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Comment by wbl | Hacker News Reader

I live in California. If I want to move to NJ, I just pack my bags and go. That's freedom of movement. If I want to sell something to New Hampshire, I just do it. Why shouldn't France and Germany be the same way?

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Okay, so you can move from California to NJ. Great. But you can't have single payer healthcare in either place because Florida and Texas don't want it. California and NJ can't have effective gun control or close their borders to guns because of Virgnia and Tennessee. Or, we go back a few years: you get DOMA in California and New York because that's what Alabama and Louisiana want.

Integration is not without costs.

There are many advantages to having the government closer to the people. Having a smaller sect of the world population means officials are more likely to listen to the populace.

Very similar reasons why (many) people like working for small businesses and start-ups vs. multinational corporations...they know their boss and their boss's boss. When upper management makes a decision they actually have to speak with all the people it effects, which tends to make them empathize and make more employee-centric decisions.

We're talking about freedom of movement between countries. A state is not a country. Why shouldn't all countries be like states? We can all hum John Lennon's Imagine there's no countries but I'm not sure how that actually works. I'm sure you can at least see some difficulty there and definitely there is a strong sentiment in parts of the US against this vision.

Why shouldn't Canada and the USA be the same? Why shouldn't Mexico, and Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and Brazil, and the USA, and Canada be the same?

If you want to move to Montreal or Mexico City or Beijing you can't just pack your bags and go. You can still sell something to all these places, manufacture them in all these places, etc. At least generally speaking.

You might ask some people in the American South about their views on States' Rights.

NY makes more money (and collects more taxes) than e.g. Alabama. So NY finances Alabama. In the EU, Germany implements capital controls in Greece.

That's the difference. US is a monetary and fiscal union that has free movement of labor and capital. The EU cannot only be the latter.

How many times have California and NJ fought wars agaist each other?

Has California ever invaded NJ?

Do California and NJ even speak the same language?

Hmm...it's not thst easy as packing your bags and moving

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