EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 682
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Nixer
2774 Posts
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 27 2017 10:06 warding wrote: I'm not into making predictions about the future. I'm questioning why you're against it even though it is a huge net positive to its citizens. All EU nations are basically social democracies w/ free markets. I don't think you can find another group of 27 countries more politically homogenous than the EU. The vast majority of citizens cherishes the single market and freedom of movement, the two key pillars. I really don't see your point on the lack of shared ideals. I think the idea is great, in principle if not necessarily in execution, and I was on board with it for the first two decades. Starting with the refugee crisis, though, I started to see that it simply wasn't going to last (before, my approach was "this is thought but the EU will weather this crisis"). Whether it should or not is a harder matter to decide; part of the issue is national identity and the ability to make your own decisions as a nation about how to conduct your nation's policy. It seems that the EU simply isn't an effective decision-making body for doing what it needs to do. There is a reason why it lurches from crisis to crisis these days. On a granular, "I like to travel and conduct business in multiple countries" level, it's hard to oppose the EU. On the level of cultural/national identity and all the good and bad associated with such, it is a lot more reasonable. And we haven't gotten rid of nationalism, not by a long shot. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, though leftists will generally insist that nationalism is the source of all evil. The Eurozone issues, whitedoge would usually give his take on that. But I'm not too interested in weighing in myself. | ||
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warding
Portugal2394 Posts
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
Forcing nations to make laws a certain way... that's not a great recipe for the future. It's true that a lot of these individual governments suck. As far as I've seen they simply continue to suck but the effects of their suckage starts to spread further and wider - to other Euro currency users, for example. Though it's true that a lot of countries don't like the EU, but like their own national governments even less. Perhaps part of the problem is that the benefits aren't very evenly shared. We on the internet have a disproportionate quantity of the "well-educated left-leaning" political affiliation, as this is a thread about Europe in English. So the "dissatisfied with the direction of the EU" crowd, the "losers" of the project, are less visible here even though a very large portion is dissatisfied with the EU in general. Hell, I certainly benefit personally, financially, from the existence of large blocs like the EU. But the project is headed for disaster (going from crisis to increasingly existential crisis) and perhaps it's time to sit down and rethink what direction it should go in. | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
But dissolving the EU because it's not glorious enough is utterly stupid anyway. At the moment it might not be the best arrangement, there are way too many things on the central agenda that don't have to be there and changes would be beneficial, but it is still incomparably better than no EU. There is critical need for trade union between countries as small as the EU ones and this union is much more efficient with free movement of people, goods and services and with unifying legal frameworks making cross-border trade financially practical for small businesses. There is no country in the EU that doesn't benefit from this and anti-EU pundits almost criminally underestimate the possible losses - people in the UK were disillusioned already after the referendum, just wait how angry they are gonna be with the "leave" camp when they really get to feel the fallout. The concept of nation-state as the central point of everything is completely ad hoc and it exists just because it's a part of natural historical development. We no longer buy and sell other people, so it's not necessary to keep all historical ideas just out of tradition and nationalism can go as well. The whole concept is meaningless in a world when everyone can get in touch with everyone else within seconds, we no longer need to ally people based on who their parents were. As for the Russia thing, I am strongly against appeasement of Russia. They are the aggressor, they have been one for centuries and there is no indication that there is any good will to stop any time soon. Putin's "west is the aggressor we are just protecting our interest" logic is a blatant lie. There is no inherent right of Russia to not have NATO/EU on their border - or do you think we have the right to ask Russia to give up some territory so that we (and if Ukraine ever gets into the EU, Ukraine immediately becomes "we") do not have to border them? The Soviet Union has occupied my country for 21 years and the whole West was just looking. Yeah, we even "invited them" and "ask them for protection" - does that ring any bells? I think the biggest failure of EU is that our troops aren't retaking Doneck and Crimea as we speak. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain17833 Posts
