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Most of your skepticism of inter-EU wealth transfers applies equally to intra-EU wealth transfers from metropolitan to rural areas. I live in one of the wealth

by avar 8y ago

Most of your skepticism of inter-EU wealth transfers applies equally to intra-EU wealth transfers from metropolitan to rural areas. I live in one of the wealthiest NUTS3[1] regions in the EU. Why should I be paying higher taxes to send someone's kid living in the boonies in my country to school? Let's just form a city-state instead. We even have a handy historical defensive wall we could resurrect for that purpose. Of course most people would think that's absurd, but it's worth mentioning since this notion that you should subsidize your "countrymen" was once just as novel as the idea that the Dutch should subsidize the Greeks is to some today. You're only taking this for granted for nation states because you grew up in the era of nation states. There's no intrinsic reason for why someone born in the EU area in 2100 wouldn't find the idea that you shouldn't engage in wealth transfers within that area as quaint as the idea that we should being going back to city-states is today. I think if anything what the WTO, NAFTA, EU etc. show is that in the future the idea that you need to sign up for some "package deal" of a nation state for everything from tariffs to defense will be viewed as too monolithic. 1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Map_of_GDP_per_capita_in_the_EU_in_2007_%28NUTS_3%29.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Map_of_G...

Udik 8y ago
> Most of your skepticism of inter-EU wealth transfers applies equally to intra-EU wealth transfers I know very well the issue because it's been at the center of a bitter north- south dispute in Italy for decades. (the rich, productive north complains that too much money has been given to the south without appreciable results). But in the national case the transfers are decided at national level, the regions have no say in it; if there are protests, a national police keeps order. The tax money is collected by state entities, and then redistributed to the regions. There have been pushes to partly change this, but there is also a strong cultural resistance because there is a sense of national unity, of shared history, cultural and family ties, and a historical foundational myth. All this stuff is weak or non-existent for the EU as a community. It's not impossible in principle, it's simply not there now, and given all the differences- especially linguistic- it seems that it's going to take a long time and a lot of effort to create, provided that there is even the will to do so. I don't think we fundamentally disagree. I agree that it's possible, it's just that there is going to be a lot of resistance along the way and that the national governments, which still hold the majority of the power in the EU and are still the intermediaries between their citizens and EU institutions, will be extremely cautious in implementing such a system without a complete support from their citizens. Ah, 2100 is very, very far away. I'm not sure we can wait that long.

by avar 8y ago

Udik 8y ago

> Most of your skepticism of inter-EU wealth transfers applies equally to intra-EU wealth transfers I know very well the issue because it's been at the center of a bitter north- south dispute in Italy for decades. (the rich, productive north complains that too much money has been given to the south without appreciable results). But in the national case the transfers are decided at national level, the regions have no say in it; if there are protests, a national police keeps order. The tax money is collected by state entities, and then redistributed to the regions. There have been pushes to partly change this, but there is also a strong cultural resistance because there is a sense of national unity, of shared history, cultural and family ties, and a historical foundational myth. All this stuff is weak or non-existent for the EU as a community. It's not impossible in principle, it's simply not there now, and given all the differences- especially linguistic- it seems that it's going to take a long time and a lot of effort to create, provided that there is even the will to do so. I don't think we fundamentally disagree. I agree that it's possible, it's just that there is going to be a lot of resistance along the way and that the national governments, which still hold the majority of the power in the EU and are still the intermediaries between their citizens and EU institutions, will be extremely cautious in implementing such a system without a complete support from their citizens. Ah, 2100 is very, very far away. I'm not sure we can wait that long.