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#15053143
The left have created a pathetic fantasy world. In this world. In this fantasy the world's population could all have the living standard of a middling Middle class professional of the USA or Western Europe, if it wasn't for some evil capitalists / imperialists / white supremacists. In the real world western workers earn more precisely because western employers are restricted to employing western workers. Not completely obviously, much production has moved to developing countries, but still the reality is much business just can't or simply doesn't want to just up and move to India to employ cheaper workers.

Western workers relative prosperity relies on the exclusion of workers from poorer countries. Although myth greatly exaggerates the prosperity of American workers during the so called American Golden Age of 1948 to 1973. In relative terms American prosperity was at its height in this period and it depended not only on labour immobility, but also capital immobility. The prosperity of the mass of a country's population at its crudest relies depends on two variables, the average level of productivity and the supply / demand balance of Labour to Capital.

American workers in this Golden Age had a vast amount of captive capital. Both Capital and Labour were relatively immobile. Globalisation has allowed the Capital to move to the (cheap) Labour and the (cheap) Labour to move to the Capital. What the left won't admit is that Globalisation has been an enormous, enormous benefit to non White people. Non White people have benefited enormously from globalisation both by being able to leave their shit hole (to use the technical academic economic terminology) countries in unprecedented numbers and have the great opportunities of western countries. But also many under developed countries have been transformed, though access to western capital, western markets, western technology and western culture.
#15053161
Rugoz wrote:It's silly but there are some parallels.

The EU enforces a certain economic model (free markets) in its treaties. It's very difficult to leave the EU, close to impossible if you're part of the Eurozone. In the case you're outside the EU it's difficult to remain more or less independent.

See for example the effect of the EU's economic principles on non-member Norway:
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2018/11/norways-bad-deal


Okay, lets do Soviet Union vs EU 101:

1) How do you join the EU? First of all, you need to have a will to join. Second of all, you need to fullfil a certain cryteria. Lastly, you need to conduct a referendum for the people in your country to agree to join. Only happens after the previous steps are fullfilled. How you join the Soviet Union? Well, you get forced in by the force of arms and your reform is forced on you whenever you like it or not. Basically if you disagree then you end up in the Gulag or a mental assylum. Hard to say which is worse.

2) How do you leave the EU? You can do a vote like the UK did. After that you need to figure out yourself what arrangement you want to have with the EU and negotiate with the EU. It is not the EUs problem that you find the downsides of leaving too harsh. I mean you joined for those upsides in the first place among other things so it will obviously painful to loose them. How do you leave the Soviet Union? You basically can't. Any talk about leaving the Union will land you straight in the sights of KGB and the firing squad. You want to leave in mass? Well tough luck when the tanks start rolling in.

3) How do you reform the EU? You conduct a debate and votes among leaders and people. After the debates are done, it will be put to a vote. If the vote is negative then further debate will occur and modifications will be made. Pre-requisite of this is will of some sort from leaders of many EU countries basically. If some country doesn't like it then it can keep vetoing it forever. Be it to make the union looser or closer. How do you reform the Soviet Union? Well you don't because it is not something that the people decide. Any talk of reform will be shut down and do not even think of media/press helping you with this. You go straight to jail for anti-soviet activity.

4) Economic model of the EU. Varies greatly from country to country. From heavy libertarian approaches to social democratic approaches. All in the modern liberal framework. Economic model of the USSR: Heavy top to bottom command economy approach. There is no difference between the models in different Soviet Republics. Even when independent Eastern European countries tried to experiment then guess what happened? TANKS ROLL IN.

5) Social/cultural approaches in the EU: Decided by debate and votes. Differences exist between regions and usually full autonomy is given in such questions. Regions live in a framework of cultural, religious and social independence between each other. USSR social/cultural approach: Comformity to the communist ideal. Most cultural and social deviations are fully suppressed and can lend you straight in the Gulag. God forbid you start talking about Nationalism of your x culture or social group. In general you are culturally supressed and your local culture is replaced by the communist ideal. Religion is oppressed. The only similarity is that EU policies in this regard try to be international. But they were used in a different manner. What I mean by this is that USSRs goal was to invite people to the USSR, educate them and then send the back to their previous country to spread communism. For EU it is more like we are accepting of individuals outside of the EU and you can stay or go depending on what you want to do. Then again, the USSR has not always been internationalist and at times also wrapped itself in its own bubble.

You can write 100 points more on this.... And then somebody will come out saying but EU = USSR = 3rd Reich.... Cool story. Only under severe ignorance or propaganda can you think that.
#15053168
Rich wrote:
The left have created a pathetic fantasy world. In this world. In this fantasy the world's population could all have the living standard of a middling Middle class professional of the USA or Western Europe, if it wasn't for some evil capitalists / imperialists / white supremacists. In the real world western workers earn more precisely because western employers are restricted to employing western workers. Not completely obviously, much production has moved to developing countries, but still the reality is much business just can't or simply doesn't want to just up and move to India to employ cheaper workers.