On February 27 2017 08:35 LegalLord wrote: You are a wee bit more of a non-contributing troll than usual. It's the reality of what is actually happening. The nation-state continues to be the highest level at which policies can be conducted effectively. Yes, it does kind of suck for nations as small as those of Europe. But nationalism is arguably the strongest force tearing it apart right now; and we won't be rid of it any time soon. Besides that it's just the regular arguments of pro- vs anti- free trade, as the EU is in large part a glorified free trade agreement. Not many, in the short term. Not a reason to keep it alive on life support though. The end result may either be a looser community of nations with something less than a free trade agreement, or worse, a group of splinter-EUs with smaller, but more dominant in their smaller union, countries. While the EU styles itself as an ideological project, it's little more than an alliance of convenience that will tear itself apart as soon as the convenience evaporates. What should be done is not an easy question to answer. I think the "loose alliance" would be more effective, akin to what predated the EU. Splinter groups would look a lot like the precursor to WWI. But what will happen is that the EU will not be able to survive in its current form and it's remarkably resilient to acknowledging the need for change, so perhaps it needs to be broken. No illusion that we're in for a pleasant period. Trump and Brexit are just the beginning - I foresee another decade of this shit before we actually find a new stable period. Do we really have to go over this again? What you designate a "nation state" is entirely arbitrary. And you positing that it is the "highest level at which policies can be conducted effectively" means nothing. Some policies are far more effective if conducted at neighborhood or city level. Others regional and others at a national level. This doesn't there aren't policies that can be more effectively implemented at a supra-national level. Especially given that we already established that nation-states are largely arbitrary structure formed part due to culture, part historical coincidence, and part because bigger nation-states decided to draw lines on a map. As for examples of policies best implemented at a supra-national level (in Europe)? Trade policy for starters. Foreign policy to a certain extent. Monetary and fiscal policy, since we have the Euro. Basically, anything you can get Wegandi to agree on that should be done at a federal level in the USA is DEFINITELY more effective in a larger block than individual European nation-states can do. And I'd actually argue that there's a lot more too, but that is already plenty to start with. | ||
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a_flayer
Netherlands2826 Posts
On February 27 2017 17:19 Acrofales wrote: Do we really have to go over this again? What you designate a "nation state" is entirely arbitrary. And you positing that it is the "highest level at which policies can be conducted effectively" means nothing. Some policies are far more effective if conducted at neighborhood or city level. Others regional and others at a national level. This doesn't there aren't policies that can be more effectively implemented at a supra-national level. Especially given that we already established that nation-states are largely arbitrary structure formed part due to culture, part historical coincidence, and part because bigger nation-states decided to draw lines on a map. As for examples of policies best implemented at a supra-national level (in Europe)? Trade policy for starters. Foreign policy to a certain extent. Monetary and fiscal policy, since we have the Euro. Basically, anything you can get Wegandi to agree on that should be done at a federal level in the USA is DEFINITELY more effective in a larger block than individual European nation-states can do. And I'd actually argue that there's a lot more too, but that is already plenty to start with. The trick is that things like trade policy can affect specific regions in one or another degree, so you need a good bottom-up information flow system. If only there was some kind of technology that could be used to efficiently gather information from local regions and quickly send it to a centralized location so that the lines of communication stay as short as possible. It would only need to be a little more rigorous than, say, Twitter and Facebook (which almost seem to be filling that spot right now, disturbingly enough). There's probably some truth to the idea that there's a lot of bickering between nations, and also the suggestion that Germany comes out on top of it all. Or, as Americans like to say, Germany is making its 3rd attempt at conquering Europe, but the slow way this time. I think that's a wild exaggeration, but there's no denying their economy has come out the strongest, and that's not without reason. Still, this is more or less the way democracy works: the biggest group/population has the greatest influence. Their relative influence will only grow if more countries leave, which would be doubly disappointing in that way. There's also no denying, though, that when the various national parties come together on some issues, we get results. I generally liked the outcome on things like anti-trust cases against companies like Microsoft, Facebook & Google and regulations for telcos, tobacco, oil, etc. Without the coordination between countries that is made possible within the EU bureaucracy, individual countries would have had a much harder time getting at least some of those things done. And, it should be said, that personally I feel like a European citizen. I don't think the bickering between nations is much of a problem. It's just the way democracy works. I wholeheartedly agree with you when you say the EU should be responsible for things like trade, foreign policy and fiscal policy. I'd also add defence to that list and work towards politely kicking the American military out of Europe. | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7804 Posts
