I am kind of reluctant to wade into this issue because I’m not the
most informed on this subject, but considering half the UK is currently
googling “what is the EU?” after voting to leave it, maybe I’m not the
least informed person after all. That being said, I figured I’d weigh
in.
All things considered I have mixed views on the Brexit vote. If I were to vote, I’m not sure which way I would go it. Ideologically, I side against the EU, but pragmatically, staying may have been a better option. As for the effects of the UK leaving, we’ll have to see.
My ideological case against the EU
While a lot of the people in the UK voted for leaving based on nationalist and anti immigration sentiments based on UKIP’s (far right party) propaganda, my own views stem from a form of left wing ideology.
As you know, I’m skeptical of free market capitalism. I believe capitalism can work, but only if states can be sovereign over their own economic destinies. The EU kind of robs people of that. By allowing as much freedom of movement as it does (EU countries largely have open borders with each other), it undermines nations’ abilities to set their own economic policies. You have the fact that those who are taxed and regulated can now dodge a single country’s regulations and pit them all against one another. You also, as the far right will point out, create perverse incentives in the presence of a generous welfare system. With the refugees from the middle east coming to Europe by the thousands, with no way to regulate who gets in the country and who gets benefits. This eats at the welfare state from both ends, causing heavy demand for services while being starved for revenue as corporations and elites decide to go elsewhere.
For generous social democracies to work effectively, there needs to be a somewhat strict immigration policy. I’m not saying we need to build a wall and make everyone else pay for it (I’m not a xenophobe after all), but we need to at least ensure that people can’t just come in and take from the system without paying back in. We can take care of our own, but we can’t necessarily provide for the world. And then if the rich are allowed to leave, dodge taxes and regulations, etc., that causes problems with funding such systems and regulating employer employee reactions in the first place. It just isn’t a good idea. Here in the US, we tend to have more restricted immigration and tax policies that allow us to better handle these issues.
Next, you have the fact that while the EU CAN make regulations that affect all bodies, citizens and even the individual nation states have little power in electing officials. The EU is essentially run mostly by oligarchy, and while there may be a handful of elected representatives, it’s mostly just a bunch of unelected bureaucrats making rules. Look, I like the idea of centralized government for economic regulations to make rules that benefit us all, but such institutions need to work for the people. The EU doesn’t necessarily do that, and I have seen many failures of it to do good by people. It has imposed austerity measures on countries like Spain, Italy, and Greece with their high levels of debt, which forces them to raise taxes by dramatic amounts while reducing social services. The richer countries like Germany just look the other way and say it’s not their problem. There really is a growing underclass in terms of countries in the EU. Scandinavian countries and Germany do well under the system, but other countries get screwed. Honestly, I’d say the UK is somewhere in the middle all things considered. It’s not a top player like Germany, but it’s not Greece either.
Speaking of high levels of debt, since most European countries are tied to the Euro, and no individual country can make their own currency besides the UK, that makes fiscal policy to regulate economic policy and deal with debt much more difficult. In the US, we have the federal reserve. We can manipulate our currency’s interest rates and even print money in order to influence our economic cycles. This allows us to manage our debt a bit better since we can’t go bankrupt (not that there are no limits to the debt we can be in, but we can manage it better than European countries). It also allows us to get out of recessions better. Want to know why the US is growing and Europe is stagnant with many countries still having like 10% unemployment? The fact that we have a federal reserve and sovereignty over our own currency is why. We can lower our interest rates or even use quantitative easing to encourage job creation and economic activity somewhat. While we will never create a job for everyone, we can do a much better job with a federal reserve. Europe? Well, individual EU countries outside of maybe the UK with the bank of England don’t have this function. They can’t make more currency, they can’t spend their way out of recessions, so what happens? Well, they’re dead in the water. The bureaucrats or whoever don’t make more currency in ways that benefit everyone, and cash starved countries end up just floundering. Their economies aren’t growing, their unemployment rate is high, they’re racking up debt, they’re imposing austerity on themselves to control their debt, and they just end up in this downward spiral like we’ve seen since 2008. While the right might blame their stagnation on welfare states, this is likely a myth, it basically comes down to no sovereignty over their economic destinies due to the inner workings of the European Union.
In summary, let’s recap as I may have rambled.
1) The open borders free trade mentality of the EU makes it hard to impose effective left wing policy. If companies can leave and go elsewhere to dodge taxes and regulations and individual nation states have no control over their immigration policies, generous social programs funded by high taxation, and regulations become unfeasible.
2) The EU’s government is largely out of the hands of the people and is oligarchical. Power should be in the hands of the people.
3) If #2 wasn’t bad enough, the individual nations in the EU have little sovereignty under their own economic fates. They can’t manage their own currency like the US can, they can’t dig their ways out of recessions like we can, and generally speaking, this leads to economic stagnation, high unemployment, and austerity involving both high taxes and spending cuts at the same time.
