to a higher level of government only when transacting/negotiating with other effected parties at the same level of subsidiarisation becomes costlier (e.g. the New York Area's MTA and Port Authority in comparison with the Bay Area's lack thereof). Note that a conclusion around "always coalesce" or "always devolve" doesn't appear across all parameters. If Britain's and her trading partners' institutions were more efficient than the EU's, it would be rational to leave. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm
- rayiner 10y ago
  It's not so simple. Take the U.S. for example. If the Northeast were its own country, it'd have universal health care, abortion rights would be secure, etc. So how do people in New York feel about being lumped into the same polity with people from Florida, and having to make the compromises they have to make to do that? You don't have to follow American politics all that closely to know they're not always happy about it. Throughout history, there has been a strong tendency for groups with shared values and culture wanting to form their own sovereign countries. It's intellectually lazy to hand-wave this away as mere irrationality. In reality, when aggregating people into larger groups works best (in fact, works at all) if those people share the same values. Otherwise, instead of "unifying the voices of all people" you end up in a situation where peoples' voices are canceled out by conflicting values. That makes people feel powerless, it destroys faith in public institutions, and it aggregates power in bureaucrats because the voices of people are too diluted to keep them in check.
- yarrel 10y ago
  Europe cannot compete with Russia and China. And the NHS will be dismantled thanks to TTIP whether the UK leaves the EU or not. Brexit is therefore a choice between political elites. A remote, unseen, neoliberal, corrupt political elite or a closer, familiar, neoliberal, corrupt political elite. Presenting this as a choice of economic self-interest is irrational.
  - Chyzwar 10y ago
    Russia is on verge of bankruptcy. Average Greek has much better life that average Russian. China have even bigger structural problems: corruption, aging population, empty cities, lack of own technology, weak retirement system, bad education etc. This choice about Brexit will impact mostly economic situation. If UK vote for Brexit people will start losing jobs.
UK-AL 10y ago
So you want the EU to intentionally cripple the UK's competitiveness in order to work towards your own moral values which maybe right or wrong? Though in these particular cases my values are aligned with yours. However there are many cases where peoples values differ. You are using the supremacy EU laws to force your values on to them. If these values are truly universal there is nothing stopping you getting some form of treaty between all these countries anyway outside of the eu. Leaving other things more open. It's a very simple individuals/small groups vs large groups issue. There are two ways to resolve it. Allow each individual to make their own decision about it, or take a side and force your values on to everyone. Companies treat workers well because they have to compete to get them. Not because the government forces their hand. There's always a way around government regulation, so it's not really effective. There's always loop hole. So why do companies offer workers good conditions? Because they are forced to by competition. You solve the issues of companies treating workers badly by developing a surging economy not by laws. These 3rd world countries with sweatshops have actually gotten better standards then what came before. As spare capacity decreases companies are forced to offer better conditions. You can see this now, where in china companies are going elsewhere because workers demanding a lot more. Tax argument only works if you think government is more efficient with money in the first place.
- kennydude 10y ago
  > Companies treat workers well because they have to compete to get them. Not because the government forces their hand. Hahahah, I'm sure companies like Sports Direct would love to hear that
  - UK-AL 10y ago
    Yes. UK has well developed employment law compared to a lot of countries that's still heavily on the side of the employee in most cases. And yet there's still issues. There's always a way to fuck with you, no matter the laws. The solution is make the economy competitive for labour, by encouraging growth and skills. They will treat you well then, regardless the laws. If you can leave freely and companies are dependent on your skills they won't screw you around. The problem is that laws that proclaim to be on side of the employees makes the labour market less competitive for employees. Look at france, they have have absurdly strong labour laws and their employment rate is awful because of this.
sgnelson 10y ago
Could the title of this article be any less informative?
- lovich 10y ago
  At least he explains the title in the first paragraph, but I agree that a more informative title would have been a better choice
- RodericDay 10y ago
  I like the dual reference to Euro and set membership
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    A title you can't understand until you've read the piece is an uninformative title.
  - pmontra 10y ago
    And the E in the CE marking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking The Euro sign has one more dash €. Maybe the author intentionally left some ambiguity in the title.
    - spacehome 10y ago
      Speaking as a math major, I didn't see any ambiguity at all.
- matthewrudy 10y ago
  Given the timing (just before the EU referendum) and the audience (mostly maths enthusiasts), it's a great title.
- sctb 10y ago
  We updated the title to be more practically clickable and less click-baity. We're open to suggestions for a better one.
seomis 10y ago
I thought this was going to be about set theory.
rhaps0dy 10y ago
>Many people think that a country is better off if its workers are decently paid, do not work excessively long hours, and work in a safe environment. (If you are sufficiently right wing, then you may disagree, but that just means that you will need other examples to illustrate the abstract principle.) Would it be possible to resist stabs at the "other side" of politics, if you are trying to explain something? People in the other side will be distracted by this, and think less of the author, or (like me) think it's a misguided or untrue example.
- throwanem 10y ago
  It's certainly possible, but it requires sufficient empathy and intellectual openness to study and understand the arguments of the "other side", which seems lacking on all sides of late.
  - Tloewald 10y ago
    I think he was actually picking things it's hard for anyone to disagree with, but if you do disagree with them you probably aren't on the "left". I think a right wing argument would not be against these things, but that while these three things are good, government regulation, welfare, and other typical left-wing policies are not the best way to achieve them.
- rkrzr 10y ago
  Not sure what "stab" you are referring to here? Seems like a fair remark to me.
- angrow 10y ago
  Which did you think it was (misguided or untrue) and why?
- ska 10y ago
  How is it a "stab" to say that different examples might be needed?
  - 10y ago
swalsh 10y ago
I upvoted this on accident, a one letter title requires extreme clicking precision. I think HN should force a min title length.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- spacehome 10y ago
  First World Problems.
SlipperySlope 10y ago
Switzerland is now 5% Muslim, without being part of the EU immigration program. Calls from Muslims to remove the Cross from the Swiss flag have been reportedly met by outrage.
- dang 10y ago
  Religious flamewar comments (and this is not the first one you've posted) are not allowed on Hacker News. Please don't do this again. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11938702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11938702 and marked it off-topic.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
bitL 10y ago
If we had algorithmic laws that would adapt to situation at any given time, then having a non-profit organization managing them could be beneficial. But when the bureaucracy in Brussels is strikingly similar to the one in Moscow during its "glory" days, I am not so sure we really need that. What we have now is that all politicians the member states wanted to get rid of due to their incompetence and other vices, end up in Brussels. You can gauge the quality of representatives from this. As for potential Brexit, what would happen is that GB would enter TTIP earlier than other EU countries and get a deeper integration with US much earlier. So in a way it could give UK an edge (if TTIP proves in any way beneficial to UK and not only to US). The main industry is anyway financial; once TTIP is signed between EU and USA there won't be much in the way of UK either.
