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Politics

La trampa de la complacencia de Europa

Apr 8, 2021 Brigitte Granville

LONDRES – El COVID-19 ha lastimado a casi todos los países desarrollados, pero la verdad es que los estándares de vida en muchos de ellos se venían estancando o estaban en caída desde hacía años. Muchas métricas resaltan esta tendencia, pero quizá las más reveladoras sean las que ofrece la OCDE, que informa una caída del 4% en el patrimonio neto mediano de los hogares en sus países miembro desde 2010.

No sorprende que las economías avanzadas hayan experimentado explosiones periódicas de ira en los últimos años –desde la elección de Donald Trump y el referendo del Brexit en 2016 hasta las posteriores protestas de los gilets jaunes (“chalecos amarillos”) en Francia y una elección en Italia que llevó al poder a dos partidos anti-establishment. A pesar de estas revueltas, las predicciones de un colapso democrático no se han concretado. Por el contrario, el establishment se ha restablecido.

Cuando una población furiosa coloca a aventuristas políticos en el poder, es sólo una cuestión de tiempo para que salga a la luz que no tienen soluciones reales para los problemas de la gente. Por lo tanto, no deberíamos interpretar demasiado las fallas de la gobernanza “populista”. Históricamente, los populistas han tendido a ser más efectivos desde afuera, donde pueden ayudar a enfocar la mente de los políticos convencionales en cuestiones que preferirían evitar.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 6 Comments on this article

Jonathan Engel Apr 13, 2021

One suspects that the EU was from its inception "a bridge too far". It seems to have amply demonstrated this during the Covid crisis. Whatever the mode of delegation which ended up in the Commission having overall power (and responsibility) over vaccine purchasing and distribution, the result have been eloquent. Today the UK is opening it's pubs and shops, and happy smiling faces are all over our screens. At the same time France is reporting death rates 10x those of the Brexit handicapped neighbour, and vaccination rates at 20% of those across the channel.

Even the most EU committed politicians can smell the carbonised credibility of Brussels, and will never again put their professional survival into the hands of the tax and responsibility free fellows from the Capital of Europe, and that is how it should be.
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Michael Public Apr 9, 2021

The author dismisses all political change from outside the ruling class (populism) as irrelevant on the grounds a new ruling class always emerges after a populist movement takes power. The reality is more nuanced - as the new ruling class typically is far more 'for the people', at least for some years or even decades, before they devolve into a rent seeking class 'just for themselves' , prompting another populist movement. The real question is how we can break this clearly inefficient cycle. I have some ideas but they all hinge on there being a relatively high consciousness of the problem among the population - meaning for now, they remain impractical.
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Stephen Morris Apr 9, 2021

It might be a good start to ban the practice of using "Democracy" to refer to Elective Government. As Nobel Laureate James Buchanan pointed out, Elective Government tends to "adversely select" the most narcissistic, machiavellian and megalomaniacal political agents:

“[S]uppose that a monopoly right is to be auctioned; whom will we predict to be the highest bidder? Surely we can presume that the person who intends to exploit the monopoly power most fully, the one for whom the expected profit is highest, will be among the highest bidders for the franchise. In the same way, positions of political power will tend to attract those persons who place higher values on the possession of such power. These persons will tend to be the highest bidders in the allocation of political offices. . . . Is there any presumption that political rent seeking will ultimately allocate offices to the ‘best’ persons? Is there not the overwhelming presumption that offices will be secured by those who value power most highly and who seek to use such power of discretion in the furtherance of their personal projects, be these moral or otherwise? Genuine public-interest motivations may exist and may even be widespread, but are these motivations sufficiently passionate to stimulate people to fight for political office, to compete with those whose passions include the desire to wield power over others?” (James Buchanan and Geoffrey Brennan, “The Reason of Rules”.)

Unfortunately for the EU, genuine Democracy (any system of government chosen by those being governed using a non-privileging aggregation device) tends to oppose the centralisation of power. Centralised governments typically form by seeking democratic consent for the surrender of very limited powers and then seizing ever more powers without democratic consent.

