A United States of Europe | Hacker News Reader

A United States of Europe

aeon.co

27 pointsartoghrul24 comments

> In reality, the EU remains at the crossroads between the ‘Europe of the people’ and the ‘Europe of the governments’.

The trajectory of the USA might be instructive, in either a positive or cautionary sense: It began primarily as a group of governments, and then over time more popularly-democratic aspects crept in along with increasing federal power. (For example, disintermediating state legislatures from the selection of federal representatives.)

The constitution and organization of Switzerland was largely inspired by the philosophy behind the USA. Thus they are very similar in terms of the organization of the state.

From this point of view, I think the fundamental flaw of the USA is the majoritarian electoral system. Majoritarian representation tends to degenerate in the long run into a gridlocked two-party system, a prime example is the USA.

Thus most of the ideas behind the USA are great, but the electoral system is fatal.

Agreed with this analysis. From a European who lived in the us my strong believe is that the US needs an electoral system that leads to coalitions. While far from perfect this is way better than the two party system that incentivizes the division in the public.

Proportional representation and coalition systems lead to deadlock. Belgium and Israel have gone years between stable governments because of the failure to form a coalition. Meanwhile in Germany, it’s impossible for a voter to predict ahead of time what kind of government to expect from voting for any given party because almost any party could become coalition partners with just about any other party.

The two party system is still, in effect, a coalition system; the difference is that voters know ahead of time which coalition they’re going to get.

The two-party system is not really a coalition system, is it? For one, there is no way for minority factions within parties to exert effective control over the other factions, no? A prime example being how the centrist majority of the Democratic party crushed the democratic socialist faction.

Conversely, the Tea Party faction of the Republicans gained control more or less entirely from the outside, due to media support.

The process for doing this is primary elections, which you can participate in if you want to!

We call them caucuses.

I don't think PR and formal coalitions have a monopoly on deadlock. The USA can have something similar whenever there's not a single party holding a trifecta, and even then between the Supreme Court and filibustering it's not really streamlined unified government.

> Meanwhile in Germany, it’s impossible for a voter to predict ahead of time what kind of government to expect from voting for any given party because almost any party could become coalition partners with just about any other party.

You have to trust that the party you're voting for will negotiate in a way that is acceptable to you. I'm not convinced that's worse than your situation in a two party system where you're guaranteed a coalition that's probably not exactly what you wanted.

> The USA can have something similar whenever there's not a single party holding a trifecta, and even then between the Supreme Court and filibustering it's not really streamlined unified government.

In a parliamentary system you don’t even have an executive branch unless you can get a coalition. And when it comes to Supreme Courts, not only does nearly every parliamentary country also have one, they sometimes have more of them. Most European countries are subject to ECtHR on top of their national supreme courts.

> You have to trust that the party you're voting for will negotiate in a way that is acceptable to you. I'm not convinced that's worse than your situation in a two party system where you're guaranteed a coalition that's probably not exactly what you wanted.

But at least you know what you’re voting for.

The gridlock is a feature, not a bug. The system is deliberately rich in checks and balances so as to make it difficult for a slim majority or a determined plurality to hijack the state. You basically require a supermajority for any radical change.

I think a gridlocked majoritarian system is probably preferable to a proportional one that requires governments to get in bed with far right/left 'kingmakers' who hold the balance of power - e.g. Sweden, Netherlands, etc.

The system is designed to change slowly but it absolutely was not intentionally designed to be a two party system. That is an unintentional emergent property of the voting mechanism.

" hink a gridlocked majoritarian system is probably preferable to a proportional one that requires governments to get in bed with far right/left 'kingmakers' " Except this is the case in the US

The US "kingmakers" are instead inside the parties. A system where one person can hold vital bills hostage through filibuster or even just the very narrow vote margins is a system which encourages extremism.

As an American I agree with grid lock being a feature. I don't like rapid change. Let's argue for a few years so we have time to think of all the angles.

It doesn't seem like that's how it works, but it does. Even the sensationalist headlines morph and the talking heads add/change their propaganda over time.

