Future of the European Union

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furunculus

fine, well then, let's see how many Remainer's are comfortable with the idea of Britain being a the 51st state of america. with [all] that entails...

---

I don't understand the point, if we offered and you had appropriate representation...wouldn't it be a good idea?

Quote:

---

How about; we don't assent to common governance. Stop.

---

But you are already under a common governance with three other countries [no I don't care about the details of verbiage and UK history/structure, it is not relevant to the point].
How is the European Union any less arbitrary than your current political union?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

ACIN makes a good point, Frags. After all, you would be hard pressed to find a great number of opponents of the EEC. Economic coordination was a boon to Europe on any number of levels. ACIN suggests that, rather than throwing out the baby with the bathwater, you and others of like mind call the EU politicos to task and dial back those aspects of integration that are too intrusive without discarding those that add value.

Not sure of the practical difficulties in that approach, but ACIN is making a generally valuable point.

---

The UK has been allowed to leave not just in theory but in practice. Therefore any country is free to leave at any point and with that freedom of choice provides leverage.

I initially thought that the Tory's were going to do exactly that when the Brexit vote happened. Well, we must leave unless you can make an offer that we can give back to the people as a show of good faith towards a fairer union.
To be honest, I have not followed Brexit that much, but either the EU was OK with UK leaving which just perplexes me because that seems like a loss no matter how they spin it OR the Tories really screwed up by going straight to "we're out".

Future votes to leave the EU and subsequent fallout will be handled very differently.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

I'm still not sure why the clear alternative to "common governance" isn't intensifying deterritorialization of governance.

---

It isn't a clear alternative to anything, as international treaty law with its spongy interpretability and poor understood mandate is an exceedingly poor way to govern social interaction.
Further, we all clearly submit to common governance (with the possible exception of somalia), but there is no moral reasoning that would necessitate a nation of people assenting to a governance by a different polity if that was not their express wish.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

Or is it another layer of my misunderstanding of your position and is actually a dialectical argument that considers instigating a crisis in the system as part of the path to a resolution (like Slavoj Zizek on global capitalism and the Trump election)?

---

Closer, but dialectical in what sense? I tend to talk about it in fairly dry terms, but the subject discussed is politics and political identity, and ultimately that is a matter of personal sentiment and emotional attachment.
I do think the Zizek argument has some application here, as I believe the EU to be a dysfunctional form of government in being unable to usefully represent the desires of its various people[s] it has a tendency to stasis. Which makes it an inflexible construct that has low adaptability to accommodate shifting circumstances.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

Social engineering is always a gamble. :shrug:

---

Agreed. A charge I would lay at the feet of the pro-eu elites in two separate parts; 1. with the likes of new labour treating mass immigration as a tool for social transformation. 2. on the part of eu policy makers that seek to enhance and promote regional identity within the EU such that national identity loses tractability and visibility. Was the context in which you raised the point?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

The UK has been allowed to leave not just in theory but in practice. Therefore any country is free to leave at any point and with that freedom of choice provides leverage.

I initially thought that the Tory's were going to do exactly that when the Brexit vote happened. Well, we must leave unless you can make an offer that we can give back to the people as a show of good faith towards a fairer union.
To be honest, I have not followed Brexit that much, but either the EU was OK with UK leaving which just perplexes me because that seems like a loss no matter how they spin it OR the Tories really screwed up by going straight to "we're out".

Future votes to leave the EU and subsequent fallout will be handled very differently.

---

Very differently yes, that is why there can not be such a thing as a unified army, it is a mostly useless bureaucracy that has little reason to exist, but will fight to stay alive

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragony

Very differently yes, that is why there can not be such a thing as a unified army, it is a mostly useless bureaucracy that has little reason to exist, but will fight to stay alive

---

Fragony:

Some of the pro EU crowd no doubt hope that a 'unified army' will be unifying of Europe. That soldiers, trained to high standard and enculturated to serve the whole entity rather than a part of it, enculturated to support and defend the compact that is the EU and not its constituents, will yield a steadily growing number of citizens and leaders whose allegiance is to the entity of the whole and not of the particulars. This is not an impossible goal.

However, to really enact this kind of enculturation, the EU would need to conduct all of the training of such forces for the first several years of service and would have to put formations together without regard for place of origin -- stapling together a "unified" army from extant formations in the existing NATO force structure will not accomplish any meaningful cultural change -- it would be a patchwork at best and a Frankenstein's monster at worst.