- prodmerc 10y ago
  Seems to me that TTIP is more beneficial the larger the entity. And why would the UK get it faster than the EU? Anyway, I see many corporations just moving to Ireland or mainland Europe somewhere - it seems easier than stay in an uncertain situation. Or if the UK becomes their haven, well then pity the people... But yeah, bureaucracy is ballooning. Not sure if just running away is the best choice though.
- mprovost 10y ago
  Obama explicitly called out that if the UK leaves the EU, that it would be at the "back of the queue" for trade deals. There's much less incentive for the US to work on a treaty with a smaller country like the UK as opposed to the entire EU.
  - Wintamute 10y ago
    The UK is the world's 5th largest economy, in reality it wouldn't be in either party's interests to send it to the back of the queue. Add on to that that the UK would have a much more flexible negotiating position outside the EU, as well as a powerful political mandate to quickly sort out new deals post Brexit.
    - 10y ago
rrggrr 10y ago
Gower's thesis ignores the rent-seeking, grabbing hand of government. Yes, many government policies are defensible, if not desirable, when framed for the common good, common ideals, common values, etc. But we know that many policies only advance the interests of those in government, their friends and those who hold power of politicians. The grabbing hand of government engages in rent-seeking at the local level, federal level, and the common body level; and at each step the citizen in Leeds or London is further removed from the policy-maker. Against all the arguments to remain in the Euro-zone, there is this argument... Its not enough for capital, people and ideas to be free to travel physical borders. There must be sufficient sovereign diversity that they can travel to countries where there is less institutional resistance to a status quo that keeps them from flourishing. Even better if they do not have to travel anywhere to flourish because the people chose to exit a restrictive, occasionally repressive federation.
- jamespo 10y ago
  Can you please give examples of these reprehensible policies?
  - CamperBob2 10y ago
    See any recent article about Venezuela.
    - jamespo 10y ago
      When did they join the EU?
      - CamperBob2 10y ago
        What did the OP say that was genuinely specific to the EU?
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    I'm not in the EU, rather in the US. But I think I know what rrggrr is talking about. We've got all these things the government does. Each one, taken by itself, sounds like a good thing. But when you step back and look at the whole size of the government, it's insane how big it is. (We'd be more aware of this if we actually had to pay for all of it, instead of running a deficit.) I'd expect those in the EU to feel this even more, because there the governments are even larger in terms of percentage of GNP.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago
By this logic, wouldn't the most logical thing be for the EU members to all petition to join the United States of America as states (USAE - United States of America and Europe)? After all, would this group not have much more influence than even the EU? In addition, there is a strong tradition of subsidiarity in the United States (see states rights). I think most Europeans would be horrified of joining the United States. Why? Because there is not enough shared identity. The United States works because the shared American identity is very strong. Even if I live in Iowa, my identity is more strongly American than Iowan. This American identity was forged through centuries of migration and assimilation (i.e. the Westward expansion where people would leave their state to go out West but would still be American) and in fighting and dying together alongside fellow Americans in the various wars over the years. While the elite of Europe may have a stronger European identity than that of their country of citizenship, what you are seeing with the recent polls and movements in Europe is that for many of the common people, their national identity is stronger than their European identity. This is to be expected as for many of these countries, the national identity was forged over hundreds of years, while the modern European identity is only a few decades old. Thus, for many people, they see the European identity as seeking to assert primacy over their national identity and they are wanting out.
- return0 10y ago
  Actually , the far right movements in the continent are loudest against immigration from outside europe. Oddly , anti-immigration is a thing that seems to unite europeans at this time.
- throwanem 10y ago
  It's funny you should take this particular tack, because this is a place where the United States has already been. We weren't able to resolve the question of which allegiance meant more, by any means short of a rather nasty half-decade-long war that maybe you've heard of. (It's also funny that you should mistake the primacy of modern American national identity as having some other cause but that, but the error is more or less ubiquitous these days, I'm afraid.) And that's what it took to enforce a federal union upon just a handful of states with strictly limited experience - a couple of centuries, tops - of regarding themselves as essentially sovereign but allied polities. In light of that, I've always found it faintly amazing that anyone imagines the EU will endure without resort to similarly drastic measures. (Also that it even came into existence, given how badly things went last time Germany was involved in trying to unify Europe. And people say Americans have little regard for history...)
amelius 10y ago
Now try to explain that to the average voter :)
mattmanser 10y ago
I think the supranational organisations argument is a bad argument to make given that throughout the world everyone else is devolving, and splitting into smaller countries or presently trying to split off. Off the top of my head, countries/peoples recently or actively trying to split or setting up a new regional government, several that are actually in the EU: Czechoslovakia Yugoslavia Catalan Scotland Wales N. Ireland The Kurds I'm sure there are many more as I really don't keep up with African or South American politics. So why is everywhere else in the world seemingly moving to devolution, apart from Europe which is trying to create a super-state out of very, very different peoples. And I know that they're very different. I'm half-dutch, half-english, my Dad lives in France, I've been to Belgium, Spain, Italy and Germany. Each of these peoples have very different outlooks. And the Germans, quite alarmingly as one of the key leaders of this change, still consider themselves more German than global citizens[1] compared to other countries. And don't misinterpret this, nothing to do with Nazis, everything to do in that they're obviously not doing it out of a love for the EU. So why the need for the super state? Look at what happened to poor old Spain and Greece being forced into what is now a very disparate economic relationship with Germany, the Germans have even effectively rescinded Greece's national economic decision making. There don't seem to be any rational arguments coming out of either camp, and of all the arguments, the "supranational organisation" one has got to be the most ridiculous. To make it a quasi-mathematical one is even more absurd as our countries have much better labor laws than America which is bound by exactly that sort of organisation, and we had the bulk of them before the EU was involved. The Social Democracies of the EU came way before the EU even existed, before the EC, before the EEC. Before the EU we certainly didn't have zero-hour contracts, so there's clear evidence his quasi-mathematical arguments don't hold water. And I say this all as a pro-remain. Posts like this honestly don't help because they are partisan bullshit dressed up as 'logic' with little in the way of facts. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-36139904 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-36139904
- rmc 10y ago
  Very few groups in N. Ireland are trying to set up their own N. Ireland state/government. People either want in with one country or the other.
pithic 10y ago
The problem with supra-nations is that, as bigger monopolies on government, they are much harder to vote against with your feet. You know, in case they become captured by special interests and impose burdensome taxes, oppressive laws, and smothering regulations.
Qantourisc 10y ago
