Hacker News Reader

Comment by jpcooper | Hacker News Reader

I don’t agree with your argument. Is there really any country in the EU which is not in it for the money and security of its citizens alone? What other motive would a country have to be in the EU, barring ostensibly moralistic arguments, which in themselves will be made with economic motives? Some people win from the recovery fund, and some people don’t. The EU is not a dictatorship. If a country stands to lose, it should be able to make an attempt to have its case accepted. The UK’s hypothetical rejection is no different from a country’s complaint against this very rejection. Both are done with the same motive, and should be treated in an equally sober way.

Edit: I’ve tried to make a faithful argument. Please explain instead of downvoting.

View on HN

I personally think that alone European countries have zero chances to survive this century without becoming either American, Russian or Chinese puppets. Countries like the UK and France are still riding what's left of centuries of influence and prestige on world affairs, but the last 7 decades quite clearly show that single countries can't defend themselves and their democracies from foreign interests without cooperation. It's also quite clear to me that the European economy is so integrated that's almost ridiculous to think that every country could be free to do as it pleases, because if for instance Italy fails, then all of Europe fails.

That's why I think we need more integration; to me, the freedom and security of European citizens is synonymous with European cooperation and integration. Together, we've one of the biggest armies and economies of the world, and we stand a chance to mean something on the world stage. This doesn't mean that the current EU is necessarily the right way to achieve this; ironically, I think most of its issues arise from the fact it is not powerful enough, and single states have too much sway in how the union operates, similar to how the USA were when the first Articles of Confederation were written in the XVIII century.

I'm curious as to kind of integration you're referring to.

On paper, monetary union has prevented the economic integration from happening. The diverse economies of the EU are diverging; the north is reliant on export markets outside the EU, while the south is destined for decades of internal devaluation, even in a best-case scenario. Does this help social integration, or does it foster mass resentment rooted fundamentally in cultural differences being amplified?

Political integration may have been the suggestion, though the 2008 and 2020 crises have not seen an increased push for such a political union, so I think it is extremely unlikely. Yanis Varoufakis wrote about this here in 2014, in particular he gives his interpretation of why monetary union alone was doomed to fail: https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/08/29/why-is-europe-not-...

The integration is happening between regions, not between states, because with (even still imperfect) free movement of people, goods and capital national borders lose their meaning. Is northern Italy part of the north or of the south? Does rural Poland have more common with Warszava or with rural Czechia?

There seem to be fair economic arguments either way. I am undecided on Brexit either way. I haven’t researched it enough. My point is more abstract: A lot of people forget the underlying economic motives of all countries in their interactions with each other.

> What other motive would a country have to be in the EU, barring ostensibly moralistic arguments, which in themselves will be made with economic motives?

The original purpose of the European Coal and Steel Community was to neutralize the risk of repeating World War II by tying the major continental powers into a commercial union. The ostensible purpose was economic integration, but the ultimate purpose was geopolitical harmony.

In contrast Thatcher envisioned the EU as a purely commercial arrangement, designed to counterbalance the UK's loss of global economic relevance in the face of decolonization. The difference in vision was a major source of conflict between Thatcher and her continental counterparts. They only reached a compromise because Thatcher was concerned about a newly unified Germany having too much power without Britain in the union.

Thanks for the explanation. That puts a different spin on things. Geopolitical harmony as a defence against other external powers. I've focussed on the economy, but what I should have said is national interests.

National interests quickly expand to interests of your neighbors and the rest of the world unless your interest is strengthening/widening hierarchies and power differential even inside your own nation (in which case you need a system of manipulation of the masses)

Yes. Interests of one player may correlate positively with those of others.

There are three things.

First, being part of a larger whole may have material advantages that are not directly related to money or security. A good example is free travel between countries.

The second point is that people actually believe in their morals. That is not to say that all "moral" arguments are made in good faith - sometimes they are thinly veiled economic (or else) arguments. But people generally believe in their morals. If I - for instance - believe that people are endowed by their Creator of inalienable rights, I may favor institutions that support such rights, and the EU may be more effective at that that nation states. If I believe that all Europeans are brothers and should decide their fate together, I will favor a strong EU. I wager that the reasons most Americans believe that the US should not be split in different regions has very little to do with how much more or less money they would make if the US was to be divided. Don't quite recall Lincoln's speech on the GDP implications of the South secession. Morals matter.

Finally, not everything is zero sum. It is possible that everyone wins from the recovery fund, or that benefits for those that benefit are greater than the losses from those who lose.

I have found that free travel in the sense of going somewhere to live is done generally for economic purposes. I have done it and benefited from it myself multiple times. Some existing residents might complain about jobs going missing, others might invoke the benefits of diversity to the economy. Neither argument is right nor wrong, and all are based around personal perceptions of economics and national interest, with which economics correlate. National interest has multiple facets. One is the real ability of a country to exact influence over others, another is the wishes of its citizens and government.