Given your adamant opposition to the EU, I would think you would WANT them to enact and deploy that patchwork. I can think of few things that would undermine the EU more effectively then the EU leadership sending Scandinavian (for e.g.) troops to force compliance from Catalonia or deploying Poles to require Sweden to accept a greater share of immigrant refugees etc. That's the kind of 'foreign occupation' thing most guaranteed to place the population in opposition to EU leadership.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furunculus

It isn't a clear alternative to anything, as international treaty law with its spongy interpretability and poor understood mandate is an exceedingly poor way to govern social interaction.
Further, we all clearly submit to common governance (with the possible exception of somalia), but there is no moral reasoning that would necessitate a nation of people assenting to a governance by a different polity if that was not their express wish.

---

Deterritorialization.

Your preference/expectation for a successful Brexit is a Singapore model, a market economy of services. A globally-embedded market economy necessarily removes local control in favor of the interests of influential horizontally-mobile market actors, and a service economy in this context is heavily fluctuating and precarious as the small fry contract on an irregular basis and desperately compete to maintain value against one another. In other words, intensifying the economic trends of the past two generations.

I guess, as with Singapore, wealthy technocrats heavily repress personal rights and social group interests to maintain conditions for market churn? Why not a Lichtenstein model, a minimally-populated tax haven free market utopia that is HOLY CRAP A LITERAL MONARCHY.

Socialists like Corbyn of course have a different take on the opportunities of Brexit. I'll present their view later on. A little bit like your A2 "UKIP[???]-driven scenario"; I can't help but feel they're too optimistic about their case, since your scenario is the default trend for the world at-large regardless of Brexit.

Quote:

---

Agreed. A charge I would lay at the feet of the pro-eu elites in two separate parts; 1. with the likes of new labour treating mass immigration as a tool for social transformation. 2. on the part of eu policy makers that seek to enhance and promote regional identity within the EU such that national identity loses tractability and visibility. Was the context in which you raised the point?

---

Hasn't the fatal flaw with the European Union been that the leadership wanted it both ways, broad new institutions and agendas without taking the effort or commitment to reshaping the popular consciousness?

You seemed to advance that a non-failed Brexit is the best case for pushing the EU into the form you would like to see it take, something that itself depends on dramatic future shifts in the consciousness and attitudes of various national populations (facilitated by political and economic shocks of Brexit).

So, social engineering at a certain remove.

It's bacon and eggs for breakfast and the EU is selling chicken when they need to be selling pig.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

I don't understand the point, if we offered and you had appropriate representation...wouldn't it be a good idea?



But you are already under a common governance with three other countries [no I don't care about the details of verbiage and UK history/structure, it is not relevant to the point].
How is the European Union any less arbitrary than your current political union?

---

For myself, I'd be no less comfortable with the US than the EU, but then the US leans toward my preferences in focusing more on individual liberty than group equality, limited gov't, and and activist foreign policy. But I think we all know that our ardent remainders here would spit tacks if the prospect were in the offing.

Sure, but every form of representative governance is a compromise that best meets the will of the group. The wider the ideological gulf of the group the less satisfactory the end compromise, and the less efficient the action of government in seeking to make and implement policy. The EU is already in lowest common denominator territory. And again, I'm not obliged to accept it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furunculus

For myself, I'd be no less comfortable with the US than the EU, but then the US leans toward my preferences in focusing more on individual liberty than group equality, limited gov't, and and activist foreign policy. But I think we all know that our ardent remainders here would spit tacks if the prospect were in the offing.

Sure, but every form of representative governance is a compromise that best meets the will of the group. The wider the ideological gulf of the group the less satisfactory the end compromise, and the less efficient the action of government in seeking to make and implement policy. The EU is already in lowest common denominator territory. And again, I'm not obliged to accept it.

---

The US interpretation of the Second Amendment is far more removed from any society I identify with than anything the EU has come up with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Fragony:

Some of the pro EU crowd no doubt hope that a 'unified army' will be unifying of Europe. That soldiers, trained to high standard and enculturated to serve the whole entity rather than a part of it, enculturated to support and defend the compact that is the EU and not its constituents, will yield a steadily growing number of citizens and leaders whose allegiance is to the entity of the whole and not of the particulars. This is not an impossible goal.

However, to really enact this kind of enculturation, the EU would need to conduct all of the training of such forces for the first several years of service and would have to put formations together without regard for place of origin -- stapling together a "unified" army from extant formations in the existing NATO force structure will not accomplish any meaningful cultural change -- it would be a patchwork at best and a Frankenstein's monster at worst.