Personally my biggest beef with the EU seems to be the lack of optional participation. Some rules just work better if applied to the entire EU, but it's not essential for a lot of rules. Example the vacuum cleaners: do we seriously need these things enforced from the EU? There are of course rules that would require everyone to participate to work. Also IMO a country should be able select which parts of the EU they wish to participate in: monetary, military, schengen zone, product safety rules (and thus easy in and export...), ...
- sitic 10y ago
  If I would build vacuum cleaners, I would rather build one type and sell it in 28 different nations then producing 28 different models. When I want to buy a vacuum cleaner, I want a good choice between different models and good prices. So whats wrong with the EU regulating vacuum cleaners in a common market?
  - Qantourisc 10y ago
    The only thing wrong with is the enforcement, at which point do you value sovereignty over common market ? (Everyone should still implement this of course.) But having the ability to say no is still nice. About the models, well normally most countries will apply the rule anyway, as such the vacuum cleaners you will be able to get will conform anyway. (And the vacuum cleaners was an example.) Bus as stated it's mainly about sovereignty versus unity. Also I am not sure if optional parts would help keep the EU together: on one side you feel less forced, and more invested. On the other side it diminishes to effectiveness of it. And I think I mainly fear the EU becoming the the USA. I do not think many people in the EU are keen on seeing that happen.
- dingaling 10y ago
  > Example the vacuum cleaners: do we seriously need these things enforced from the EU? If you want to sell them in the EU common market then yes, they do need to enforce standards for the sale of vacuum cleaners. If you want to build vacuum cleaners that don't meet those standards then you can still do so within the EU and sell them in the USA, Canada, Russia... assuming they too don't have standards you need to meet.
putzdown 10y ago
People are generally selfish and lazy. We act in immediately efficient ways even if those ways have high long-term costs—balloon payments and so forth. We do this individually and we do it when we band together in companies and nations. At the extremes, there are two ways to deal with selfishness and laziness. You can let it go, allowing people to make their own choices and face their own consequences, hoping they'll have enough foresight to avoid ballooning dangers. In economics and government this is generally associated with "conservative" politics. Or you can control people through rule-making and enforcement, preventing them from making choices they should know will end up bad and forcing them to take the right actions. This is associated with—somewhat unexpectedly—the "liberal" approach. It's pretty clear that either extreme is a bad choice. Pure conservatism allows the wealthy and powerful few to exploit the oppressed many, the large corporation to crush the individual, the effective short-term competitor to ignore long-term costs to self and others. Pure liberalism crushes individual choice, presumes the wise choice of those who rule, sustains complex legal and enforcement systems, and adds the profound inefficiency of government to the many expenses a society must bear. Yet anything in between the two extremes is difficult. Ambiguity abounds. No single choice for a conservative or liberal approach—in health care, for example, or gun control, or airport security, or child rearing—is clearly correct and without serious downsides. People are difficult. Living together is hard. If there is a clear error, therefore, it is an over-enthusiasm for one extreme or the other, an over-pessimism for the other side of the aisle. What's more, one's own self-bias is all but impossible to see. This article begins with pretensions of objectivity that the author compares, if vaguely, to mathematics, yet the bias of the author shines through unmistakable. He searches for objective premises from which to argue, yet even the way he frames the questions, even the premises he chooses to expound all but guarantee his conclusions. And so here we are: difficult people, trying to live together, discussing—or pretending to—how best to do so, yet choked full of our own biases and unwilling (because we are selfish and lazy) to really hear the other side. And that's too bad, because the right answer is surely a blend, a case-by-case blend, of freedom and legislation. When you compare the laws of the EU to nations contemporary and historical, I think it's pretty clear that it skews liberal and that there is a great deal of legislation: legislation "for their own good." It's possible that the EU has good legislation, a good amount of legislation, and that it is effective in enforcing that legislation such that the member nations have done, are doing, and will do better than they would without the union. (Not just economically better but morally, ecologically, etc.—whatever values we ought to care about. Though that's not clear.) But it also reasonable to wonder whether the EU is incorrectly skewed toward too much legislation, or of the wrong kind, or with bad enforcement, so that the member nations, or perhaps a single member nation, would do "better" (by some sound standard) removing itself from these laws. It helps in making these speculations that the EU, after all, is quite new in historical terms; Britons can look back even in their own memories and know what life without the EU might look like. There's no going back really, of course, but there is some historical basis for speculation. They can also look at their own values and culture and look for broad compatibilities or incompatibilities that might bode well or ill for the ongoing relationship. It seems to me that the choice comes down to those kinds of questions. Were Britons better off before the EU, and if so, do they have a reasonable chance of returning, post-EU, to a similar or better situation? Is the rule of the EU over the UK, considered historically, abnormally invasive, complex, or incompetent, or is it on the other hand effective in legislation and enforcement? So I think it's a historical, not mathematical or even—quite—logical question.
danmaz74 10y ago
> Similarly, a little while ago I heard a fisherman talking about how his livelihood suffered as a result of EU fishing quotas, and how he hoped that Britain would leave the EU and let him fish more. He didn’t put it quite that crudely, but that was basically what he was saying. And yet without quotas, the fishing stock would rapidly decline and that very same fisherman’s livelihood would vanish completely. The problem wouldn't just be the fishing stock disappearing. The UK fisherman could start a pricing war with EU fishermen, and that would be followed by an import tariffs war, which would for sure expand to other sectors. The end result? Not good for the EU, but even worse for the UK.
mathgenius 10y ago
I'd like to see more mathematicians / scientists stick their neck out like this. Too often these people hide behind castle walls, because they have been taught to stay in their own speciality. Yes, it is quite likely that they will make a rookie mistake, but they will also learn at a fantastic rate.
clarkmoody 10y ago
In the abstract, the case for supranational organizations is almost too obvious to be worth making: just as it often benefits individual people to form groups and agree to restrict their behaviour in certain ways, so it can benefit nations to join groups and agree to restrict their behaviour in certain ways. But nations aren't anything more than collections of people. Nations, like societies and governments, cannot do anything. Rather, the people within are the ones taking action. Supernational organizations that constrain member states without the consent of the citizens of those states are just another form of tyranny. You don't need giant bureaucracies to have free trade or free movement of people (or prosperity, for that matter).
atmosx 10y ago
