3 ms·

Those are all over E. Europe and they are a stark, daily, reminder, like a 'trigger', of the brutal totalitarianism of the past. It contrasts with everything e

Those are all over E. Europe and they are a stark, daily, reminder, like a 'trigger', of the brutal totalitarianism of the past. It contrasts with everything else so much. As a Westerner, when you visit, it makes you feel like there was a giant foot on the neck of all of the people for generations. Or like there was a 'Concrete Ice Age' over everything. We reiterate the stories about the Nazis quite a lot, because 'we fought them', but we don't do a good enough job in entertainment of providing a visceral exposure to that era, and what it meant for so many. To add salt to the wounds and make an even more complicated argument, so many of the most talented people have left these countries for W. Europe, thanks to the EU. This actually might be net-net beneficial in the economic short run (i.e. market clearing for labour), but in the long run it also means a hollowing out of the most precious resource of these places, and leaving them to be the West Virginia's of the EU. Not quite, but almost.

jollybean 5y ago
Here [1] you see direct evidence of this in the Danish context, but it's the same everywhere. The population of E. Europe is literally in decline [2] It's not birth rate [3] (it's note hugely different in Europe, but errs higher in the East). The people leaving E. Europe are 'able bodied workers' and 'the educated' and 'students leaving to get education and jobs in the West' - i.e. E. Europe's absolutely most valuable 'assets'. E. Europe is clearly being hollowed out in a very material way. The 'freedom of movement' foundation of the EU is not really a humanitarian issue, though it's usually framed popularly as such, it's fundamentally a neoliberal policy, i.e. 'worker mobility' as European leaders believe this is a fundamental advantage of the US. [1] https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210616152303195 https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=202106161... [2] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/eastern-europe-population/ https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/eastern-europ... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/612074/fertility-rates-in-european-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/612074/fertility-rates-i...

jollybean 5y ago

Here [1] you see direct evidence of this in the Danish context, but it's the same everywhere. The population of E. Europe is literally in decline [2] It's not birth rate [3] (it's note hugely different in Europe, but errs higher in the East). The people leaving E. Europe are 'able bodied workers' and 'the educated' and 'students leaving to get education and jobs in the West' - i.e. E. Europe's absolutely most valuable 'assets'. E. Europe is clearly being hollowed out in a very material way. The 'freedom of movement' foundation of the EU is not really a humanitarian issue, though it's usually framed popularly as such, it's fundamentally a neoliberal policy, i.e. 'worker mobility' as European leaders believe this is a fundamental advantage of the US. [1] https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210616152303195 https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=202106161... [2] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/eastern-europe-population/ https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/eastern-europ... [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/612074/fertility-rates-in-european-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/612074/fertility-rates-i...