Given your adamant opposition to the EU, I would think you would WANT them to enact and deploy that patchwork. I can think of few things that would undermine the EU more effectively then the EU leadership sending Scandinavian (for e.g.) troops to force compliance from Catalonia or deploying Poles to require Sweden to accept a greater share of immigrant refugees etc. That's the kind of 'foreign occupation' thing most guaranteed to place the population in opposition to EU leadership.

---

The EU has a very high probability to turn into a whacked dyspotia, one that was never needed. Itś a political project at first, free trade already was there. Congratulate us with a new aristocracy

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragony

The EU has a very high probability to turn into a whacked dyspotia, one that was never needed. Itś a political project at first, free trade already was there. Congratulate us with a new aristocracy

---

No it's not. It's a wonderful utopia that we desperately need. It's a project of the people at first and a natural consequence of free trade and a love for peace and prosperity for all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Strike For The South

It's bacon and eggs for breakfast and the EU is selling chicken when they need to be selling pig.

---

The Chicken is involved, but the Pig is committed!

So the Pig is, like, Jesus?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Husar

No it's not. It's a wonderful utopia that we desperately need. It's a project of the people at first and a natural consequence of free trade and a love for peace and prosperity for all.

---

No it is a parasitical overhead that gets into your pants

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

Deterritorialization.

---

Having read The Rule of Law in Crisis and Conflict Grey Zones, Regulating the Use of Force in a Global Information Environment, I chose to read the word above as the use of international normative law. An emerging doctrine that essentially gives life to the concept, but since it is not accepted and universal fact the enormous majority of de-territorial law is in fact international treaty. Which would fail for the reasons specified, and there is nothing to indicate that normative law does not suffer the same problems. Do you have a different interpretation?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

Your preference/expectation for a successful Brexit is a Singapore model, a market economy of services. A globally-embedded market economy necessarily removes local control in favor of the interests of influential horizontally-mobile market actors, and a service economy in this context is heavily fluctuating and precarious as the small fry contract on an irregular basis and desperately compete to maintain value against one another. In other words, intensifying the economic trends of the past two generations.

---

Everything is relative. A Singapore in europe doesn't have to be anything more than a nation that keeps public spending at 5% of GDP lower than the median for the EU, with regulation at a similar level of unobtrusiveness. Let's say 37.5% (versus 42.5%), and our existing penchant for non-socialised regulation of finance, energy, gm, etc.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

I guess, as with Singapore, wealthy technocrats heavily repress personal rights and social group interests to maintain conditions for market churn? Why not a Lichtenstein model, a minimally-populated tax haven free market utopia that is HOLY CRAP A LITERAL MONARCHY.

---

So I don't really think this scenario applies. Afterall, it isn't like the rest of the anglosphere doesn't operate on exactly the same basis already.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

Socialists like Corbyn of course have a different take on the opportunities of Brexit. I'll present their view later on. A little bit like your A2 "UKIP[???]-driven scenario"; I can't help but feel they're too optimistic about their case, since your scenario is the default trend for the world at-large regardless of Brexit.

---

I would be keen to hear some try and put a structure on how the corbynite left hopes to succeed as a left-wing country outside the protectionist bloc that enables such structure...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

Hasn't the fatal flaw with the European Union been that the leadership wanted it both ways, broad new institutions and agendas without taking the effort or commitment to reshaping the popular consciousness?

---

Yes. But that doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day it is just politics (and it is just that), and i'm not obliged to assent to it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

You seemed to advance that a non-failed Brexit is the best case for pushing the EU into the form you would like to see it take, something that itself depends on dramatic future shifts in the consciousness and attitudes of various national populations (facilitated by political and economic shocks of Brexit).
So, social engineering at a certain remove.

---

Not social engineering, political engineering. A process that happens all the time everywhere, as governence must perforce respond to changing circumstances.
To be specific: do you think my scenarios of the EU evolution are realistic? And what might you suggest in their stead?

You are lucky, Germany and France might fuck but they do not make love, in the end France is a whore who wants money and Germany gladly gives it if nonody tells his wife. Basic EU-politics explained.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragony

No it is a parasitical overhead that gets into your pants

---

I've got to be numb there because I never noticed.
The only thing I did notice was that I could call my dad in your country without having to worry about roaming fees.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragony

You are lucky, Germany and France might fuck but they do not make love, in the end France is a whore who wants money and Germany gladly gives it if nonody tells his wife. Basic EU-politics explained.

---

I notice a trend here...
What happened to Squirrels and Ferrets? Are you switching over to dark fantasy or argument noir?