It's got it's draw backs for sure, but the system is working as intended.

That’s part of it but the two party system is more downstream of the specific idiosyncrasies of the electoral college with it’s bizarre rules that end up with state delegations choosing a winner if no one wins an absolute majority of electoral college votes. So you cannot have more than two candidates without the election being thrown out and decided by the House.

Other countries with majoritarian systems like the UK and Canada at least have 3 viable parties, even if there are two that are usually the biggest.

The US system is impossible to disentangle from its origins in the three-fifths compromise. The "anti populism" has ended up as a set of mechanisms such as gerrymandering that allow narrow majoritarianism which can be extremely repressive to minorities.

Political unity has only ever been achieved at a point where the severity of outside pressures forced a group of people together.

If you look at the EU right now, it is hard to imagine a group less likely to come together. In the eyes of most member states it is still an economic union, whose purpose it is to allow international trade and allow economic benefits to the members, largely by allowing access to the enormous economies of France and Germany.

An economic union can only ever be justified in terms of utility and with the German economy not doing too great, what are the chances that the member states are willing to suffer on their behalf?

For the EU to come together it can only ever be on behalf of outside pressure, internal bureaucracies deciding so might create the legal formalities, but never something actually accepted by the population.

> Political unity has only ever been achieved at a point where the severity of outside pressures forced a group of people together.

Political unity generally comes from 'within' not from 'without'. A group of elites or an ethnic group forms the 'center' or the state and pacifies and unifies those around them. This unity is normally achieved through force. It's true throughout the world - the united kingdom, france, russia, china or the US or japan or anyone else really.

> For the EU to come together it can only ever be on behalf of outside pressure

No. Outside pressure is why many attempts at 'the united states of europe' has failed. Napoleon/france tried to create 'the united states of europe'. Britain and russia put a stop to it. Hitler/germany tried to create 'the united states of europe'. Britain/US and russia put a stop to it.

I forgot which historian said it, but he described the last 200 years of european history as 'anglo-russian meddling to prevent a franco-german unity ( aka 'the united states of europe' )'.

The problem for europe is that they have no core ( ethnic group, language, history, culture, religion, etc ) to build a united states of europe around. And that a united states of europe would be the primary threat to the united states of america/anglo world and russia. Meaning the US/britain and russia will constantly be fomenting division within europe to prevent a united states of europe.

Maybe try 'united states of germania'? 'United states of romancia'? 'United states of the baltics'? Baby steps?

> I forgot which historian said it, but he described the last 200 years of european history as 'anglo-russian meddling to prevent a franco-german unity ( aka 'the united states of europe' )'.

Please let us know if you recall who it is, I'm intensely curious about this.

As of now, you could probably only build a USE behind the backs of the nations involved. If referenda were held, the idea would crash and burn across most of the member states.

Given that the right is poised to increase their share of power in the EP this year, it is unlikely that even a back-stage attempt is going to take place anytime soon.

It was easier to build the USA on a shared platform of the same language and the same (shallow) history. European nations are ancient, speak their own languages and have very different histories. Portugal and Finland have basically nothing in common, same as Cyprus and Ireland, or Czechia and Malta.

The Eurozone financial crisis and its resolutions really did a lot of damage to "we're all in it together" narratives.

> same language and the same (shallow) history

Yes! Just Dutch, German, English, Spanish, Algonquin, Nahuatl, ... or, did you mean the European invaders? Native Americans had been doing their thing for a for thousands of years when the Europeans showed up. If you're talking about stuff, I don't think old buildings really means culture? The Saxons squatted in the Roman ruins, but that doesn't mean the luster of Rome wore off on them. Certainly far less than the Byzantines being the real Romans.

Also, Americans seem to have fought an awful lot of wars to build a shared polity in its "easy" process.

Would the usa even allow it ?

Divide and keep them distracted, right ?

China gets Taiwan

Middle East gets Israel

India gets Kashmir

Europe gets England

Russia gets Ukraine.

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