I agree with the ideas this post tries to perpetuate, but it’s written as if the author lives in a different reality. Post 2008, the EU has been the mother of all evil for PIIGS and non-PIIGS too. > In the abstract, the case for supranational organizations is almost too obvious to be worth making: […] Most Euro-sceptics, myself included, do not see the EU as a “supranational organisation” that is for my best interest. What I see is a body of non-elected puppets, taking important decisions about my life, mishandling crisis after crisis (debt crisis, Ukraine, Syria, etc.), the French sitting quietly while Germany abuses everyone. The EU is deeply, deeply undemocratic. There are no published discussions of the Eurogroup. So basically a finance minister goes there, comes back with new laws but there’s nothing published on paper or broadcasted about who said what and why. Every time an anti-popular law is passed, it’s because of “the EU” as if the EU was something abstract (exactly as this post describes) in which we, the people, have no say. So if we really have no say, why on earth would be support that? Because the opposite is worst? Sorry but this ain’t gonna cut it. The EU have not solved the basic macro-economic problems that every union or federal country has like surplus recycling: You can’t have Germany with huge surplus without having Greece with a huge pile of debt! You just can’t! It’s macro 0101. Why do you think that every time a referendum has been to called in relation to the EU (France, Netherlands, Greece and now the UK) the anti-EU choice has dominated. I mean the EU is turning unpopular even in Germany which is the country who profited most because of the single currency. That was expected because it's the biggest exporting power in Europe, so it has a surplus vis-a-vis with EVERY state that can't devalue. There is something fundamentally broken within the EU. The Germans are clearly unfit to lead while the French are too weak to react when it matters the most and others simply don't count. The whole is going to blow up for sure. Would you rather have 50 EUR and be able to decide what to do with 'em or 500 EUR but another country telling what to do with them? Now Prof. Varoufakis, which I admire deeply, believes that what comes after a break-up is an even greater depression and possibly war. I don’t like this narrative, not a bit, but I don’t see how we can avoid it by staying within the EU. The fact that we have neo-nazis in the Greek parliament, extreme right wing rising in Austria, France and Hungary is not pure chance. It’s the result of EU policies promoting unemployment, stagnation and hatred. So until the EU starts resembling more like a union and less like a bullying squad, there’s no chance. [1] That was the exact words Scheuble used to explain Varoufakis that Greece should continue with austerity “as is” although it was clearly visible that everything in the Greek program was wrong.
scottmsul 10y ago
One problem I have with this argument is that personal freedom isn't taken into account. Every time a decision is moved up one subsidiarity level, members at lower levels sacrifice a little bit of freedom. For example, suppose the EU recognizes that gas-consuming vehicles contribute to climate change. From a utilitarian standpoint, it makes sense to ban all cars unless the economic advantage from driving outweighs the ecological damage from climate change. So perhaps the EU should ban all cars by default, but allow citizens to fill out a petition every time they need to drive. Except this is ridiculous, because we shouldn't need permission to drive. This is an assumed basic liberty (of course drivers should still pass a driver's test to get a license, but this only needs to be done once). I think the utilitarian argument can still hold, but only if personal freedom is taken into account. It should be weighed like everything else, and recognized as a tradeoff. The United States allows freedom of speech, in exchange for giving people the right to post hateful comments online. The utilitarian might argue this is a bad thing, since society might be better off if hateful speech was removed from the internet. But in this case, I personally believe the benefits of freedom outweigh the drawbacks of offensive speech. Every time a higher authority recognizes a prisoner's dilemma and enforces a rule, they are forbidding the players from playing the game themselves. Even if the societal benefits outweigh the drawbacks, there are hidden costs associated with sacrificing freedom.
weddpros 10y ago
read David Ellis for sound and clear counter-arguments https://davidellis2.wordpress.com/2016/06/05/reflections-on-latex-in/ https://davidellis2.wordpress.com/2016/06/05/reflections-on-...
dominiek 10y ago
I am a Dutch person and I’ve lived abroad for about half of my adult life in places like Japan and USA. I identify myself as both a Dutchman and a European. Just two weeks ago I shared a beer with an unknown Frenchman while watching the Eurocup in an Irish Pub while rooting for his country (Netherlands did not qualify). I am European and I love Europe. The things I miss most about home are my friends in Amsterdam (many of which have different nationalities) and I miss European food (the seasonal stuff you find in small villages in Southern Europe). Even though I have these strong feelings towards Europe, I am against the EU as a super-state. I have been a “Euro Skeptic” ever since I started reading about liberty and became a libertarian. Unfortunately, being a Euro Skeptic and/or believing in smaller governments gets you cast into the “Right-wing Nutbag” camp in Europe (even by my own parents). A lot of “Remainians” have strong personal feelings towards Europe just like me. They’ve benefited from some EU initiative at a university, or perhaps they married a fellow European person. Also, they enjoy the benefits of the Schengen treaty, being able to travel and settle freely - without spending years of legal fees and stress on immigration like me. All of these things can be accomplished by treaties and standards without a monolithic EU super nation. Trade and treaties (like Shengen) are great, and they are perfectly achievable without an EU super state). There are countless of arguments around the democracy and economics of the EU, but at the end of the day the EU is an idealistic construct. It was created with noble intensions to create peace on a warn-torn continent - accelerated quickly after the fall of the Berlin Wall (to address a strong and unified Germany). Yet once again, the idealism of Europe (and in my opinion the disregard for the fundamentals of liberty) is creating a new cycle of instability on the continent. Whether there’s going to be a Brexit or Bremain, a storm is coming.
sergiosgc 10y ago
You are an innocent believer in the fairness (or efficiency) of an unfettered free market, which is, today, obviously wrong. It's called "Market Fundamentalism" in the field of economics, and hasn't been an accepted ideal since the 70s. Educating you is beyond the scope of a Hacker News discussion, but I strongly advise this book should you wish to expand knowledge: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674050716 http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674050716
- samdoidge 10y ago
  A classic condescending tone you will only find on the internet.
  - sergiosgc 10y ago
    When someone is so obviously wrong, there are only three possibilities: 1) Ignorance and no desire to learn; 2) Ignorance and desire to learn; 3) Trolling My answer stops the discussion, avoiding 3, without leaving possibility 2 without response. If it is case 1, any answer is moot. Sorry if I sounded too aggressive. Aggression is unintended, even if somewhat unavoidable when skirting possible trolling.
    - UK-AL 10y ago
      You are being so aggressive. The fact that you are assuming your answers are right, when in reality no one has certain answers. I could point out 1000 books pointing out the opposite. Are you refusing learn and to open your mind to other possibilities? Running to the government to fix things is the simplistic option which your average person runs to. I'm trying to point out that this isn't a good option in a lot of cases. I think this means you have ran out of arguments.
- UK-AL 10y ago
  And I could give you plenty of books arguing the opposite. This is isn't a solved argument. I'm well read around economics. Most of solutions involve government intervention, which involves blind faith in the state as well as the market.
cja 10y ago
The EU is protectionist, weakens democracy, removes decision making from the populace, is barely accountable, is mysterious (most citizens don't even know who their MEPs are, let alone how the EU government works) and is a paradise for lobbyists. It pretends (at least to the anti-federalist British) to be a big family of European nations, protecting human rights and stronger together than apart. This is the fantasy we are sold by our politicians. In reality the EU is a project to create a single European state. This is not hidden in France, Belgium or Germany, only in the UK. Also, the EU has created circumstances very friendly to big companies. The remoteness of the lawmaking process from the people makes it easy for lobbyists to have considerable influence over it. And the free movement of labour allows the mass movement of cheap labour from poor countries to rich countries, causing problems in the source and destination problems.