If they can why can't I, oh right, fake news, I forgot that everytihing anti-EU is fake-news

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragony

If they can why can't I, oh right, fake news, I forgot that everytihing anti-EU is fake-news

---

You can come here and call your mom without roaming fees. Don't worry so much about these fake news.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

Socialists like Corbyn of course have a different take on the opportunities of Brexit. I'll present their view later on. A little bit like your A2 "UKIP[???]-driven scenario"; I can't help but feel they're too optimistic about their case, since your scenario is the default trend for the world at-large regardless of Brexit.

---

Paul Mason has beaten you to it:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politic...ssels-sabotage

Quote:

---

For the left, however, the social market economy is the specific European form of neoliberalism: it prefers private over public, vaunts market mechanism over state direction or subsidy, relies on effective competition to make capitalism fairer, rather than strong regulation. The Bad Godesberg principle adopted by the German social democrats in 1959 – market where possible, state where necessary – was never accepted by British social democracy at the time, and has come to embody the neoliberal reflexes through which Germany runs, dominates and exploits the Eurozone.

A third problem is the domestic political reality Labour expects to face as it enacts the most radical left programme any major country has ever undertaken. The “very British coup” scenario is a non-starter. But mild civil service obstruction, combined with destabilisation by private security and intelligence firms, combined with the nabobs of Brussels issuing arbitrary and vindictive rulings, combined with 30-odd Blairite Labour rebels … that’s what Corbyn needs to guard against.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furunculus

Having read The Rule of Law in Crisis and Conflict Grey Zones, Regulating the Use of Force in a Global Information Environment, I chose to read the word above as the use of international normative law. An emerging doctrine that essentially gives life to the concept, but since it is not accepted and universal fact the enormous majority of de-territorial law is in fact international treaty. Which would fail for the reasons specified, and there is nothing to indicate that normative law does not suffer the same problems. Do you have a different interpretation?

---

Well off the mark. I meant it as derived from the Deleuzian/accelerationist sense, but we don't care about those labels so in the concrete sense of political controls being diffused into the hands of trans-national elites, for instance by virtue of their market clout and the overriding imperatives of their economic framework. C.f. what googling the term gets:

Quote:

---

the severance of social, political, or cultural practices from their native places and populations.

---

This is exactly what I've been trying to refer to you over time, that leaving the EU ub favor of liberalization to all comers clearly - or if you don't agree with "clearly", then suggestively enough that you can't ignore the possibility - eliminates more popular control, or at least popularly-responsive control, than EU membership ever could in the medium-term.

As I said, Corbyn appears to believe otherwise, that Brexit is an opportunity to show that the capitalist system can be defied. Summary in a followup post. Pre-emptively I'll state that I think the UK is too small and weak to accomplish this, that the concert of explicit and implicit controls of the world economy, institutions, and state actors results in the rapid and premature electoral expulsion of a radical Labour government. Alternatively, Labour would have to install a socialist-in-name dictatorship and emulate the quasi-self sufficiency of Cuba, an outcome that can hardly be called inspiring (inspiration matters in setting an example to other countries' socialist movements) and one that cannot shield the UK in the long-term context of persistent international capitalism (every factor in the world, from political to technological to ecological, inciting the implosion of the country).

In a world of islands the UK would not be allowed to pretend to be an island, in other words. Maybe EU membership overall provides some sort of buffer, when you need every edge you can get.

Quote:

---

Everything is relative. A Singapore in europe doesn't have to be anything more than a nation that keeps public spending at 5% of GDP lower than the median for the EU, with regulation at a similar level of unobtrusiveness. Let's say 37.5% (versus 42.5%), and our existing penchant for non-socialised regulation of finance, energy, gm, etc.

---

What makes a Singapore from the spending-GDP ratio? It sounds like you're saying not a particular policy, but simply keeping overall spending below 40% of GDP will automatically reproduce some aspect of the Singapore model.

Quote:

---

So I don't really think this scenario applies. Afterall, it isn't like the rest of the anglosphere doesn't operate on exactly the same basis already.

---

What are you referring to?

Anyway, what exact features you envision for a Singapore model, whether these are desirable for most people, and if they are compatible with other narrow aspects of your preferred state (e.g. military interventionism) are a separate topic and beside the point. I'm more interested in why you assent to one kind of politics and not another, and what contradictions are present.

Quote:

---

Not social engineering, political engineering. A process that happens all the time everywhere, as governance must perforce respond to changing circumstances.

---

It strikes me as a kind of misuse of the term to, as I suppose you are doing, limit it to the continuous efforts of a central government. Why should private groups and discrete political events be excluded if they arrive at the same type of result? Which is not to say that there is a linear correlation between the aims of the engineers and the actual product, just the opposite. There are always unforeseen consequences. That's why I called it a gamble.

