The EU should be disbanded, or at least wound down as a political organisation. The free trade area, the ESM, is crucial to Pan-European prosperity going-forward but the harmonisation of taxation, regulations etc. is a manifest threat to freedom and competition. Currently, to highlight a trivial but frighteningly absurd example, the EU regulates the shape a Banana can be before they can be legally sold.Things of this nature are distressing developments when they occur in a single nation, but when they are imposed over 27 of the world's most prosperous states it is tragic
scineram: I dislike the term laissez faire government. But a govenment comes into existence through conquest or treaty, like US or UK. A state is practically unavoidable it seems to me. I am not concerned with rightfulness. I am not a believer in rights.
So you dislike 'small government', government is a necesscity yet government is conquest....I'm sorry but why are you here?
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
Merlin: Merging many states into one is never a good idea. Still the EU is here to stay (for a while, at least). What is the best libertarian option, the most advicable course of action to be taken now that the EU exists? Seccesion or Reform?
Merging many states into one is never a good idea. Still the EU is here to stay (for a while, at least). What is the best libertarian option, the most advicable course of action to be taken now that the EU exists? Seccesion or Reform?
Why should I care?
I'm dead serious. I honestly couldn't care less whether there is one socialist government or a dozen different socialist governments. Both have their disadvantages from a libertarian perspective.
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable."
ama gi: Why should I care? I'm dead serious. I honestly couldn't care less whether there is one socialist government or a dozen different socialist governments. Both have their disadvantages from a libertarian perspective.
For the same reason it's far, far worse of a situation if the US turns socialist than if California (say) or any individual state does so. The damage is far more confined and the victims of the socialists can flee to greener pastures more easily. When the socialists control a good chunk of an entire continent, it's a lot more difficult.
Praetyre:For the same reason it's far, far worse of a situation if the US turns socialist than if California (say) or any individual state does so. The damage is far more confined and the victims of the socialists can flee to greener pastures more easily. When the socialists control a good chunk of an entire continent, it's a lot more difficult.
Aye-Aye!
Merlin:But than again, please adress my previous post.
Both succession and reform are preferable to doing nothing. Succession however, is preferable to reform, because it is less easily rolled back.
In terms of strategy, it is preferable to press for succession as a redress to the problems of the EU, because it increases the chances of being able to achieve reform wrt a strategy of reform.
Guys, Britain's broke!
Polishmen and Hungarians are paying for its social expenditures, social insurance and debt. It CAN"T seccede without defaulting on its obligations, which in turn will leave the Government unable to pay its social insurance payments. THERE IS NO MINARCHIC SOLUTION TO THE EU, once down that road NOTHING, save for a bloody revolution, will roll social changes back.
Gorbachev in 1990 tried to reform, and it brought the entire state down. The thing its simple: Seccession or reform? NEITHER WILL DO. Only a total abolition of the state will do.
And that, my good friends will not happen on its own. Start hoping for a miracle. Europe shall need it.
Every country's broke. Who has the leadership to stop the collapse and ruin?
When empires go bust it takes outside leadership to liberate its people from ruin. Does there exist leaders with authority and power outside the political systems?
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Anarchist Cain:So you dislike 'small government', government is a necesscity yet government is conquest....I'm sorry but why are you here?
Merlin: Guys, Britain's broke! Polishmen and Hungarians are paying for its social expenditures, social insurance and debt. It CAN"T seccede without defaulting on its obligations, which in turn will leave the Government unable to pay its social insurance payments. THERE IS NO MINARCHIC SOLUTION TO THE EU, once down that road NOTHING, save for a bloody revolution, will roll social changes back. Gorbachev in 1990 tried to reform, and it brought the entire state down. The thing its simple: Seccession or reform? NEITHER WILL DO. Only a total abolition of the state will do. And that, my good friends will not happen on its own. Start hoping for a miracle. Europe shall need it.
You had me right up until "NEITHER WILL DO" and then you entered psuedo-anarchist cliché mode.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
Why shouldn't he be here? This is a forum about Austrian Economics.
Lord Shore-Twilly:You had me right up until "NEITHER WILL DO" and then you entered psuedo-anarchist cliché mode.
I invite anyone to do any better.
Secession is the only real hope. Maintain the free trade and common labor market, but get rid of the Euro and leave the political sphere. Losing your sovereignty to a national government is bad, but getting it lost to a multi-national government is even worse.
Periodically the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.
Thomas Jefferson
Juan:Why shouldn't he be here? This is a forum about Austrian Economics. This is a forum about freedom, not statism...in any form ?