On February 27 2017 07:56 LegalLord wrote: I know who the FN is. I remember them from the history cubes on French African imperialism, and I know what the party represented then. I know exactly why it is that they are so scary to you, and it was amazing to me how far they managed to come over the years. I don't know to what extent I buy the Marine transformation of the party, but I know that keeping the name of the FN isn't really a great sign. What I want is rather simple: the end of the EU. I didn't always feel this way, of course - but the refugee crisis and all the events that came afterward have shown me that there is likely to be no future for the organization. Regardless of all the bluster that the Eurocrats put forth there is no consensus; it's a fractured alliance of convenience coated in the illusion of ideological unity. The longer it survives, the worse it will be when it finally comes apart. I don't evaluate Le Pen from a domestic perspective, the same way you don't really give a fuck what Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is going to be like domestically. I don't live in France, so I don't have to deal with the consequences directly. I understand perfectly why it should be troubling; if I were a Frenchman I would probably vote Fillon who is more ideologically along the lines of what I would like without being fascist-spawn (to say nothing of what Marine represents herself, because that's quite a bit harder to gauge). I think your other exasperated remarks - end of civilization, world war, dictatorship, genocide - are far overblown. But she would probably be a president for the dredges of society and that would not make me happy if I had to live with it. I will mention it once more that I tire of your exaggerated exasperation. Yes, I am perfectly aware of why Le Pen is terrible for you, same with Trump. But you sort of undermine your position by going too far. And I'm sure the elephant in the room is the question of "what's good for Russia" and if that's why I support the end of the EU. Simple answer is that no, that's not the reason. Whether or not the EU is bad for Russia is a question of where the allegiances lie. If the EU chooses to be a coalition of determined opposition to Russia, then yes, it's bad for Russia and it's best for it to go away. If, as the case actually is, it's a set of nations who aren't exactly friendly but aren't exactly unfriendly, then it's not clear that it would be beneficial. If the question was about the US or NATO then that would be a different story; there really is no peace between the US (or its most loyal Russophobic vassals) and Russia and until we (the US) have a president who understands how to make peace, there isn't going to be (a clown who says he loves Russia isn't going to do that). Trump is going to fail miserably on improving relations with Russia, for one. No, the problem with the EU is that it's a sad excuse for an organization that is at one side pushing to become a United States of Europe, and on the other side pulling itself apart. The kind of crises it's going through right now aren't of the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" form; they're more of the "you're not quite dead but you lost a few limbs and are permanently crippled" persuasion. It's time for a mercy killing. What are you talking about? I was against Trump first and foremost because of what he is doing and will do in America, and my first concern is for american people and immigrants living in America. I won't wish for a horrendous leader in a major country because that would match some badly digested geopolitical consideration of mine. You clearly know nothing about the EU, except if I understand, that you didn't like the way it handled the refugee crisis. Mate it didn't. It should have, but countries did, independantly. I know, you think arabs are "scary" as you said earlier and don't like when they come to the West (that's called xenophobia, but nvm). But meanwhile Europe actually functions very well despite urgent needs to change its institutions. It's the strongest alliance in the world, and transforms a patchwork of countries into a unified union that can resist great powers, starting with Russia, but also the US. It provides its citizens peace, in the previously conflict ridden place in the world. Tell me, how do you think the baltic states and Finland would feel without the EU? I have lived and worked in 6 different countries in 10 years without ever asking permission or going through democracy. That's Europe. Now, ask yourself, why the only french party that support a "frexit" happens to be a bunch of nazi assholes? Would it be that people who, contrarily to you, know what's at stake, would never want to exit? But that's not even the point. You wish my country a fascist government, because you don't give a shit what will happen to us and to France. What matters is the end of an institution you don't understand so vive the nazis. Many people have expressed being tired with your shit. You clearly don't give a fuck about people and countries future, you just want to make points and express i don't know what, and you are lowering the overall quality of both thread. And if you don't see why "I know they are fascists and I know they will hugely damage France but i support them nonetheless because ..." is unacceptable, you should find other interests and post elsewhere. | ||
