Comment by jernfrost | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jernfrost | Hacker News Reader

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This is why I think the EU is a dangerous idea. It has become this truism that we are stronger together. No, we are not. Europe conquered the world, because we were divided. Our strength came from our division not our unity.

Random events always happen. Every country will always experience a random bad leader. It will happen sooner or later. What is best then to have a land area unified into one or split into 10 different countries? One bad leader among 10 occasionally will not pull the whole area down. One bad leader for the whole area can pull the whole area into the dark ages.

Consider the Chinese emperor which banned all Chinese naval exploration and trade? That could never happen in contemporary Europe, because if your country got such a dumb leader your neighbors would quickly outcompete you and it would become very obvious how stupid that decision was within short time.

Being political divided is thus a good insurance against doom. Imagine someone like Hitler rising to power in a unified Europe? There would be no way to counter his madness.

That is why I think that China's rise today will eventually end up being a temporary thing. It will eventually stagnate, because China doesn't have anything to clearly challenge it. I also think this will be America's downfall in the end. We can already see an almost Chinese way of seeing the world in America. Instead of Mandate of Heaven, we got American exceptionalism, which means America is very poor at absorbing ideas from abroad. The thinking is always that America is best and has nothing to learn from the foreigners. Not all that different from the Chinese view when the British came knocking on their door.

What is great about Europe is that we got this big playground for political and society experiments. Different countries try out widely different models for society. I see this among Nordic countries as a microcosmos. Each country try out different ideas and then we copy what works from each other. Many of the policies e.g. enacted in my home country Norway has previously been tried out in Denmark or Sweden.

This is a good point, but I am fairly sure there is a balance to reach here. The EU is currently politically extremely weak, with national veto powers widespread: see how Wallonia, only a part of a small country, was able to significantly delay CETA ratification, and could probably have cancelled it; how large EU economies (Germany, France, semi-formerly the UK, and probably Italy and the Netherlands) all have veto power in practice; how some countries (Poland and Hungary come to mind) pretty much ignore some rules with little being done against it.

What would it even mean, in the current state of the EU, for "a Hitler to rise to power in it"? First, he would have to be supported by a large number of member states (in which case it would be likely that even without the existence of the EU, that sort of leader would have become widespread in Europe), and then, he would be president of the European Parliament? Of the European Commission? I doubt he would be very harmful there, except possibly to the EU as an institution.

I believe the EU can (and probably should) integrate quite a bit further before the problems you raise can realistically happen. I think member states should be given lots of freedom in non-foreign-policy, non-budgetary choices (as they currently are), which leaves a lot of room for the experimentation you describe, and less power to individually veto negotiations that are much more effective when Europe acts as a block. No-one wants to have to certify their cars or get an insurance license 27 times to service 20 million people on average each time.

As a last resort against utterly stupid decisions or policies, of course, member states are always free to leave.

Actually, I think that a great deal of America's success is because member states are NOT free to leave. Otherwise, they can abandon each other when it becomes convenient.

Edit since I can't reply. It's hard to imagine, but it wasn't always so, and rich states always have a net tax outflow to poorer states. It's the political equivalent of burning your ships; you have to make it work, for no other course is survivable. Slavery and economics forced the question, but the American Civil War was first and foremost to answer the question: can a state leave?

Note this is only about your last sentence, I agree with all the rest.

> Actually, I think that a great deal of America's success is because member states are NOT free to leave.

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads, 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'

No Article nor Amendment of the Constitution delegates authority over secession to the United States, and thus that power is retained by the several States, or to the people thereof. Thus it's pretty obvious that member states are free to leave any time they choose; it's the only reading of the supreme law of the land which makes any sense.

Thus it's pretty obvious that member states are free to leave any time they choose

On this subject the late, great Antonin Scalia supposedly said, more or less: "we settled that issue 150 years ago".

it's the only reading of the supreme law of the land which makes any sense

Much to the frequent lament of Scalia, the supreme law of the land is no more and no less than what a majority of the Supreme Court chooses to believe at that particular time.

> Much to the frequent lament of Scalia, the supreme law of the land is no more and no less than what a majority of the Supreme Court chooses to believe at that particular time.

Unfortunately that's true (and Justice Scalia was complicit in that: when he was right, he was typically really right, but when he was wrong he was rally wrong); that's why I've always respected Justice Thomas, who really does seem to attempt to consider what the Constitution actually says, requires and is silent on.

The one saving grace is that the Supreme Court is not, despite what folks think, a super-legislature: it only has the power to rule in specific cases. There's nothing which prevents litigants bringing a similar case as one already decided, and the Court is free to ignore a previous, erroneous ruling. So there is some little hope that with the right justices it might ignore bad precedent.

And yet the one time they tried, they were stopped by force. De facto, not necessarily de jury.

Ah, but what if South Carolina hadn't been so stupid as to shell Fort Sumter? That was the actual start of the war, and was a perfectly legitimate casus belli for the United States.

I agree to some extent, but how many US states would take the option to leave the union if they could? They benefit from being part of the US so immensely that it is hard to imagine conditions where they would actually leave.

If the EU integrates more, and is sufficiently uncooperative with quitters, leaving really would be a last-resort option. I would argue that the UK is a special case, since its ties with the EU were lighter than basically all other members, but even then Brexit will quite possibly hurt it. From Germany to Estonia, member states have a strong incentive to remain.

This is really tangential to what the parent said.

Parent states that a lot of good comes from plurality, because it gives us practical examples and empirical knowledge of all different kinds of political policies, ways of organizing public services, taxation etc. Out of this, states can choose to mirror other's ways of approaching a problem. People can also vote with their feet, a principle without there simply can't be democracy (Loyalty, Voice, Exit). In short, it allows for social evolution.

In contrast, a single state EU has none of this and seems at risk of stagnating and putting in place destructive policies.

Your comment doesn't touch any of this. You just opine that the EU is too weak and should integrate more. As if it was an end in itself.

I felt like I was addressing this but it may not have been very clear. I understand, and agree with, the point about diversity. My argument is that the EU is still far from preventing political diversity since member states have a large amount of leeway. I also argue that this leeway can be reduced further still without seriously harming this diversity, and that it should be, since there are things to be gained from it.

I'm not sure why you think America is bad at absorbing foreign ideas. Roughly 10% of the population is foreign born; successfully absorbing people and ideas is what America is all about. I'd say it's the driver of American exceptionalism, not limited by it.

World War 2 was one of the last major conflicts involving most of Europe. What happened after World War 2?

Europe became dominated by the US and the Soviet Union. They ceased to be truly independent. Through the United Nations, the US made wars of aggression illegal. This is mostly to avoid another world war.

You can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_World_War_II

The whole point of the EU is piece among the European nations. That's hardly a “dangerous idea”.

I don't think peace and competition have to be at odds. We can still have relatively independent states with different ideals and cultures, without having to actually start killing each other by the millions.

And if that's impossible, well, I'll move to the United States, or possibly Mars.

Worth thinking about: Corporations.

in my mind, that gives every national union (EU included) the "strength through division" you are talking about, but without all that other geopolitical risk.

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