329 points by matthewrudy 10y ago

It feels a little like there should be a simple, rational argument from politics and economics for retaining the EU as a single unit. "The world markets are dominated by a few forces. One is a country with the bulk of the world's population; its population is about sixteen times the population of the most populous European country. Another is a single country with territory approximately fifteen times the square mileage of the largest single European nation. Unifying the voices of all people in Europe under one political entity doesn't zero out the playing field, but it may very well decrease the absurd order-of-magnitude scales of difference between political entities as these two juggernauts stomp inexorably towards their desired world order while the individual nations of Europe debate their own individual selfish interests." But people aren't often rational about national ties.

tomp 10y ago
> Unifying the voices of all people in Europe under one political entity doesn't zero out the playing field, but it may very well decrease the absurd order-of-magnitude scales of difference between political entities as these two juggernauts stomp inexorably towards their desired world order while the individual nations of Europe debate their own individual selfish interests. The fallacy is with "unifying the voices". EU definitely doesn't feel that way. E.g. in the handling of the Greek crisis, it's mainly the German voice that's heard, and the voice of IMF (not even part of the EU!) echoes softly in the background. Sure, you might argue that Germany is so much bigger/more prosperous/more powerful/better than Greece, for the EU to stick together, it must be beneficial to every single nation within it. It's easy to champion "solidarity" when it's mainly their solidarity for you, but not the other way around.
- mpweiher 10y ago
  Of course you have bickering, because you have different interests, just as with any group where number of members > 1. So if it doesn't feel that way, yes, because (a) you're looking at it from the inside and (b) we're not particularly integrated, yet.
  - tomp 10y ago
    But the main question comes from (b) - will we ever be integrated? Ignoring Britain and the rest of non-Euro countries, Germany and their unwillingness to even consider a fiscal union seems to be the main stumbling block. Can you imagine the US government introducing capital controls only in Alabama?!
    - mpweiher 10y ago
      Huh? I am fairly certain that fiscal union was always the plan, not achievable politically, so left for later introduction when it became obviously necessary. Anyway, I don't buy that it's Germany that's blocking. Of course, fiscal union means giving up a good chunk of sovereignty, which is where many of the member states balk. Fiscal union is OK if it means we get money, not so OK if we are no longer allowed to spend any way we want.
- PaulHoule 10y ago
  This has a lot to do with it. The EU has mismanaged the Greek "Crisis" by not actually having a true crisis but rather having a crisis every six months. In a world where threats are coming from Russia, Syria, etc. it would be in in the interest of Europe to have Greece be stable and they really should have made everybody feel some pain, write off part of the debt, and take the punch bowl away.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    The biggest threats to the EU are not external, but internal. In a nutshell: - not enough buy-in of the population - too much corruption - too many languages - too many EU politicians getting 'money for nothing' (further reducing buy-in) - too many countries that slip their own protectionist measures in under the radar and get away with it - no unified tax system - way too many horses pulling in different directions at once And we don't have a slavery problem to get rid of so there most likely will not be a unification by force happening any time soon.
    - kennell 10y ago
      + massive bureaucracy How anyone can write a 4 page essay on the EU without mentioning the absurd bureaucracy and regulatory hell it has introduced to small businesses is beyond me. People outside of Europe may not be aware of how bad it really is, so just let me point you to the perhaps most prominent example, the "Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88 of 15 June 1988 laying down quality standards for cucumber" [1]. Let me pull some money quotes from the text: - "Slightly crooked cucumbers may have a maximum height of the arc of 20 mm per 10 cm of length of the cucumber." - "Cucumbers grown in the open must weigh 180 g or more. Cucumbers grown under protection must weigh 250 g or more. Moreover, 'Extra' Class and Class I cucumbers grown under protection weighing: 500 g or more must be not less than 30 cm long, between 250 and 500 g must be not less than 25 cm long." [1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:31988R1677&from=DE http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE...
      - chrisseaton 10y ago
- k__ 10y ago
  The question is, what is good for the others? Germany has the biggest population and the most wealth. The smallest countries seem to do well, too.
  - tomp 10y ago
    My answer: all or nothing, not something in-between like now. Either disintegrate the currency union, possibly Schengen as well, and let each country govern itself as it sees fit (seemed to work quite well 20 or so years ago) - simply by the virtue of common European heritage and values (at least compared to the rest of the world - China, US, Muslim countries), we'll end up collaborating quite well. Or establish a United States of Europe, where the federal government takes care of the budget (no more "Greece defaulting" and "Cypriot capital controlls"), military (no more "UK intervention in Syria") and probably a few other things. Of course, to implement this, we need to agree on a common set of values from the beginning, which IMO we should model on Germany/Switzerland/Denmark (i.e. direct democracy, strong military but non-interventionism abroad, publicly-funded schools and healthcare but allow private services as well, strong consumer and environmental protections, flexible employment but with a strong social net). Personally, I'd add freedom of speech and the right to self-determination (secession) as well, but most of Europe seems quite opposed to that...
- prof_hobart 10y ago
  The UK doesn't feel that way either. The country is largely run by, and for, a small sliver of our society and does little to help vast swathes of it.
lintiness 10y ago
small, isolated, selfish interests have long been the drivers of global progress.
Grue3 10y ago
Poor Switzerland. It's small, has relatively low population, and not in a union with any other country. Moreover, everyone has guns. And yet, it's one of the most (if not the most) prosperous countries in Europe.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Switzerland is a very interesting country, but it only exists by virtue of the mountains surrounding it and historically, if those mountains had not been there Switzerland as we know it today would not exist. What works in Switzerland my not necessarily work elsewhere. On another note, the Swiss neutrality has caused them to end up on the wrong side of history in more than one occasion.
  - Thimothy 10y ago
    No that I know much of Swiss history, but according to that argument, Poland would be by now a footnote in European history, and thy seem to manage...
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      > Poland would be by now a footnote in European history, and thy seem to manage... As much as I love Poland I would not consider them a candidate for the 'most prosperous' country in Europe, and I think that you'd agree with me given your choice of words.
- MagnumOpus 10y ago
  > not in a union with any other country They contribute EU funds, they are in the Schengen borderless zone, they implement EU directives and regulations (without being able to veto them like members can), and they are part of the European free trade zone. Sure, de jure they are not in the union. De facto that is just a nice fiction to satisfy the ultranationalists from the Swiss People's Party.
- Faaak 10y ago
  Switzerland takes _great_ advantage of the other countries. People living near the border go to other countries to buy their stuff (france, germany, italy). Switzerland also has economy incentives for companies which work if small countries implement-it, but not all. Switzerland is a exception, not the rule.
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
> It feels a little like there should be a simple, rational argument from politics and economics for retaining the EU as a single unit According to Ronald Coase, people begin to organise their production in firms when the transaction cost of coordinating production through the market exchange, given imperfect information, is greater than within the firm [1]. One could extend this concept to subsidiarisation. People should elevate decisions to a higher level of government only when transacting/negotiating with other effected parties at the same level of subsidiarisation becomes costlier (e.g. the New York Area's MTA and Port Authority in comparison with the Bay Area's lack thereof). Note that a conclusion around "always coalesce" or "always devolve" doesn't appear across all parameters. If Britain's and her trading partners' institutions were more efficient than the EU's, it would be rational to leave. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm
rayiner 10y ago
It's not so simple. Take the U.S. for example. If the Northeast were its own country, it'd have universal health care, abortion rights would be secure, etc. So how do people in New York feel about being lumped into the same polity with people from Florida, and having to make the compromises they have to make to do that? You don't have to follow American politics all that closely to know they're not always happy about it. Throughout history, there has been a strong tendency for groups with shared values and culture wanting to form their own sovereign countries. It's intellectually lazy to hand-wave this away as mere irrationality. In reality, when aggregating people into larger groups works best (in fact, works at all) if those people share the same values. Otherwise, instead of "unifying the voices of all people" you end up in a situation where peoples' voices are canceled out by conflicting values. That makes people feel powerless, it destroys faith in public institutions, and it aggregates power in bureaucrats because the voices of people are too diluted to keep them in check.
yarrel 10y ago
Europe cannot compete with Russia and China. And the NHS will be dismantled thanks to TTIP whether the UK leaves the EU or not. Brexit is therefore a choice between political elites. A remote, unseen, neoliberal, corrupt political elite or a closer, familiar, neoliberal, corrupt political elite. Presenting this as a choice of economic self-interest is irrational.
- Chyzwar 10y ago
  Russia is on verge of bankruptcy. Average Greek has much better life that average Russian. China have even bigger structural problems: corruption, aging population, empty cities, lack of own technology, weak retirement system, bad education etc. This choice about Brexit will impact mostly economic situation. If UK vote for Brexit people will start losing jobs.

UK-AL 10y ago

So you want the EU to intentionally cripple the UK's competitiveness in order to work towards your own moral values which maybe right or wrong? Though in these particular cases my values are aligned with yours. However there are many cases where peoples values differ. You are using the supremacy EU laws to force your values on to them. If these values are truly universal there is nothing stopping you getting some form of treaty between all these countries anyway outside of the eu. Leaving other things more open. It's a very simple individuals/small groups vs large groups issue. There are two ways to resolve it. Allow each individual to make their own decision about it, or take a side and force your values on to everyone. Companies treat workers well because they have to compete to get them. Not because the government forces their hand. There's always a way around government regulation, so it's not really effective. There's always loop hole. So why do companies offer workers good conditions? Because they are forced to by competition. You solve the issues of companies treating workers badly by developing a surging economy not by laws. These 3rd world countries with sweatshops have actually gotten better standards then what came before. As spare capacity decreases companies are forced to offer better conditions. You can see this now, where in china companies are going elsewhere because workers demanding a lot more. Tax argument only works if you think government is more efficient with money in the first place.

kennydude 10y ago
> Companies treat workers well because they have to compete to get them. Not because the government forces their hand. Hahahah, I'm sure companies like Sports Direct would love to hear that
- UK-AL 10y ago
  Yes. UK has well developed employment law compared to a lot of countries that's still heavily on the side of the employee in most cases. And yet there's still issues. There's always a way to fuck with you, no matter the laws. The solution is make the economy competitive for labour, by encouraging growth and skills. They will treat you well then, regardless the laws. If you can leave freely and companies are dependent on your skills they won't screw you around. The problem is that laws that proclaim to be on side of the employees makes the labour market less competitive for employees. Look at france, they have have absurdly strong labour laws and their employment rate is awful because of this.

sgnelson 10y ago

Could the title of this article be any less informative?

lovich 10y ago
At least he explains the title in the first paragraph, but I agree that a more informative title would have been a better choice
RodericDay 10y ago
I like the dual reference to Euro and set membership
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  A title you can't understand until you've read the piece is an uninformative title.
- pmontra 10y ago
  And the E in the CE marking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking The Euro sign has one more dash €. Maybe the author intentionally left some ambiguity in the title.
  - spacehome 10y ago
    Speaking as a math major, I didn't see any ambiguity at all.
matthewrudy 10y ago
Given the timing (just before the EU referendum) and the audience (mostly maths enthusiasts), it's a great title.
sctb 10y ago
We updated the title to be more practically clickable and less click-baity. We're open to suggestions for a better one.