I guess Mises wouldn't be welcome either, beng a minarchist.
"When the King is far the people are happy." Chinese proverb
For Alexander Zinoviev and the free market there is a shared delight:
"Where there are problems there is life."
I never claimed any of the above, and neither did I say I was a minarchist, I just wanted to use Mises as an example, not an argument from authority. I just think you show a seemingly unhealthy intolerance towards intellectual views that differ with yours.
Juan: Maybe there's something unhealthy about you, too...
Oh you have no idea!.
On a more serious note, who said anything about killing dissenters? All I'm trying to say is I don't think it's wise for you or anyone else on this forum to tell anyone else to piss off just because they don't share exactly the same political and economic views as you.
Juan:Well, I didn't tell anyone to piss off, I think. And I don't see how you can complain about my 'intolerance' for statists given that their political system is based on eliminating individuals who don't agree with their political views.
True, I was overstating my case to make a point, but I did find Anarchist Cain's earlier comment quite hostile, and you did seem to support it. Since most people are not anarchocapitalists and are certainly not born ones, but a lot of people including many on this forum are sympathetic or share many of the same ideals as anarchists towards freedom; it may not best serve your ends, or at least what I believe to be your ends; by telling them they don't belong here.
abskebabs: Juan:Why shouldn't he be here? This is a forum about Austrian Economics. This is a forum about freedom, not statism...in any form ? I guess Mises wouldn't be welcome either, beng a minarchist.
Apparently David Friedman wouldn't be welcome here either, as he adheres to the Chicago School of economics
That, and Objectivists like Dr Reisman.
Well, this thread has been quiet a long time but I wanted to revisit it because of the current EU financial crises. Interesting today are two articles in the British media:
The eurozone crisis: if the single currency can be saved, deeper political union is inevitable Eurozone crisis: What would a break-up look like?
"The leaders who will meet in Brussels on Thursday still have the power to decide whether this crisis is going to end with much greater integration and burden-sharing between the governments of the eurozone - or a dramatic break-up. But they are increasingly losing control of the timing."
This I think confirms Mises' argument in "Bureaucracy" (see post here). The euro fiscal crisis has exposed the weakness of an economic unit that is politically fragmented, It is forcing either the degree of political integration to catch up with the degree of economic integration or a breakup of the economic entity.
I would remove/end the European political leadership/apparatus. Allow for the EU currency to continue and keep the economic trade agreement principles. Which is what it was originally set out to be, well it was the justification for starting it. If it continues it will only lead to a European dictatorship that would go as far as attacking its own member states in to compliance? I do not think that the model of a European currency is viable. Having so many individual countries with their own governments under one currency does not work. Too many governments that like to spend money and create debt. This will lead to the richer countries paying more than others and eventually it will collapse. There should be competing currencies within Europe. So a swiss franc and gbp should be legal tender everywhere in Europe.
So ending the EUSSR would not have to be the end of a "free trade understanding" between european states. There could still exist a free market across the borders without a unified currency and unified political dictatorship.
Actually the EU has only one chance to survive: go back to the so called "Liberal" proposal which ended up being watered down by the Treaty of Rome of 1957 and ended up being progressively replaced by so called "Socialist" proposal. Bagus's book clearly outlines these two proposals. All attempts at European unification under a single leadership in the past have failed miserably, no matter how strong the bureaucracy and the armies trying to impose it.
Trying to combine together the two ideas for a common European home (free trade on one side and a progressively stronger centralized government on the other) may have sounded like a good compromise back at the times but as is always the case with middle of the road solutions the worst part progressively took over. It means the benefits of a free market are being steadily eroded by a meddling and bloated central government which is effectively aiming at replacing the free market with yet another version of the Soviet centralized economy. Back in the days the planners in Moscow decided what was to be produced in the factories of each country of the Warsaw Pact out of complicated reasoning which, more often than not, was just a cover for their whims. We are already seeing shades of this same procedure in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which decides how much milk or how many oranges a member State can produce. How long will it be before we'll have a Common Industrial Policy, to set how many cars or industrial bores each country can manufacture?
in order to become a single economic unit, you cannot have different tax systems, legal systems, monetary policies, etc.
The benefit of having different tax systems, legal systems, monetary policies, etc. is much greater than the benefit of having a customs union.
Well, if Mises was right in "Bureaucracy" then it is not really a question of choosing whether to couple economic and political unification, more a case of one innevitably following the other. And as we are now seeing with the single European currency, they are now learning that the hard way.