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warding
Portugal2394 Posts
On February 27 2017 17:19 Acrofales wrote: Do we really have to go over this again? What you designate a "nation state" is entirely arbitrary. And you positing that it is the "highest level at which policies can be conducted effectively" means nothing. Some policies are far more effective if conducted at neighborhood or city level. Others regional and others at a national level. This doesn't there aren't policies that can be more effectively implemented at a supra-national level. Especially given that we already established that nation-states are largely arbitrary structure formed part due to culture, part historical coincidence, and part because bigger nation-states decided to draw lines on a map. As for examples of policies best implemented at a supra-national level (in Europe)? Trade policy for starters. Foreign policy to a certain extent. Monetary and fiscal policy, since we have the Euro. Basically, anything you can get Wegandi to agree on that should be done at a federal level in the USA is DEFINITELY more effective in a larger block than individual European nation-states can do. And I'd actually argue that there's a lot more too, but that is already plenty to start with. You got it right in trade policy, monetary and fiscal policy, then there's the massive issue of business regulations. Drug evaluation and approval, environmental regulations, fishing regulations, anti-trust issues, not to mention the checks-and-balances system on national government when it comes to protecting competition, the European Court of Justice. This is obviously a "What have the Romans ever done for us" situation, without the actual downside shit that the Romans did like crucifixions. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On February 27 2017 18:41 warding wrote: You got it right in trade policy, monetary and fiscal policy, then there's the massive issue of business regulations. Drug evaluation and approval, environmental regulations, fishing regulations, anti-trust issues, not to mention the checks-and-balances system on national government when it comes to protecting competition, the European Court of Justice. This is obviously a "What have the Romans ever done for us" situation, without the actual downside shit that the Romans did like crucifixions. Well, if you are stuck in the economic beliefs of the cold-war kids praying day and night to the invisible hand of the free market, like most of the right-wingers are, destroying the regulating EU, keeping the common market and locking your country in meaningless nationalism is the easiest way to get to the ideological utopia. So yeah, if you don't find it in Hayek's or Friedman's works, it is probably not meant to be part of the "reformed EU" that those right-wingers are preaching. | ||
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RvB
Netherlands6190 Posts
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Biff The Understudy
France7804 Posts
On February 27 2017 19:15 RvB wrote: Have you read Hayek or Friedman Big J? One doesn't need to have read Hayek to have good notions about what he was about and have an opinion about his work. Just like you can be perfectly legitimately opposing marxism without having read The Capital. Whether you know an author by a quality secundary sources or by having read him directly matters little unless you are a specialist and that's valid in all sciences. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On February 27 2017 19:15 RvB wrote: Have you read Hayek or Friedman Big J? No, I've heard a bunch of them in courses, watched some videos. They sounded like mostly ideological fundamentals. "If you die in a car crash because the car was badly built it was your own fault. You just shouldn't have bought it." | ||
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Kong95
17 Posts
On February 27 2017 19:15 RvB wrote: Have you read Hayek or Friedman Big J? I read it, good stuff. | ||
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a_flayer
Netherlands2826 Posts
On February 27 2017 19:27 Big J wrote: No, I've heard a bunch of them in courses, watched some videos. They sounded like mostly ideological fundamentals. "If you die in a car crash because the car was badly built it was your own fault. You just shouldn't have bought it." If I died in a car crash because the car was badly built, it was indeed my own fault. For not voting on parties that would regulate the car industry to build cars according to a decently safe standard. As the world grows more complex, it becomes increasingly difficult for consumers - who often have to specialize in a particular subject in order to find work so that they can keep consuming - to keep tabs on everything under the sun. There need to be some standards so you don't have to learn check everything down to the minutest details yourself. | ||
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warding
Portugal2394 Posts