seomis 10y ago

I thought this was going to be about set theory.

rhaps0dy 10y ago

>Many people think that a country is better off if its workers are decently paid, do not work excessively long hours, and work in a safe environment. (If you are sufficiently right wing, then you may disagree, but that just means that you will need other examples to illustrate the abstract principle.) Would it be possible to resist stabs at the "other side" of politics, if you are trying to explain something? People in the other side will be distracted by this, and think less of the author, or (like me) think it's a misguided or untrue example.

throwanem 10y ago
It's certainly possible, but it requires sufficient empathy and intellectual openness to study and understand the arguments of the "other side", which seems lacking on all sides of late.
- Tloewald 10y ago
  I think he was actually picking things it's hard for anyone to disagree with, but if you do disagree with them you probably aren't on the "left". I think a right wing argument would not be against these things, but that while these three things are good, government regulation, welfare, and other typical left-wing policies are not the best way to achieve them.
rkrzr 10y ago
Not sure what "stab" you are referring to here? Seems like a fair remark to me.
angrow 10y ago
Which did you think it was (misguided or untrue) and why?
ska 10y ago
How is it a "stab" to say that different examples might be needed?
- 10y ago

swalsh 10y ago

I upvoted this on accident, a one letter title requires extreme clicking precision. I think HN should force a min title length.

deleted 10y ago
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spacehome 10y ago
First World Problems.

SlipperySlope 10y ago

Switzerland is now 5% Muslim, without being part of the EU immigration program. Calls from Muslims to remove the Cross from the Swiss flag have been reportedly met by outrage.

dang 10y ago
Religious flamewar comments (and this is not the first one you've posted) are not allowed on Hacker News. Please don't do this again. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11938702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11938702 and marked it off-topic.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

bitL 10y ago

If we had algorithmic laws that would adapt to situation at any given time, then having a non-profit organization managing them could be beneficial. But when the bureaucracy in Brussels is strikingly similar to the one in Moscow during its "glory" days, I am not so sure we really need that. What we have now is that all politicians the member states wanted to get rid of due to their incompetence and other vices, end up in Brussels. You can gauge the quality of representatives from this. As for potential Brexit, what would happen is that GB would enter TTIP earlier than other EU countries and get a deeper integration with US much earlier. So in a way it could give UK an edge (if TTIP proves in any way beneficial to UK and not only to US). The main industry is anyway financial; once TTIP is signed between EU and USA there won't be much in the way of UK either.

prodmerc 10y ago
Seems to me that TTIP is more beneficial the larger the entity. And why would the UK get it faster than the EU? Anyway, I see many corporations just moving to Ireland or mainland Europe somewhere - it seems easier than stay in an uncertain situation. Or if the UK becomes their haven, well then pity the people... But yeah, bureaucracy is ballooning. Not sure if just running away is the best choice though.
mprovost 10y ago
Obama explicitly called out that if the UK leaves the EU, that it would be at the "back of the queue" for trade deals. There's much less incentive for the US to work on a treaty with a smaller country like the UK as opposed to the entire EU.
- Wintamute 10y ago
  The UK is the world's 5th largest economy, in reality it wouldn't be in either party's interests to send it to the back of the queue. Add on to that that the UK would have a much more flexible negotiating position outside the EU, as well as a powerful political mandate to quickly sort out new deals post Brexit.
  - 10y ago

rrggrr 10y ago

Gower's thesis ignores the rent-seeking, grabbing hand of government. Yes, many government policies are defensible, if not desirable, when framed for the common good, common ideals, common values, etc. But we know that many policies only advance the interests of those in government, their friends and those who hold power of politicians. The grabbing hand of government engages in rent-seeking at the local level, federal level, and the common body level; and at each step the citizen in Leeds or London is further removed from the policy-maker. Against all the arguments to remain in the Euro-zone, there is this argument... Its not enough for capital, people and ideas to be free to travel physical borders. There must be sufficient sovereign diversity that they can travel to countries where there is less institutional resistance to a status quo that keeps them from flourishing. Even better if they do not have to travel anywhere to flourish because the people chose to exit a restrictive, occasionally repressive federation.

jamespo 10y ago
Can you please give examples of these reprehensible policies?
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  See any recent article about Venezuela.
  - jamespo 10y ago
    When did they join the EU?
    - CamperBob2 10y ago
      What did the OP say that was genuinely specific to the EU?
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  I'm not in the EU, rather in the US. But I think I know what rrggrr is talking about. We've got all these things the government does. Each one, taken by itself, sounds like a good thing. But when you step back and look at the whole size of the government, it's insane how big it is. (We'd be more aware of this if we actually had to pay for all of it, instead of running a deficit.) I'd expect those in the EU to feel this even more, because there the governments are even larger in terms of percentage of GNP.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago

By this logic, wouldn't the most logical thing be for the EU members to all petition to join the United States of America as states (USAE - United States of America and Europe)? After all, would this group not have much more influence than even the EU? In addition, there is a strong tradition of subsidiarity in the United States (see states rights). I think most Europeans would be horrified of joining the United States. Why? Because there is not enough shared identity. The United States works because the shared American identity is very strong. Even if I live in Iowa, my identity is more strongly American than Iowan. This American identity was forged through centuries of migration and assimilation (i.e. the Westward expansion where people would leave their state to go out West but would still be American) and in fighting and dying together alongside fellow Americans in the various wars over the years. While the elite of Europe may have a stronger European identity than that of their country of citizenship, what you are seeing with the recent polls and movements in Europe is that for many of the common people, their national identity is stronger than their European identity. This is to be expected as for many of these countries, the national identity was forged over hundreds of years, while the modern European identity is only a few decades old. Thus, for many people, they see the European identity as seeking to assert primacy over their national identity and they are wanting out.

return0 10y ago
Actually , the far right movements in the continent are loudest against immigration from outside europe. Oddly , anti-immigration is a thing that seems to unite europeans at this time.
throwanem 10y ago
It's funny you should take this particular tack, because this is a place where the United States has already been. We weren't able to resolve the question of which allegiance meant more, by any means short of a rather nasty half-decade-long war that maybe you've heard of. (It's also funny that you should mistake the primacy of modern American national identity as having some other cause but that, but the error is more or less ubiquitous these days, I'm afraid.) And that's what it took to enforce a federal union upon just a handful of states with strictly limited experience - a couple of centuries, tops - of regarding themselves as essentially sovereign but allied polities. In light of that, I've always found it faintly amazing that anyone imagines the EU will endure without resort to similarly drastic measures. (Also that it even came into existence, given how badly things went last time Germany was involved in trying to unify Europe. And people say Americans have little regard for history...)