Quote:

---

To be specific: do you think my scenarios of the EU evolution are realistic? And what might you suggest in their stead?

---

I said I believe something like your Singapore - more broadly speaking, liberalized dissolution - is the default scenario for the UK, applicable in or out of the EU but with more rapid development outside. Some would call that "pessimism".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furunculus

Paul Mason has beaten you to it:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politic...ssels-sabotage

---

In that case, I'll just compare two angles. [My summaries are respectively ~500 and ~1500 words, read them]

Mason's article:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The EU is a German neoliberal vehicle that seeks to constrain social democracy in the UK to promote its business interests, so a kind of neo-mercantilism. Countries bound in the EU have to operate within certain parameters of state action to keep a "level playing field".

Quote:

---

[Modifying Lisbon treaty and capturing European parliament] have to be part of a self-preservation strategy.

---

Customs union or single market membership is OK as long as there are exemptions from EEA rules. Author prefers a Norway-plus model, but if it and its attendant regulatory autonomies are not possible, then customs-union-only has to be accepted [sounds a lot like Furunc].

However, the real threat is active ideological containment measures on the part of the EU ruling class, such as were undertaken in Greece in 2015. A binding agreement is necessary over potential future Labour government initiatives [isn't that putting cart before horse, does Labour have power in the first place to ensure such a thing?]. Also, civil service and private obstructionists against a Corbyn/radical Labour government would find it harder to justify themselves without appealing to EU intransigence or disapproval.

Pro-EU British liberals think of the EU as more social-democratic than neoliberal, but the Left should disagree (see Furunc's quote). EU promotes "privatisation, outsourcing and deregulation", which can go against national interests. Also, like individual nations, the EU is vulnerable to being captured by the far-right currents du jour, and the unelected Commission even more so.

Quote:

---

So Labour needs to do what European social democracy should have done years ago: go to war on the Lisbon Treaty inside the EU, co-ordinating with any social democratic, green and left party in Europe prepared to join in.

[...]

The immediate aims a new EU left alliance should not be a detailed programme or a new party. It should be a declaration in principle against three things: austerity, xenophobia and the erosion of democracy.

---

European Left alliance forms faction in European parliament and tries to capture Commission presidency.

Quote:

---

If the combined forces of progressive Europe could muster enough votes to win the spitzenkandidat election, the appointed boss of the Commission could then appoint a left-led commission. At this point we would find out exactly how much left politics the EU structures can bear.

---

[Those last are the most interesting bits in the article.]


************


Why the Left Should Embrace Brexit

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Quote:

---

othing better reflects the muddled thinking of the mainstream European left than its stance on Brexit. Each week seems to produce a new chapter for the Brexit scare story: withdrawing from the EU will be an economic disaster for the UK; tens of thousands of jobs will be lost; human rights will be eviscerated; the principles of fair trials, free speech, and decent labor standards will all be compromised. In short, Brexit will transform Britain into a dystopia, a failed state — or worse, an international pariah — cut off from the civilized world. Against this backdrop it’s easy to see why Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is often criticized for his unwillingness to adopt a pro-Remain agenda.

The Left’s anti-Brexit hysteria, however, is based on a mixture of bad economics, flawed understanding of the European Union, and lack of political imagination. Not only is there no reason to believe that Brexit would be an economic apocalypse; more importantly, abandoning the EU provides the British left — and the European left more generally — with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show that a radical break with neoliberalism, and with the institutions that support it, is possible.

---

Predictions and models of British economic malaise post-Brexit (specifically, post-Brexit vote) have all been wrong. The British economy is actually doing decently on common indicators, well above the negative scenarios. This serves both to demonstrate that Brexit per se won't be a disaster, and that the economists making these predictions have a fundamentally wrong set of premises, which produce fatally flawed models inconsistent with empirical data.

Quote:

---

As Larry Elliott, Guardian economics editor, wrote: “Brexit Armageddon was a terrifying vision — but it simply hasn’t happened.”

---

Quote:

---

The neoliberal biases built into these models include the assertion that markets are self-regulating and capable of delivering optimal outcomes so long as they are unhindered by government intervention; that “free trade” is unambiguously positive; that governments are financially constrained; that supply-side factors are much more important than demand-side ones; and that individuals base their decision on “rational expectations” about economic variables, among others. Many of the key assumptions used to construct these exercises bear no relation to reality.

---

Even British manufacturing is doing well, due to "benefits of the lower pound and improved world trade conditions."

