CUCR

This is going to surprise no one: lately I’ve been struggling with the nagging sense that I’m a hypocrite. I confess that I’m not anti-Europe. I actually think that a closely united Europe is a great idea. It’s an optimal currency zone (minus Greece and with a little discipline), and closer fiscal union will make the continent a bastion of growth–which can only be good for people, those in Europe and those who benefit from Europe’s great ideas (liberty, democracy and capital punishment for monarchs). I also happen to think it’s a good thing politically, too: the cultural differences seem petty and arcane, and a closer union may put to bed the type of intra-European rivalries that caused the continent to destroy entire generations.

This seems like a reasonable position, certainly for a Republican. It shows a regard for efficient economics and a disregard for European culture. What’s not to love?

The problem is that I really do believe in local government. I don’t think that the rules that govern people’s lives should be promulgated from on high in Brussels by nameless, faceless, unelected bureaucrats. I think that people can govern themselves more effectively locally and that it minimizes the problem of minority voters (that the minority is, in a sense, being ruled against their will), when the Dutch get to rule themselves (shrinking the minority from the entire population of the Netherlands to Geert Wilders’ hair).

This raises an even bigger problem. Europe’s situation right now boils down to this: stay in a loose confederation and fail miserably to pay your debts, raise taxes or maintain a single currency. Or put greater power in a central government in the hope of keeping the entire disparate group of states together. In other words, join or die. It’s eerily similar to the situation that we faced in the 1780s, and I don’t like that my instinctive theoretical position would put me for the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution worked really well. It’s a brilliant document. But would I really have voted for increased centralization in the name of efficiency (my King’s College pedigree notwithstanding)?

It’s interesting that I get to analyze this thought experiment through with a real case (Europe). The only direction I can think of taking this so I can preserve my small government, liberty-loving values and my in-the-moment support of the United States of (Europe, America) is this: when government restricts freedom it should be as small as possible. But that’s not all that government does. Government also makes loans and creates currency. Neither of those violates anyone’s individual, negative liberties. Both provide very, very necessary services that would not arise as efficiently otherwise. (EconNerd Alert: I do not care that you have a model where money arises endogenously. I live in the real world, and it doesn’t.) In that case, it’s possible that government has a right (duty?) to be organized on a large scale.

But obviously, the EU does more than just create currency. It regulates trade, agriculture and business in ways that have huge effects on the day to day life of the average European. And it is exceedingly rare (note: I’m covering myself. I mean never.) that Europeans outside of politics get to vote on the details of these laws. What’s more, the Euro needs fiscal discipline to survive. That means that people like Draghi and Merkel are going to be able to dictate to the Greek and Italian peoples when they’re allowed to borrow and on what they’re allowed to spend. And you’d better believe that retirement age is coming up in those meetings. These are all things that should be determined as close to home as possible in varied ways in different countries, so that people get to tailor their laws to their lives, and so as few as possible are coerced by the state to follow laws they voted against.

Maybe the original referenda to constitute the Euro…but that’s Hobbesian nonsense, and it’s too far removed from the day to day logic of freedom to come close to resembling democracy.

Maybe a two-speed Europe, where culture differences are low enough so that conflict like this doesn’t arise, forcing one side to rule the other? That’s the solution in the USA, where states rights should effectively lead to a socialist periphery and a liberal center, so that one side doesn’t force socialist institutions on vast swaths of people who don’t want it. Until we elect a president who….never mind. But that still represents centralization, and the French and Germans aren’t really close enough to calm my doubts. And it would be abandoning the south to inflation and economic disaster.

So I’m torn.