amelius 10y ago

Now try to explain that to the average voter :)

mattmanser 10y ago

I think the supranational organisations argument is a bad argument to make given that throughout the world everyone else is devolving, and splitting into smaller countries or presently trying to split off. Off the top of my head, countries/peoples recently or actively trying to split or setting up a new regional government, several that are actually in the EU: Czechoslovakia Yugoslavia Catalan Scotland Wales N. Ireland The Kurds I'm sure there are many more as I really don't keep up with African or South American politics. So why is everywhere else in the world seemingly moving to devolution, apart from Europe which is trying to create a super-state out of very, very different peoples. And I know that they're very different. I'm half-dutch, half-english, my Dad lives in France, I've been to Belgium, Spain, Italy and Germany. Each of these peoples have very different outlooks. And the Germans, quite alarmingly as one of the key leaders of this change, still consider themselves more German than global citizens[1] compared to other countries. And don't misinterpret this, nothing to do with Nazis, everything to do in that they're obviously not doing it out of a love for the EU. So why the need for the super state? Look at what happened to poor old Spain and Greece being forced into what is now a very disparate economic relationship with Germany, the Germans have even effectively rescinded Greece's national economic decision making. There don't seem to be any rational arguments coming out of either camp, and of all the arguments, the "supranational organisation" one has got to be the most ridiculous. To make it a quasi-mathematical one is even more absurd as our countries have much better labor laws than America which is bound by exactly that sort of organisation, and we had the bulk of them before the EU was involved. The Social Democracies of the EU came way before the EU even existed, before the EC, before the EEC. Before the EU we certainly didn't have zero-hour contracts, so there's clear evidence his quasi-mathematical arguments don't hold water. And I say this all as a pro-remain. Posts like this honestly don't help because they are partisan bullshit dressed up as 'logic' with little in the way of facts. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-36139904 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-36139904

rmc 10y ago
Very few groups in N. Ireland are trying to set up their own N. Ireland state/government. People either want in with one country or the other.

pithic 10y ago

The problem with supra-nations is that, as bigger monopolies on government, they are much harder to vote against with your feet. You know, in case they become captured by special interests and impose burdensome taxes, oppressive laws, and smothering regulations.

Qantourisc 10y ago

Personally my biggest beef with the EU seems to be the lack of optional participation. Some rules just work better if applied to the entire EU, but it's not essential for a lot of rules. Example the vacuum cleaners: do we seriously need these things enforced from the EU? There are of course rules that would require everyone to participate to work. Also IMO a country should be able select which parts of the EU they wish to participate in: monetary, military, schengen zone, product safety rules (and thus easy in and export...), ...

sitic 10y ago
If I would build vacuum cleaners, I would rather build one type and sell it in 28 different nations then producing 28 different models. When I want to buy a vacuum cleaner, I want a good choice between different models and good prices. So whats wrong with the EU regulating vacuum cleaners in a common market?
- Qantourisc 10y ago
  The only thing wrong with is the enforcement, at which point do you value sovereignty over common market ? (Everyone should still implement this of course.) But having the ability to say no is still nice. About the models, well normally most countries will apply the rule anyway, as such the vacuum cleaners you will be able to get will conform anyway. (And the vacuum cleaners was an example.) Bus as stated it's mainly about sovereignty versus unity. Also I am not sure if optional parts would help keep the EU together: on one side you feel less forced, and more invested. On the other side it diminishes to effectiveness of it. And I think I mainly fear the EU becoming the the USA. I do not think many people in the EU are keen on seeing that happen.
dingaling 10y ago
> Example the vacuum cleaners: do we seriously need these things enforced from the EU? If you want to sell them in the EU common market then yes, they do need to enforce standards for the sale of vacuum cleaners. If you want to build vacuum cleaners that don't meet those standards then you can still do so within the EU and sell them in the USA, Canada, Russia... assuming they too don't have standards you need to meet.

putzdown 10y ago

People are generally selfish and lazy. We act in immediately efficient ways even if those ways have high long-term costs—balloon payments and so forth. We do this individually and we do it when we band together in companies and nations. At the extremes, there are two ways to deal with selfishness and laziness. You can let it go, allowing people to make their own choices and face their own consequences, hoping they'll have enough foresight to avoid ballooning dangers. In economics and government this is generally associated with "conservative" politics. Or you can control people through rule-making and enforcement, preventing them from making choices they should know will end up bad and forcing them to take the right actions. This is associated with—somewhat unexpectedly—the "liberal" approach. It's pretty clear that either extreme is a bad choice. Pure conservatism allows the wealthy and powerful few to exploit the oppressed many, the large corporation to crush the individual, the effective short-term competitor to ignore long-term costs to self and others. Pure liberalism crushes individual choice, presumes the wise choice of those who rule, sustains complex legal and enforcement systems, and adds the profound inefficiency of government to the many expenses a society must bear. Yet anything in between the two extremes is difficult. Ambiguity abounds. No single choice for a conservative or liberal approach—in health care, for example, or gun control, or airport security, or child rearing—is clearly correct and without serious downsides. People are difficult. Living together is hard. If there is a clear error, therefore, it is an over-enthusiasm for one extreme or the other, an over-pessimism for the other side of the aisle. What's more, one's own self-bias is all but impossible to see. This article begins with pretensions of objectivity that the author compares, if vaguely, to mathematics, yet the bias of the author shines through unmistakable. He searches for objective premises from which to argue, yet even the way he frames the questions, even the premises he chooses to expound all but guarantee his conclusions. And so here we are: difficult people, trying to live together, discussing—or pretending to—how best to do so, yet choked full of our own biases and unwilling (because we are selfish and lazy) to really hear the other side. And that's too bad, because the right answer is surely a blend, a case-by-case blend, of freedom and legislation. When you compare the laws of the EU to nations contemporary and historical, I think it's pretty clear that it skews liberal and that there is a great deal of legislation: legislation "for their own good." It's possible that the EU has good legislation, a good amount of legislation, and that it is effective in enforcing that legislation such that the member nations have done, are doing, and will do better than they would without the union. (Not just economically better but morally, ecologically, etc.—whatever values we ought to care about. Though that's not clear.) But it also reasonable to wonder whether the EU is incorrectly skewed toward too much legislation, or of the wrong kind, or with bad enforcement, so that the member nations, or perhaps a single member nation, would do "better" (by some sound standard) removing itself from these laws. It helps in making these speculations that the EU, after all, is quite new in historical terms; Britons can look back even in their own memories and know what life without the EU might look like. There's no going back really, of course, but there is some historical basis for speculation. They can also look at their own values and culture and look for broad compatibilities or incompatibilities that might bode well or ill for the ongoing relationship. It seems to me that the choice comes down to those kinds of questions. Were Britons better off before the EU, and if so, do they have a reasonable chance of returning, post-EU, to a similar or better situation? Is the rule of the EU over the UK, considered historically, abnormally invasive, complex, or incompetent, or is it on the other hand effective in legislation and enforcement? So I think it's a historical, not mathematical or even—quite—logical question.

danmaz74 10y ago

> Similarly, a little while ago I heard a fisherman talking about how his livelihood suffered as a result of EU fishing quotas, and how he hoped that Britain would leave the EU and let him fish more. He didn’t put it quite that crudely, but that was basically what he was saying. And yet without quotas, the fishing stock would rapidly decline and that very same fisherman’s livelihood would vanish completely. The problem wouldn't just be the fishing stock disappearing. The UK fisherman could start a pricing war with EU fishermen, and that would be followed by an import tariffs war, which would for sure expand to other sectors. The end result? Not good for the EU, but even worse for the UK.

mathgenius 10y ago

I'd like to see more mathematicians / scientists stick their neck out like this. Too often these people hide behind castle walls, because they have been taught to stay in their own speciality. Yes, it is quite likely that they will make a rookie mistake, but they will also learn at a fantastic rate.

clarkmoody 10y ago

In the abstract, the case for supranational organizations is almost too obvious to be worth making: just as it often benefits individual people to form groups and agree to restrict their behaviour in certain ways, so it can benefit nations to join groups and agree to restrict their behaviour in certain ways. But nations aren't anything more than collections of people. Nations, like societies and governments, cannot do anything. Rather, the people within are the ones taking action. Supernational organizations that constrain member states without the consent of the citizens of those states are just another form of tyranny. You don't need giant bureaucracies to have free trade or free movement of people (or prosperity, for that matter).