EU membership has had fewer economic benefits than purported. With EEC and EU accession, the growth in GDP per capita fell below the 2.75%/year trend of the 50s and 60s. EU membership did not improve EU-15 measures of GDP-per-labour-hour or per-capita income relative to the United States. The single market and the common currency did not increase the proportion intra-EU or intra-Eurozone exports (it decreased intra-Eurozone). UK exports to EU and Eurozone as share of total UK exports have been falling since the recession.

Quote:

---

The much-vaunted establishment of the Single Market in 1992 didn’t change things — neither for the UK nor for the EU as a whole. Even when we limit ourselves to evaluating the success of the Single Market on the basis of mainstream economic parameters — productivity and GDP per capita — there is very little to suggest that it has lived up to its proponents’ promises or to official forecasts.

---

[Of course, this napkin-back analysis does nothing to indicate that EU/EEC membership was worse than the alternative of non-membership... The point about trade doesn't even address the context of changing trade patterns outside Europe, as though the only way the EU could be successful is if members did all their trade between each other. Maybe EU membership enables diversification of exports outside Europe. And this author doesn't explore the possibility that international trade is not the only measure of human success. Anyway...]

Quote:

---

As the Cambridge researchers note, this suggests “a negligible advantage to the UK of being a member of the EU.” Moreover, it shows that Britain has been diversifying its exports for quite some time and is much less reliant on the EU today than it was twenty or thirty years ago. A further observation drawn from the IMF Directions of Trade database is that while global exports have grown fivefold since 1991 and advanced economies exports have grown by 3.91 times, EU and EMU exports have only grown by 3.7 and 3.4 times respectively.

These results are consistent with other studies that show that tariff liberalization in itself does not promote growth or even trade. In fact, the opposite is often true: as Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang has shown, all of today’s rich countries developed their economies through protectionist measures. This casts serious doubts over the widespread claim that leaving the Single Market would necessarily mean “lower productivity and lower living standards.” It also exposes as utterly “implausible,” in the words of the Cambridge researchers, the Treasury’s claim that Britain has experienced a 76 percent increase in trade due to EU membership, which could be reversed upon leaving the EU. The Cambridge economists conclude that average tariffs are already so low for non-EU nations seeking to trade within the EU that even in the case of a “hard Brexit” trade losses are likely to be limited and temporary.

---

[The supersized text is kind of true. Alexander Hamilton is probably one of the top-five most influential economists in history.]

Quote:

---

Furthermore, it is often forgotten in the debate over Brexit that the Single Market is about much more than just trade liberalization. A crucial tenet of the Single Market was the deregulation of financial markets and the abolition of capital controls, not only among EU members but also between EU members and other countries. As we argue in our recent book, Reclaiming the State, this reflected the new consensus that set in, even among the Left, throughout the 1970s and 1980. This consensus held that economic and financial internationalization — what today we call “globalization” — had rendered the state increasingly powerless vis-à-vis “the forces of the market.” In this reading, countries therefore had little choice but to abandon national economic strategies and all the traditional instruments of intervention in the economy, and hope, at best, for transnational or supranational forms of economic governance.

This resulted in a gradual depoliticization of economic policy, which has been an essential element of the neoliberal project, aimed at insulating macroeconomic policies from popular contestation and removing any obstacles put in the way of capital flows.

---

The EU-as-neoliberal-institution.

Quote:

---

In this sense, it is impossible to separate the Single Market from all the other negative aspects of the European Union. The EU is structurally neoliberal, undemocratic, and neocolonial in nature. It is politically dominated by its largest member and the policies it has driven have had disastrous social and economic effects.

---

The Left has a hard time abandoning its affection for the EU because it has internalized wrong ideas about trade and prosperity, the importance of public deficits and debts, the possibility of reform, @Husar and that countries can't survive with pooling their sovereignty in supranational institutions.

Even a hard Brexit is likely to have minimal effects on British economy, and most of Britain's worsening problems are related not to Brexit but

Quote:

---

to the extent that the UK continues to face serious economic problems — suppressed domestic demand, ballooning private debt, decaying infrastructure, and deindustrialization — these have nothing to do with Brexit, but are instead the result of the neoliberal economic policies pursued by successive British governments in recent decades, including the current Conservative government.

---

The UK needs more democracy.

Quote:

---

While it may be true that in some areas previous right-wing British governments have been positively constrained by the EU in their push for all-out deregulation and marketization, the notion that the British people are incapable of defending their rights in the absence of some form of “external constraint” is patronizing and reactionary.

[...]