In the case of the EU this was vividly demonstrated by the centralising European Constitution which was not only NOT supported democratically but was positively OPPOSED democratically by voters in France and the Netherlands. It went ahead nevertheless, after further voting was banned.

Likewise, the centralisation of monetary policy was opposed in the only two countries (Denmark and Sweden) in which those being governed were given a chance to vote directly on that specific issue.

I might also mention the democratic Swiss's longstanding refusal to surrender their sovereignty.

The next stage of this process is the centralisation of power through the use of fiscal policy: blackmailing member states by applying conditions to the return of the taxes collected from their citizens.

Anyone who wants to see how this will play out might care to look at Australia following the centralisation of fiscal policy under the Uniform Tax Cases of 1942 and 1957.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australia_v_Commonwealth

Despite the Commonwealth having been granted only minimal powers under the formal constitution, and despite voters supporting only 2 of 32 referendums to further centralise power (Social Services in 1946 and the transfer of power over the "aboriginal people of any State) in 1967, the central government has in practice extended its remit to almost every area through the mechanism of fiscal blackmail. The States are vestigial, allowed to continuing exercising the powers they do only because they provide a convenient buffer to absorb blame when things go wrong as a result of the policies imposed from the centre.

In the EU this has begun with popular moves such as ensuring "rule of law", but it is only a matter of time before ambitious EU politicians realise the power they have created for themselves.

"Power is Centripetal". The reason is straightforward: collective action is more effective than individual action.

Those who can use their existing levers of power to (a) make credible promises of future reward for those cooperate (including personal rewards to individual politicians) and (b) make credible threats of future punishment for those who defect, will always be better placed to expand their powers against those who oppose them or seek to break away.

The enormous hurdles which had to be overcome by Britain in gaining its independence (both retribution from the EU using its collective power, and the work of Quislings within the state seeking to sabotage the democratic vote for reasons of self-interest) show just how difficult it is.

If a country like Britain - wealthy and with a proud history of independence - can only just manage to pull it off, what hope is there for any other would-be independence movements?

The EU will continue to centralise until it collapses under the weight of its own inefficiency.
- Michael Public Apr 9, 2021
  
  That tendency is far from certain. Joe Biden, just to pick an easy example, is not easily described with any of those thee words (unless you are Republican - then he obviously the devil himself running a pedo organization from a pizza restaurant).
  - Stephen Morris Apr 9, 2021
    
    I would point out that Joe Biden may appear different only by comparison with his immediate predecessor. Like most elected politicians who reach positions of significant power, he has spent most of his life fighting and manoeuvring to reach that position. And not all narcissists are caricature "agentic narcissists". Many, especially in politics, are "communal narcissists". Their grandiose sense of self-importance, pre-occupation with success and power, and sense of being "special" manifests themselves in the belief that they have better insight than anyone else into how to run an organisation, and greater ability than anyone else to run it.
    
    So-called "representative" government is necessarily UN-representative in the sense that it "adversely selects" (through the difficult and unpleasant business of politics) individuals who differ from the rest of society in the presence and intensity of these character traits.
    
    Some people might argue that that's a good thing. But that itself is a matter of preference which needs to be decided by an aggregation of preferences.
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Bernhard Kopp Apr 8, 2021

Complacency and institutional purgatory are inevitable as long as EU-27 politicians in Brussels and in many major capitals do not come to terms on exactly how to organize the EU-27 governance. There is no will, and certainly no historic base to see an EU-27-people ( demos ) that would want to organize a central state ( cratos ). Hence, a harmonized approach to issues of joint interest must be found in different ways, and not following the chimera that one must create a federal state and than everything will be better. Neither democratic representation, nor a rule of law, nor a distributive welfare state could legitimately be organized for EU-27. So, just stop it and find better ways to organize effectiveness in different ways. It would be quite possible. The lack of will, and the love affair with the Brussels gravy train, are the only obstacle.
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La trampa de la complacencia de Europa

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