I am not sure whether you are claiming that this exists, but having visited and lived in multiple places in the EU (including outside of the UK), I never felt that people had a sense of an EU-wide brotherhood. People are generally quite worried about that sort of thing for obvious reasons, and culture varies sufficiently over the EU to make such a thing difficult. When discussing the influence of people's morals over their arguments over national interests, you also have to consider the context of people's morals: which agents impose them (either explicitly or implicitly) and the motives behind their imposition. I don't mean to use the word "agent" in a necessarily negative tone. An agent could just be your mum. However, when you look at more powerful agents than your mum, such as the education system, Instafacetwit, newspapers and the law, people's morals start to gain a greener hue (in dollars).

Also I fully agree that a subset of players in the environment might all come out in the money.

There is a very common "going somewhere to live" in the EU that is not done for economic reasons, namely Erasmus where the motivation is a year of partying while ostensibly studying. Those Erasmus stints often turn into another move abroad for another non-economic reason: having met a partner from another EU member state while studying abroad.

Mobility in the EU from East to West may be done mainly for better job prospects, but there are definitely other reasons that people take advantage of free movement.

Yes, jumping university and country for a year to get paid by the EU for boozing and schmoozing has a definite draw for a lot of Europeans. Why shouldn't it? Foreigners are also at an advantage when it comes to finding a not necessarily long-term partner. I am slightly bitter about it though. I moved into a flat as a non-Erasmus person that later turned out to be the local Erasmus party destination during a period when I was much less into partying and more into studying. No partners were found from that pool.

I do remember having a lot of political discussions with them, though.

I never felt that people had a sense of an EU-wide brotherhood.

This is totally a thing. People identify as all kinds of things, and many people identify as Europeans. Hard to put a number on a feeling of identity, though, and hard to tell if it's increasing or decreasing.

I agree that it's hard to measure. The word "brotherhood" has certain connotations for me. The first result on Google for "European Brotherhood" confirmed my feelings, but maybe doesn't speak for the majority.

Well, you chose the word. I understood you to mean people having a common identity as a European, in addition to their many other identities (dad, poet, Belgian, whatever). Which I would say is a common thing.

If you were referring to membership of the neo nazi organisation/web shop European Brotherhood, which is a thing that apparently exists, I don't think you need to worry about pan-European-nationalism becoming a mass phenomenon (as opposed to separatist nationalism, which is and has always been a mass phenomenon).

I was referring to "If I believe that all Europeans are brothers" in the parent comment. I have not experienced that sentiment. I certainly never experienced pan-European nationalism until I came across that website.

I identified as a European, that has been taken away from me.

The immigration/refugee deal the EU made with Turkey made quite clear that morals don't matter as much as economy.

> Is there really any country in the EU which is not in it for the money and security of its citizens alone?

Those are two quite separate concerns. Much of mainland Europe, France and Germany especially, want to build the institutions and integration that will prevent another war, even if it costs them economically. Simple geography means that's always been less of a concern for the UK.

Fair enough. If that is the case, both sides win. I took issue with the claim that the UK was just in it for the money, without mentioning that everyone is. How could it be any different? This argument has been a common theme I’ve noticed in Brexit debates from people across the EU.

What makes you think everyone is in it just for the money?

The EU started as a peace project, and I think it makes most sense to regard it as fundamentally that, even now. It is an implementation device for peaceful cooperation with your neighbours. It's an endless series of contracts and treaties that provide benefits from good neighbourship.

If you accept that view, the EU's view of Northern Ireland in the Brexit negotiations becomes obvious. It's not about solidarity with the member country Eire, it's about keeping the peace (which the Irish also want, yes).

Money is possibly too narrow a term. I should have said national interests instead. In our current system, however, national interests also seem to strongly correlate with money and thus economic power. Each of the participants in the EU project had national interests in mind.

I have a feeling that if you try to define what you mean by national interest, you'll get a circular definition. What does France want? To further its national interest. What is its national interest? It is what France wants. Uh.

That loop leads to no insight. Perhaps thinking along those lines is frustrating and the frustration makes you blame the current system, but blaming also won't help with insight or understanding.

These two concepts are part of a wider network. The measures of those concepts alone closely correlate. It is difficult to think about one without thinking about the other.

I am not blaming the system as a whole. It just is. I was more taking issue with (reacting against) and questioning the motives and sources of people's reaction to the system and its big players. I was trying to show that these motives and sources are similar to those of both the big players which they are reacting to (UK), and also those which they leave out (continental EU, Greece).

Some motives may be moral, but it should not be forgotten that these motives correlate with the interests of a wider group. For many people alone, being immoral correlates directly with negative personal interest.

This is not to forget that people's reactions interact with the wider system bidirectionally.

Money plays a big role but things like single market, Schengen area, unified standards/rules are a convenience for me as a EU citizen. I didn't shop often some specialized UK shops but now it is going to be more painful because of customs etc.

Again, someone has possibly lost economically. That problem can compound. That’s fine. Simply allow everyone to have their say without moralising too much.

Edit: without forgetting the underlying economic motives of all parties, in which moral arguments do play a part due to their ability to influence actions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com