So, if the EU is that bad, why not leave?
Well, long story short, a lot of people think it would be economic suicide to do so. Free trade does bring benefits like cheaper goods and the fact that their own economy has access with foreign markets, so leaving could shock the economy. It could cause prices to rise significantly, it could put some businesses out of business, and as we’re seeing, the pound is dropping in value and stock markets around the world are plunging. Best case scenario, these shocks will be short and swift and not that severe, but worst case scenario, the UK literally just commit economic suicide and threw itself, and maybe the world, into a recession.
I mean, imagine you’re in a moving car. If you want to stop the car, you do it slowly. What happens if you go from, say, 70 MPH to 0 immediately? You fly through the windshield, that’s what. When you have an economy as integrated and reliant on the current system as it is, and you just change all of that in a rash decision, crap’s going to get messed up. It’s the same reason I’m not necessarily on board with Trump’s trade policies despite not liking NAFTA or the TPP. If you just randomly go and change all that and break agreements and fight the international community, you’re just gonna destroy our relationships overseas and economic prospects. It’s a horrible idea. Even if well meaning, it’s just a bad thing to do.
Speaking of Trump, are there any parallels here?
Yes, I noticed a lot of parallels between Trump’s movement and the whole brexit thing, both good and bad. On the one hand, both movements want to “make their countries great again” and think that we got the raw end in some ways from trade deals. But on the other end, the cavalier methods of just leaving existing agreements and structures is dangerous.
I do think it will be interesting to watch what happens to the UK here at least. Take note, though. This is the kind of thing that Trump would do here if he were president. If this ends up working badly for the UK, that’s probably a strong argument against Trump’s very best, most thought out policies (because let’s face it, trade and immigration are just about the only two policies he didn’t literally just pull out of his *** on the fly, healthcare maybe being a third).
Conclusion
So, conclusion. I don’t like the EU. You should get that idea. I think it’s a neoliberal organization that ultimately runs against left wing capitalist economic ideals and deprives individual countries the freedom and power to control their own economic destinies. I also think it’s bad for economic growth and handling recessions, which is why Europe is a stagnant mess these days. I’m really glad the US isn’t in the EU. While I admire Europe for a lot of things, the EU isn’t one of them. However, I would be afraid to leave it if I were in it. Leaving it could cause all kinds of negative economic ramifications and hurt a lot of people. I think we’re starting to see that, although we won’t see the long term effects for some time.
All things considered I have mixed views on the Brexit vote. If I were to vote, I’m not sure which way I would go it. Ideologically, I side against the EU, but pragmatically, staying may have been a better option. As for the effects of the UK leaving, we’ll have to see.
My ideological case against the EU
While a lot of the people in the UK voted for leaving based on nationalist and anti immigration sentiments based on UKIP’s (far right party) propaganda, my own views stem from a form of left wing ideology.
As you know, I’m skeptical of free market capitalism. I believe capitalism can work, but only if states can be sovereign over their own economic destinies. The EU kind of robs people of that. By allowing as much freedom of movement as it does (EU countries largely have open borders with each other), it undermines nations’ abilities to set their own economic policies. You have the fact that those who are taxed and regulated can now dodge a single country’s regulations and pit them all against one another. You also, as the far right will point out, create perverse incentives in the presence of a generous welfare system. With the refugees from the middle east coming to Europe by the thousands, with no way to regulate who gets in the country and who gets benefits. This eats at the welfare state from both ends, causing heavy demand for services while being starved for revenue as corporations and elites decide to go elsewhere.
For generous social democracies to work effectively, there needs to be a somewhat strict immigration policy. I’m not saying we need to build a wall and make everyone else pay for it (I’m not a xenophobe after all), but we need to at least ensure that people can’t just come in and take from the system without paying back in. We can take care of our own, but we can’t necessarily provide for the world. And then if the rich are allowed to leave, dodge taxes and regulations, etc., that causes problems with funding such systems and regulating employer employee reactions in the first place. It just isn’t a good idea. Here in the US, we tend to have more restricted immigration and tax policies that allow us to better handle these issues.
Next, you have the fact that while the EU CAN make regulations that affect all bodies, citizens and even the individual nation states have little power in electing officials. The EU is essentially run mostly by oligarchy, and while there may be a handful of elected representatives, it’s mostly just a bunch of unelected bureaucrats making rules. Look, I like the idea of centralized government for economic regulations to make rules that benefit us all, but such institutions need to work for the people. The EU doesn’t necessarily do that, and I have seen many failures of it to do good by people. It has imposed austerity measures on countries like Spain, Italy, and Greece with their high levels of debt, which forces them to raise taxes by dramatic amounts while reducing social services. The richer countries like Germany just look the other way and say it’s not their problem. There really is a growing underclass in terms of countries in the EU. Scandinavian countries and Germany do well under the system, but other countries get screwed. Honestly, I’d say the UK is somewhere in the middle all things considered. It’s not a top player like Germany, but it’s not Greece either.
