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Comment by rglullis | Hacker News Reader

> EU is all about fair markets.

If you really believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

The EU, just like any political entity that has grown beyond the original intended responsibilities, has become the stage for cronies and the elites to play their power games.

If the EU was really for "fair markets", Dieselgate alone would have been enough to wipe the German auto industry off the Earth. That is certainly something that has caused more environmental damage and stopped healthier market competition than a fucking power connector.

And don't even get me started on the subsidies given to French farmers and the market quotas for eastern countries that kill any chance for them to develop their industries.

But, hey, at least the EU is giving Apple fans another way to greenwash their consumer behavior, so that counts for something...

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"If the EU was really for "fair markets", Dieselgate alone"

Dieselgate has resulted in criminal prosecution, remind me how many people went to jaill after 2008? 2?

"Criminal prosecution for Dieselgate" was political theater of the worst kind. It's an example of systemic and institutional corruption and all that has brought was a couple of scapegoats. If the same thing were to happen in a smaller country, say Poland or Czech Republic, it would be grounds for the bigger EU states to bulldoze the plants and to bankrupt the nations.

Also, it's the second time that you try to counter an argument by throwing an American Whataboutism. Maybe you should let go of the nationalism and find better arguments?

1 - that could be true

2 - I am not even an EU national

3 - if one is pointing at dieselgate as a failure of EU, there must be a place where such failure doesn't happen. If such a place does not exist, then it's not much of an argument, every system has it's failures. It's not like i am defending WV

Every system has failures. That much is a given. The main issue is about scale of these systems and its failure modes.

The problem of "big" systems - whether the EU, modern day US where federal govt taking over power from the states or Communist China - is that it fails in spectacularly catastrophic ways.

This is why you get crisis like 2008 and Dieselgate. Both are instances of "too big to fail" industries, protected by the government and that in the end screw with the people that they claim to serve and protect.

So it doesn't matter that you are not defending VW, or that you are against Apple. The point is that by backing this ever-growing centralization of power and influence by one single political entity, you make the whole system more fragile and easier to be manipulated by those elites that you so loudly claim to be against.

> there must be a place where such failure doesn't happen.

Switzerland. Local governments rule over any attempt at centralization. Direct democracy. Individual freedom but without forced globalization and universalization of values. Not involved in any wars. NOT AN EU MEMBER STATE.

Ok great you argued the EU is hypocritical when it comes to large local companies. I still don't see how encouraging competition and interoperability in the smartphone and electronics market is a problem... except for Apple's margins.

If Switzerland is your model, I'm even more confused about how you could be against a liberal economy using protectionist measures against an American company.

> I still don't see how encouraging competition

They are not encouraging anything. They are just playing a power game to see who can jerk more the other around. In the process, they create costs and bureaucratic obstacles that make it easier for any smaller player to have any chance of entering the market competitively.

> liberal economy using protectionist measures

Because it is a problem with the scale. There is not one economy in the EU states. There are many. By trying to apply a top-level, centralized solution to all member states, it ends up creating sub-optimal solutions for everyone. Or worse, it executes the decisions that benefits the member states with most power: Germany and France.

Systems that are designed bottom-up are more robust, have a more diverse set of tools to solve their problems and fail in more localized, controlled ways. Tell me how many times has Switzerland got into some kind of deep systemic crisis. Now do the same with similarly small countries that are in the EU.

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