At 22:28 14/12/2003 +0100, you wrote:
Keith Hudson wrote:
> I regard the EU as a plot,
> mainly by senior civil servants but with fellow-travelling senior
> politicians in the main European countries, to form a larger and superior
> form of nation-state which will, of course, give them more career
> opportunities and more power. Being far more intelligent than politicians,
> the civil service have been able to manipulate them by giving them plenty
> of junkets and fulsome opportunities to claim money on expenses.
This ignores the roots and drivers of the EU project, which are corporate
rather than state: The European Roundtable of Industrialists (www.ERT.be)
which has planned all major projects of the EU (e.g. Eurotunnel, euro
currency, east enlargement etc.) and realized them without even asking
the politicians or people of the EU member states. The MEPs that Keith
complains about, are merely "democratic" window dressing as they have
no real decision power anyway, and the little decision-dressing they have,
is cared for by several corporate lobbyists per MEP hanging around in
Brussels. Of course MEPs and civil servants enjoy their economic perks,
but let's not confuse piggy-backers with driving forces.
I don;t agree -- big business will go along with the EU with alacrity because they always make a bee-line for government in order to get privileges, as Harry often observes. But they're not the main drivers. Their main motivations are to make money, not to get involved in politics directly. (The only exceptions to this being some entreprneurs of the old school -- that is, the particularly corrupt ones, particularly Italians and French.) In England, according to the Institute of Directors, big business is divided about 50:50, and according to the Chambers of Commerce, most of their members are against the EU (about 60:40), seeing no particular advantage in the EU and the Euro except a 0.25% reduction in exchange rate commissions.
The corporate agenda of the EU is to "open" and plunder the natural and
human resources of the new and future member states (incl. CH in the
long run). As EU boss Romano Prodi put it: "Going west was their [U$']
enlargement. They found the Rocky Mountains; we found Prague and Budapest."
Let's hope the Brits leave those nasty smallpox blankets at home this time
(in the figurative sense)...
> The beginning of the end of the nation-state came when
> the nuclear bomb was invented because this meant that, sooner or later, a
> rogue nation or even a terrorist group such as Al Qaeda, will be able to
> bring a nation-state to its knees by exploding the device at the location
> of its highly centralised government and civil service
The beginning of the end of the nation-state came when
the TNC was invented because this meant that, sooner or later, a
rogue TNC or even an economic terrorist group such as WTO, will be able to
bring a nation-state to its knees by blackmailing it with jobs and
economic sanctions.
You have a too conspiracist idea about the WTO. In the main it is well-meaning, though a lot of dirty politics go on within it.
Keith
Chris
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
