Comment by nephihaha

Comment by nephihaha a day ago

22 replies

View on Hacker News

Well, this is the idea at the heart of it which has been pushed for many decades in some form or another. The EU/EEC etc started like the Zollverein which helped Germany unite.

Personally I wish the EU had modelled itself more around Switzerland than the USA which is fast turning into its primary model.

(By the way, some far rightists have pushed a united Europe for some time. The two ideas are not necessarily contradictory. Oswald Mosley was such a person.)

saubeidl a day ago

Personally, I think the SFRJ would be a nicer model - but I'll take what I can get at this point.

Reply View 16 replies
  • derelicta a day ago

    I don't think central planning will be genuinely practiced any time soon in Europe unfortunately...

    Reply View 11 replies
    • jack_tripper a day ago

      Everyone wants central planning until the appointed central planners do something that disadvantages them specifically. Then they suddenly remember they want national sovereignty to protect their interests from the central planners.

      That's how you have massive pro an anti EU splits in the same country. Because central planning tends to produce massive economic gaps between the winners and losers of the planning policies.

      Reply View 10 replies
      • derelicta a day ago

        That's a problem a much bigger country like China doesn't really face surprisingly, despite having central planners, and despite having plenty of different nationalities! Maybe Euros could learn a bit from them and democratic centralism too

        Reply View 9 replies
  • igilism a day ago

    [flagged]

    Reply View 3 replies
    • saubeidl a day ago

      Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

      Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

      When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

      https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

      Reply View 2 replies
jack_tripper a day ago

>Personally I wish the EU had modelled itself more around Switzerland than the USA which is fast turning into its primary model.

The EU has not modeled itself around the USA, what are you on about?

>(By the way, some far rightists have pushed a united Europe for some time. The two ideas are not necessarily contradictory. Oswald Mosley was such a person.)

Had no idea who Oswald Mosley even was, but looking him up, he's been dead for 30+ years now. It's disingenuous to paint such long deceased people as still representative for their original cause today.

People change, organisations change and countries change over the decades. What was a democratic/left-wing point 30 years ago (strict immigration controls) is now considered far right extremism.

The EU, in its form back then from 30 years ago is different than the EU beast of today which swallowed the previously separate EU, EEC and EC post 2009. The US of 30 years ago is different than the US of today because society has changed a lot since then both demographically and economically.

You can't dig up people from 70 years ago as representative for the same ideologies because both the ideologies and the people are different now. That's like driving forward while only looking in the rearview mirror.

Right wing people have and will be Eurosceptics (Euro here meaning the EU org in Brussels, not Europe the continent) since they don't want to be led by a foreign org that's not directly accountable to them.

Reply View 4 replies
  • coldtea a day ago

    >The EU has not modeled itself around the USA, what are you on about?

    He explicitly said what they mean: "which is fast turning into its primary model".

    What it WAS (emphasis in past tense) modeled itself around is not the point here.

    Reply View 0 replies
  • nephihaha a day ago

    I think you missed my point. The idea is not new at all. Winston Churchill supported the idea of a United States of Europe, and so did certain figures way back in the EEC days. If an idea is promoted over the course of decades, of course some kids will promote it later.

    I heard ideas being promoted in the early to mid nineties that are only coming about now. In fact the 1980s, "Star Trek the Next Generation" does that in several instances (such as AI assistants and tracking everyone's location electronically.)

    "Had no idea who Oswald Mosley even was, but looking him up, he's been dead for 30+ years now."

    Erm, that was my point. It's not a new idea and has long been promoted across the political spectrum including the far right.

    "The EU, in its form back then from 30 years ago is different than the EU beast of today which swallowed the previously separate EU, EEC and EC post 2009. The US of 30 years ago is different than the US of today because society has changed a lot since then both demographically and economically."

    I see it largely developing to plan. It started as a kind of customs union in Benelux and has been on that road ever since.

    The absorption of the Iron Curtain countries has been its biggest challenge, and if it expands outside Europe that won't be some great shock either. There has been talk of adding Turkey and even Morocco to the EU for decades.

    "You can't dig up people from 70 years ago as representative for the same ideologies because both the ideologies and the people are different now. That's like driving forward while only looking in the rearview mirror."

    Yes, you can. It's historical progression. There was a roadmap for EU development that was being discussed as far back as the seventies and even the fifties.

    "Right wing people have and will be Eurosceptics (Euro here meaning the EU org in Brussels, not Europe the continent) since they don't want to be led by a foreign org that's not directly accountable to them."

    That isn't true. Plenty of right wing people have been Europhiles, even the far right.

    On the flipside, there have also been plenty of left and far left Eurosceptics. Left wing Brexiteers in the UK are/were a thing. They called their movement "Lexit" but have been mostly written out of accounts, which tend to focus more on Farage and the right wing ones. Their arguments are not usually based around migration, but local democracy and also their notion that the EU was capitalist and neoliberal, and revolved around trade and money.

    Reply View 2 replies
    • jack_tripper a day ago

      >It's not a new idea and has long been promoted across the political spectrum including the far right.

      Did those far right people wish for the current version of the EU, or the 1970's ideal of the EU?

      Because without accounting for the massive societal changes since then, it's disingenuous to say those people were having the same ideas of today back then.

      Pretty sure back then the far right's ideal of the EU was one when you could leave your bike unlocked without it getting stolen, christmas markets didn't need to have anti-terrorist attack barriers, and Sweden and Germany didn't top the charts of sexual assaults per capita.

      >That isn't true. Plenty of right wing people have been Europhiles, even the far right.

      Like who? Give me someone living and active today.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • nephihaha 17 hours ago

        Obviously they have a different notion of what a united Europe would be like, but yes, there are people on the far right who want a united Europe and people on the left who don't. Neither of these are anything new and are ongoing.

        Far right MEPs in the European Parliament have their own grouping... There are enough to do so.

        Reply View 0 replies