As John Weeks, professor emeritus at the University of London, writes: “The painful truth is that the vast majority of British households will be better off out of the European Union with a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn than in the European Union under the yoke of a Conservative government led by anyone.”

---

The author writes concordantly with the Mason article's argument:

Quote:

---

This leads to an obvious conclusion: that for a Corbyn-led Labour government, not being a member of the European Union “solves more problems than it creates,” as Weeks notes. He is referring to the fact that many aspects of Corbyn’s manifesto — such as the renationalization of mail, rail, and energy firms and developmental support to specific companies — or other policies that a future Labour government may decide to implement, such as the adoption of capital controls, would be hard to implement under EU law and would almost certainly be challenged by the European Commission and European Court of Justice. After all, the EU was created with the precise intention of permanently outlawing such “radical” policies.

That is why Corbyn must resist the pressure from all quarters — first and foremost within his own party — to back a “soft Brexit.” He must instead find a way of weaving a radically progressive and emancipatory Brexit narrative. A once-in-a-lifetime window of opportunity has opened for the British left — and the European left more in general — to show that a radical break with neoliberalism, and with the institutions that support it, is possible. But it won’t stay open forever.

---

************


At this time there is no more use in trying to litigate these perspectives from the position of staying in the EU - Brexit is a fact of life - so I guess the more interesting tack is to figure out what exactly it means for the Labour party and its strategy going forward.

I see the Corbynite strand is to assert that the neoliberal order is not indispensable even in the short-term, rewriting the multilateral rules is necessary so that it doesn't become entirely a tool of Russia/China on one hand or big business on the other, the UK has the power and wherewithal to embark on an intense round of state capitalism paving the way for socialist transformation, and that proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Bold.

@Pannonian

You've consistently been resentful of the current Labour party's risk-taking wrt government and Brexit; perhaps there is no better option left? He who dares, wins?

Hey, maybe my belief that only America can model socialism to the world is jingoist fantasy, and any reasonably-big country can do it.

Well, I'm skeptical about a lot of the economic points on the usefulness of the EU - how bad is the EU in the context of late-20th c. neoliberal trends compared to a scenario without the EU, each country racing to its bottom? - and the immediate costs of taking on the world order (some foolish people, like Goebbels-puke Julian Assange literally believe that you have to bring the US down and let Russia and China do whatever they want with the pieces in order to have room to maneuver)...

But I think that MIGHT makes 'the ability to do right', so even our current market system would be forced to respond to a state producing results with socialist policies.

Everything would ride on a Corbyn experiment not crashing and burning, when many would be working at its neutralization.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

@Pannonian

You've consistently been resentful of the current Labour party's risk-taking wrt government and Brexit; perhaps there is no better option left? He who dares, wins?

---

The Loyal Opposition is supposed to challenge the government on their promises to the electorate. The Labour party has done nothing of the sort. The Loyal Opposition is allowing the government to do whatever it likes and present it as the will of the people. What's the point of an Opposition, including a leader who draws an additional salary to the comfortable figure he already commands as an MP, if they do not oppose? The Lords has been more of a Loyal Opposition than the Labour party.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pannonian

The Loyal Opposition is supposed to challenge the government on their promises to the electorate. The Labour party has done nothing of the sort. The Loyal Opposition is allowing the government to do whatever it likes and present it as the will of the people. What's the point of an Opposition, including a leader who draws an additional salary to the comfortable figure he already commands as an MP, if they do not oppose? The Lords has been more of a Loyal Opposition than the Labour party.

---

If that's the case, what next besides fretting about it? What is the Labour Party doing elsewhere in government (vis-a-vis Conservative policy)? What would you want them to do in the near-future that they aren't?

And to the extent that a Party offers its own coherent set of promises, would that count towards challenging the government/opposition's conduct?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Montmorency

If that's the case, what next besides fretting about it? What is the Labour Party doing elsewhere in government (vis-a-vis Conservative policy)? What would you want them to do in the near-future that they aren't?

And to the extent that a Party offers its own coherent set of promises, would that count towards challenging the government/opposition's conduct?

---

I think that Pan' is referring to the traditions of English politics. While the 'loyal opposition' is supposed to have a shadow government ready to step forward with their policies if a vote of no confidence shifts the governing party from office (the political alternative function you allude to), traditionally that loyal opposition party has been much more 'pushy' during questions etc. so as to force the government to clarify policy and their reasons for taking certain actions so that voters might be better informed. The opposition is supposed to ask the tough questions that put the government on the spot and not go along to get along save where the national interest is so clear that more or less all parties agree on a particular policy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

I think that Pan' is referring to the traditions of English politics. While the 'loyal opposition' is supposed to have a shadow government ready to step forward with their policies if a vote of no confidence shifts the governing party from office (the political alternative function you allude to), traditionally that loyal opposition party has been much more 'pushy' during questions etc. so as to force the government to clarify policy and their reasons for taking certain actions so that voters might be better informed. The opposition is supposed to ask the tough questions that put the government on the spot and not go along to get along save where the national interest is so clear that more or less all parties agree on a particular policy.