Speaking of high levels of debt, since most European countries are tied to the Euro, and no individual country can make their own currency besides the UK, that makes fiscal policy to regulate economic policy and deal with debt much more difficult. In the US, we have the federal reserve. We can manipulate our currency’s interest rates and even print money in order to influence our economic cycles. This allows us to manage our debt a bit better since we can’t go bankrupt (not that there are no limits to the debt we can be in, but we can manage it better than European countries). It also allows us to get out of recessions better. Want to know why the US is growing and Europe is stagnant with many countries still having like 10% unemployment? The fact that we have a federal reserve and sovereignty over our own currency is why. We can lower our interest rates or even use quantitative easing to encourage job creation and economic activity somewhat. While we will never create a job for everyone, we can do a much better job with a federal reserve. Europe? Well, individual EU countries outside of maybe the UK with the bank of England don’t have this function. They can’t make more currency, they can’t spend their way out of recessions, so what happens? Well, they’re dead in the water. The bureaucrats or whoever don’t make more currency in ways that benefit everyone, and cash starved countries end up just floundering. Their economies aren’t growing, their unemployment rate is high, they’re racking up debt, they’re imposing austerity on themselves to control their debt, and they just end up in this downward spiral like we’ve seen since 2008. While the right might blame their stagnation on welfare states, this is likely a myth, it basically comes down to no sovereignty over their economic destinies due to the inner workings of the European Union.
In summary, let’s recap as I may have rambled.
1) The open borders free trade mentality of the EU makes it hard to impose effective left wing policy. If companies can leave and go elsewhere to dodge taxes and regulations and individual nation states have no control over their immigration policies, generous social programs funded by high taxation, and regulations become unfeasible.
2) The EU’s government is largely out of the hands of the people and is oligarchical. Power should be in the hands of the people.
3) If #2 wasn’t bad enough, the individual nations in the EU have little sovereignty under their own economic fates. They can’t manage their own currency like the US can, they can’t dig their ways out of recessions like we can, and generally speaking, this leads to economic stagnation, high unemployment, and austerity involving both high taxes and spending cuts at the same time.
So, if the EU is that bad, why not leave?
Well, long story short, a lot of people think it would be economic suicide to do so. Free trade does bring benefits like cheaper goods and the fact that their own economy has access with foreign markets, so leaving could shock the economy. It could cause prices to rise significantly, it could put some businesses out of business, and as we’re seeing, the pound is dropping in value and stock markets around the world are plunging. Best case scenario, these shocks will be short and swift and not that severe, but worst case scenario, the UK literally just commit economic suicide and threw itself, and maybe the world, into a recession.
I mean, imagine you’re in a moving car. If you want to stop the car, you do it slowly. What happens if you go from, say, 70 MPH to 0 immediately? You fly through the windshield, that’s what. When you have an economy as integrated and reliant on the current system as it is, and you just change all of that in a rash decision, crap’s going to get messed up. It’s the same reason I’m not necessarily on board with Trump’s trade policies despite not liking NAFTA or the TPP. If you just randomly go and change all that and break agreements and fight the international community, you’re just gonna destroy our relationships overseas and economic prospects. It’s a horrible idea. Even if well meaning, it’s just a bad thing to do.
Speaking of Trump, are there any parallels here?
Yes, I noticed a lot of parallels between Trump’s movement and the whole brexit thing, both good and bad. On the one hand, both movements want to “make their countries great again” and think that we got the raw end in some ways from trade deals. But on the other end, the cavalier methods of just leaving existing agreements and structures is dangerous.
I do think it will be interesting to watch what happens to the UK here at least. Take note, though. This is the kind of thing that Trump would do here if he were president. If this ends up working badly for the UK, that’s probably a strong argument against Trump’s very best, most thought out policies (because let’s face it, trade and immigration are just about the only two policies he didn’t literally just pull out of his *** on the fly, healthcare maybe being a third).
Conclusion
So, conclusion. I don’t like the EU. You should get that idea. I think it’s a neoliberal organization that ultimately runs against left wing capitalist economic ideals and deprives individual countries the freedom and power to control their own economic destinies. I also think it’s bad for economic growth and handling recessions, which is why Europe is a stagnant mess these days. I’m really glad the US isn’t in the EU. While I admire Europe for a lot of things, the EU isn’t one of them. However, I would be afraid to leave it if I were in it. Leaving it could cause all kinds of negative economic ramifications and hurt a lot of people. I think we’re starting to see that, although we won’t see the long term effects for some time.
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