On February 27 2017 18:56 Big J wrote: Well, if you are stuck in the economic beliefs of the cold-war kids praying day and night to the invisible hand of the free market, like most of the right-wingers are, destroying the regulating EU, keeping the common market and locking your country in meaningless nationalism is the easiest way to get to the ideological utopia. So yeah, if you don't find it in Hayek's or Friedman's works, it is probably not meant to be part of the "reformed EU" that those right-wingers are preaching. Ironic that you're from Austria :D. I've actually read Hayek and Friedman (and Mises and others) and don't really see why that would make me anti or pro-EU. I consider myself a mix of libertarian with utilitarian and I think the EU is a great liberal force in the EU. Of course I view things mostly from the Portuguese perspective, joining the EU meant adopting free trade and market economy principles that were vastly more economically liberal than the Portugal of 1985 was. Of course you have a fringe community of 'austrian economics' fans around the internet that favor things like the return to the gold standard and a sort of zerohedge.com, nihilistic perspective on the world. That might be what you're referring to, but it'd be a mistake to consider them as representative of the 'right-wing' or of economically liberal minded people. | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7804 Posts
On February 27 2017 19:27 Big J wrote: No, I've heard a bunch of them in courses, watched some videos. They sounded like mostly ideological fundamentals. "If you die in a car crash because the car was badly built it was your own fault. You just shouldn't have bought it." But nobody should take away the freedom of the car company to make deffective cars and your freedom to burn and die in the flames of a horredous crash, especially not the state!!! (you filthy marxist!) I'm sure Friedman and maybe Hayek are worth reading for a student in economics because the former at least made contributions that are essential to understand where we are at. Now on a political level, a la Hayek libertarians are not worth anyone serious' attention. | ||
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warding
Portugal2394 Posts
On February 27 2017 20:11 Biff The Understudy wrote: But nobody should take away the freedom of the car company to make deffective cars and your freedom to burn and die in the flames of a horredous crash, especially not the state!!! (you filthy marxist!) I'm sure Friedman and maybe Hayek are worth reading for a student in economics because the former at least made contributions that are essential to understand where we are at. Now on a political level, a la Hayek libertarians are not worth anyone serious' attention. I'm not a student of political economics (studied economics at an undergraduate level), but in my mind Hayek made good points on the limitations of human rationality and centralized attempts at establishing economic order vs spontaneous order where the market price mechanism was the key value. You might argue that his views are extreme and that the market has flaws, etc, but you have to understand that his ideas came in the context of the 1930-1960s at a time where many economists, even in the US, gave the soviet union far too much credit regarding its economic performance and organisation. | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
On February 27 2017 20:11 Biff The Understudy wrote: But nobody should take away the freedom of the car company to make deffective cars and your freedom to burn and die in the flames of a horredous crash, especially not the state!!! (you filthy marxist!) This is actually a pretty complex issue. I think we can all agree that car safety is important, if nothing that because by driving a car, you are endangering other people, so everyone should be forced to have their car in good conditions, because I don't want to die because some idiot doesn't change his break pads when they are worn and hits me. But what about products where the defect threatens only the consumer? Why should we be obliged to hold ourselves to such high safety standards if we don't want to? The classic counterpoint to today's strong regulatory frameworks that are found across EU countries is "why don't you just make it mandatory to label the products so that everyone knows whether they comply with the standards or not, instead of forbidding sub-standard products?" I must admit that this line of thought is tempting and that I consider it a good approach, until I learned how it doesn't really work well when people aren't infinitely rich. Because, ironically, what the strict quality requirements on products do is that they make quality products cheaper, because those are the ones that now get made in bulk and sold in bulk and where the price competition is. If there was the option to sell sub-standard products cheaper, the price competition would be only there and many people won't be able to afford such quality of cars, food etc... as they do now. This is a great example how we should view the state as our tool. The regulations - when constructed well - shoudln't be "the state imposes nonsensical requirements that limit our freedom" but "we come together and using the state as our representation, we leverage our position with respect to the vendors for profit, in the end getting more choices than before". We can always question the details of implementation, but this is the general spirit. Laissez-faire (pardon my French if the spelling's wrong) free market sounds appealing, but it is really short-sighted in many aspects and this is one of them. | ||
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