---

Leave promised the Norway option, which has been ruled out. Leave promised to give the NHS 350 million per week, a promise that was backtracked on the morning of the referendum result. That's 2 promises that immediately come to mind, which have been clearly broken. Yet the Loyal Opposition does not press the government on this.

https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incomin...-531350218.jpg

Why is he still in a job?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

I think that Pan' is referring to the traditions of English politics. While the 'loyal opposition' is supposed to have a shadow government ready to step forward with their policies if a vote of no confidence shifts the governing party from office (the political alternative function you allude to), traditionally that loyal opposition party has been much more 'pushy' during questions etc. so as to force the government to clarify policy and their reasons for taking certain actions so that voters might be better informed. The opposition is supposed to ask the tough questions that put the government on the spot and not go along to get along save where the national interest is so clear that more or less all parties agree on a particular policy.

---

Yes, at least I would certainly agree:

It is not tory/labour domindation of the institutions that makes the british political system so effective.
Not too is it the winner takes all nature of an adversarial electoral system to the commons.
It isn't the great reserve of wisdom in the Lords and its dogged pursuit of the role of a revising chamber.
It isn't even the great flexibility of an uncodified constitution.

No, it is the 'process' of parliament that is a function of all of the above.
That jostling of ideas, in an environment of sharp legal elbows and fractious political tempers.
This process has a tendency to rub off the sharp corners of ideas put before parliament, such the the resultant product better fits the wider polity.

Her majesty's loyal opposition have not been performing their essential role in 'jostling' the executive.
They seem more interested in their internal transformation project, with a pious hope that their ideological project will roll out the back of the scrum of a Tory government.

I have enormous confidence in the 'process' of the parliament, and thus the effectiveness of the british political system, but the engine doesn't always run smooth.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furunculus

Yes, at least I would certainly agree:

It is not tory/labour domindation of the institutions that makes the british political system so effective.
Not too is it the winner takes all nature of an adversarial electoral system to the commons.
It isn't the great reserve of wisdom in the Lords and its dogged pursuit of the role of a revising chamber.
It isn't even the great flexibility of an uncodified constitution.

No, it is the 'process' of parliament that is a function of all of the above.
That jostling of ideas, in an environment of sharp legal elbows and fractious political tempers.
This process has a tendency to rub off the sharp corners of ideas put before parliament, such the the resultant product better fits the wider polity.

Her majesty's loyal opposition have not been performing their essential role in 'jostling' the executive.
They seem more interested in their internal transformation project, with a pious hope that their ideological project will roll out the back of the scrum of a Tory government.

I have enormous confidence in the 'process' of the parliament, and thus the effectiveness of the british political system, but the engine doesn't always run smooth.

---

This "process" has led to the creation of an inefficient, zombie-like UK industry in the 1960s / 70s and the consequent hollowing out in the 1980s and 1990s. No decisions made on pension reform for decades - tackling final salaries for baby boomers was a problem that could be foreseen for the last 40 years or so. New Labour's massive PFI off the books debt; devolution but no review of the Barnett formula and so on and so on.

The UK might lurch along in spite of the many inefficiencies of the political system we have but again we either seem to have no long term strategy - either more of the same or diametrically opposite - caused by our dreadful first past the post system at all levels in England and with local representatives also being the national representative. It is almost designed to ensure politicians have long, stable careers more than react to what locals want... except with a massive shift when "the other lot" get complete power and begin working.

I agree that other parts of the system help in improving how this functions.

~:smoking:

I hate the inefficiencies of government....but sometimes I fear the idea of a truly efficient government even more. I always thought Herbert was onto something with BuSab.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

I hate the inefficiencies of government....but sometimes I fear the idea of a truly efficient government even more. I always thought Herbert was onto something with BuSab.

---

Well, how would you define government efficiency?

Where I come from, efficiency means same output with lower input or higher output with same input.
Translated to government that would mean same road quality with lower taxes or same taxes but better road quality.
The only ones who could possibly be against that are the contractors who build the road and would rather build bad roads for lots of government money to maximize their own profits/money-making-efficiency...