atmosx 10y ago

I agree with the ideas this post tries to perpetuate, but it’s written as if the author lives in a different reality. Post 2008, the EU has been the mother of all evil for PIIGS and non-PIIGS too. > In the abstract, the case for supranational organizations is almost too obvious to be worth making: […] Most Euro-sceptics, myself included, do not see the EU as a “supranational organisation” that is for my best interest. What I see is a body of non-elected puppets, taking important decisions about my life, mishandling crisis after crisis (debt crisis, Ukraine, Syria, etc.), the French sitting quietly while Germany abuses everyone. The EU is deeply, deeply undemocratic. There are no published discussions of the Eurogroup. So basically a finance minister goes there, comes back with new laws but there’s nothing published on paper or broadcasted about who said what and why. Every time an anti-popular law is passed, it’s because of “the EU” as if the EU was something abstract (exactly as this post describes) in which we, the people, have no say. So if we really have no say, why on earth would be support that? Because the opposite is worst? Sorry but this ain’t gonna cut it. The EU have not solved the basic macro-economic problems that every union or federal country has like surplus recycling: You can’t have Germany with huge surplus without having Greece with a huge pile of debt! You just can’t! It’s macro 0101. Why do you think that every time a referendum has been to called in relation to the EU (France, Netherlands, Greece and now the UK) the anti-EU choice has dominated. I mean the EU is turning unpopular even in Germany which is the country who profited most because of the single currency. That was expected because it's the biggest exporting power in Europe, so it has a surplus vis-a-vis with EVERY state that can't devalue. There is something fundamentally broken within the EU. The Germans are clearly unfit to lead while the French are too weak to react when it matters the most and others simply don't count. The whole is going to blow up for sure. Would you rather have 50 EUR and be able to decide what to do with 'em or 500 EUR but another country telling what to do with them? Now Prof. Varoufakis, which I admire deeply, believes that what comes after a break-up is an even greater depression and possibly war. I don’t like this narrative, not a bit, but I don’t see how we can avoid it by staying within the EU. The fact that we have neo-nazis in the Greek parliament, extreme right wing rising in Austria, France and Hungary is not pure chance. It’s the result of EU policies promoting unemployment, stagnation and hatred. So until the EU starts resembling more like a union and less like a bullying squad, there’s no chance. [1] That was the exact words Scheuble used to explain Varoufakis that Greece should continue with austerity “as is” although it was clearly visible that everything in the Greek program was wrong.

scottmsul 10y ago

One problem I have with this argument is that personal freedom isn't taken into account. Every time a decision is moved up one subsidiarity level, members at lower levels sacrifice a little bit of freedom. For example, suppose the EU recognizes that gas-consuming vehicles contribute to climate change. From a utilitarian standpoint, it makes sense to ban all cars unless the economic advantage from driving outweighs the ecological damage from climate change. So perhaps the EU should ban all cars by default, but allow citizens to fill out a petition every time they need to drive. Except this is ridiculous, because we shouldn't need permission to drive. This is an assumed basic liberty (of course drivers should still pass a driver's test to get a license, but this only needs to be done once). I think the utilitarian argument can still hold, but only if personal freedom is taken into account. It should be weighed like everything else, and recognized as a tradeoff. The United States allows freedom of speech, in exchange for giving people the right to post hateful comments online. The utilitarian might argue this is a bad thing, since society might be better off if hateful speech was removed from the internet. But in this case, I personally believe the benefits of freedom outweigh the drawbacks of offensive speech. Every time a higher authority recognizes a prisoner's dilemma and enforces a rule, they are forbidding the players from playing the game themselves. Even if the societal benefits outweigh the drawbacks, there are hidden costs associated with sacrificing freedom.

weddpros 10y ago

read David Ellis for sound and clear counter-arguments https://davidellis2.wordpress.com/2016/06/05/reflections-on-latex-in/ https://davidellis2.wordpress.com/2016/06/05/reflections-on-...

dominiek 10y ago

I am a Dutch person and I’ve lived abroad for about half of my adult life in places like Japan and USA. I identify myself as both a Dutchman and a European. Just two weeks ago I shared a beer with an unknown Frenchman while watching the Eurocup in an Irish Pub while rooting for his country (Netherlands did not qualify). I am European and I love Europe. The things I miss most about home are my friends in Amsterdam (many of which have different nationalities) and I miss European food (the seasonal stuff you find in small villages in Southern Europe). Even though I have these strong feelings towards Europe, I am against the EU as a super-state. I have been a “Euro Skeptic” ever since I started reading about liberty and became a libertarian. Unfortunately, being a Euro Skeptic and/or believing in smaller governments gets you cast into the “Right-wing Nutbag” camp in Europe (even by my own parents). A lot of “Remainians” have strong personal feelings towards Europe just like me. They’ve benefited from some EU initiative at a university, or perhaps they married a fellow European person. Also, they enjoy the benefits of the Schengen treaty, being able to travel and settle freely - without spending years of legal fees and stress on immigration like me. All of these things can be accomplished by treaties and standards without a monolithic EU super nation. Trade and treaties (like Shengen) are great, and they are perfectly achievable without an EU super state). There are countless of arguments around the democracy and economics of the EU, but at the end of the day the EU is an idealistic construct. It was created with noble intensions to create peace on a warn-torn continent - accelerated quickly after the fall of the Berlin Wall (to address a strong and unified Germany). Yet once again, the idealism of Europe (and in my opinion the disregard for the fundamentals of liberty) is creating a new cycle of instability on the continent. Whether there’s going to be a Brexit or Bremain, a storm is coming.

sergiosgc 10y ago

You are an innocent believer in the fairness (or efficiency) of an unfettered free market, which is, today, obviously wrong. It's called "Market Fundamentalism" in the field of economics, and hasn't been an accepted ideal since the 70s. Educating you is beyond the scope of a Hacker News discussion, but I strongly advise this book should you wish to expand knowledge: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674050716 http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674050716

samdoidge 10y ago
A classic condescending tone you will only find on the internet.
- sergiosgc 10y ago
  When someone is so obviously wrong, there are only three possibilities: 1) Ignorance and no desire to learn; 2) Ignorance and desire to learn; 3) Trolling My answer stops the discussion, avoiding 3, without leaving possibility 2 without response. If it is case 1, any answer is moot. Sorry if I sounded too aggressive. Aggression is unintended, even if somewhat unavoidable when skirting possible trolling.
  - UK-AL 10y ago
    You are being so aggressive. The fact that you are assuming your answers are right, when in reality no one has certain answers. I could point out 1000 books pointing out the opposite. Are you refusing learn and to open your mind to other possibilities? Running to the government to fix things is the simplistic option which your average person runs to. I'm trying to point out that this isn't a good option in a lot of cases. I think this means you have ran out of arguments.
UK-AL 10y ago
And I could give you plenty of books arguing the opposite. This is isn't a solved argument. I'm well read around economics. Most of solutions involve government intervention, which involves blind faith in the state as well as the market.

cja 10y ago

The EU is protectionist, weakens democracy, removes decision making from the populace, is barely accountable, is mysterious (most citizens don't even know who their MEPs are, let alone how the EU government works) and is a paradise for lobbyists. It pretends (at least to the anti-federalist British) to be a big family of European nations, protecting human rights and stronger together than apart. This is the fantasy we are sold by our politicians. In reality the EU is a project to create a single European state. This is not hidden in France, Belgium or Germany, only in the UK. Also, the EU has created circumstances very friendly to big companies. The remoteness of the lawmaking process from the people makes it easy for lobbyists to have considerable influence over it. And the free movement of labour allows the mass movement of cheap labour from poor countries to rich countries, causing problems in the source and destination problems.