Western workers relative prosperity relies on the exclusion of workers from poorer countries. Although myth greatly exaggerates the prosperity of American workers during the so called American Golden Age of 1948 to 1973. In relative terms American prosperity was at its height in this period and it depended not only on labour immobility, but also capital immobility. The prosperity of the mass of a country's population at its crudest relies depends on two variables, the average level of productivity and the supply / demand balance of Labour to Capital.

American workers in this Golden Age had a vast amount of captive capital. Both Capital and Labour were relatively immobile. Globalisation has allowed the Capital to move to the (cheap) Labour and the (cheap) Labour to move to the Capital. What the left won't admit is that Globalisation has been an enormous, enormous benefit to non White people. Non White people have benefited enormously from globalisation both by being able to leave their shit hole (to use the technical academic economic terminology) countries in unprecedented numbers and have the great opportunities of western countries. But also many under developed countries have been transformed, though access to western capital, western markets, western technology and western culture.



Umm, no.

About a century ago, we were the high skill/cheap labor pool. We stole jobs from the top dog, the British empire.

Your fantasy about the "left" is, well, a fantasy.

After WW2, we wanted to avoid ww3 by using trade to bring countries closer together. So unless you consider guys like Ike to be Lefty...

Later we traded market share for hegemony. Lefty types like Nixon did a lot of that.

Still later, the rich were able to influence the government to enable rent seeking.
#15053182
Rich wrote:In the real world western workers earn more precisely because western employers are restricted to employing western workers.


In the real economy, the relatively high living standards of Western workers is due to a high level of technological innovation. You can earn higher wages by selling BMWs, Airbus airplanes or proprietary drugs than by selling coconuts or generic drugs. Even when high-tech manufacturers off-shore some of their production, it's usually low-wage assembly jobs, and the like, and not high-value key components. For example, even though the US is no low-wage country, Volkswagen employees in Germany earn about 3 times more than Volkswagen employees in the US.

You may not understand this because the UK and the US are exceptions to this in that many of your manufacturers have off-shored their entire production together with their product development. This is related to imperial-type economies, which today thrive by financial services.

@late, I'm interest in real world economies, politics and climate change, not in your thought experiments that have no relation in the real world.

@JohnRawls, it's called projection. The imperialists can only view the world in terms of imperial policies. That's why they project their imperialist mindset onto the EU. In their eyes, peaceful coexistence in the EU is impossible because the big animals always want to swallow the small animals. That is a very ideological view of life. In real nature, different animals, big and small, coexistent to form mutually beneficial environments. The problem is imperialism. It is inherently destructive and as sustainable as a flue epidemic.

If you consider that the EU is today's reincarnation of the HRE, it has existed for about 1,200 years. Much longer than most empires.
#15053190
Atlantis wrote:
@late, I'm interest in real world economies, politics and climate change, not in your thought experiments that have no relation in the real world.



Yet.
#15053326
JohnRawls wrote:Actually in every EU country there was a choice. Its a myth that there wasn't :roll:

People saying the EU is a recreation of the Soviet Union make me laugh. That just shows that those people absolutely have no clue what the Soviet Union was, how it was created and how it functioned.

I don't know how the UK perception is so flawed and biased on this. It is not just stupid, its ignorance of the highest order in my opinion. But yes, as Carl Jung said "Thinking is hard that is why most people judge"


John, tell me what choice the British people were given on joining the EU...
#15053391
Red Rackham wrote:John, tell me what choice the British people were given on joining the EU...


1975 referendum? After that you could have vetoed anything you wanted or took deeper part in the discussions that were ongoing. The fact is that you didn't.
#15055225
JohnRawls wrote:1975 referendum? After that you could have vetoed anything you wanted or took deeper part in the discussions that were ongoing. The fact is that you didn't.


John, this is a mistake remainiacs make all the time. The 1975 referendum was nothing to do with the EU, and it didn't ask if we wanted to 'join' anything. The 1975 referendum asked us if wanted to 'remain' in the EEC or Common Market, which incidentally we were taken into without the consent of the electorate a couple of years earlier. However, we voted to remain in the Common Market, largely because as government documents released in...2005 I think, showed that in 1975 the government lied through their teeth to ensure a yes vote. Indeed, treason laws were amended to prevent pro EU politicians being prosecuted.

From 1975 to 1992, and with no ones consent the Common Market quietly morphed from a benign trade organisation into a very centralised and very political union complete with flag, anthem, currency, bank, and unelected president. I mean come on, what's to moan about?...

In 1992 John 'The Bastard' Major signed Maastricht and in doing so handed the UK to the EU. He refused to allow a referendum because he knew damned well the people would say no. But it was inevitable that the people would eventually have their say. In 2016 we voted to leave the EU, pro EU politicians and parliament then spent more than three years trying to overturn the result of a democratic referendum. The recent general election was widely seen as a Brexit referendum, and the result was unoquivocal. We want out of the EU.
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