Friday 3 June 2005

European dis-union

The European Constitution had to fail says Robert Tracinscki here, pointing out the irony that Dutch and French voters had opposite motives but the same effect. The Dutch in the main opposed the growth of bureaucracy; some French 'Non' voters were opposed to what they thought was a free-market Europe. Barring resurrection (never something you would put past the Eurocrats) the result is a dead constitution. Good. It was a mess, "a jumble of pieties, giving canonical status to sentiments such as [that] 'the physical and moral integrity of sportsmen and sportswomen' should be protected."

The problem with the European constitution is certainly not that it goes too far toward implementing free-market capitalism. Quite the opposite: it consists of the establishment of a giant, all-powerful, unaccountable bureaucracy.

"Part of the problem," concludes Tracinski, "is that Europe cannot unify because it does not know whether it wants to be capitalist or socialist." That's been the problem with the European project from day one, hasn't it. "The Europeans will not discover a way to unite Europe until they discover and embrace the benefits of capitalism. And that is why the European constitution had to fail." Read the entire piece here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You need libertarians to 'unite' Europe - not capitalists. At least Tracinski has a clue. I had a fight with someone on Binswanger's list some time ago about this. The majority opined the euro was good for the spread of objectivism, which enraged me...