Why Europe Keeps Failing........ merged with "EU Seizes Cypriot Bank Accounts"

[Kirkhill]

The nation-states of Europe have no history of dealing with one another in good faith; the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) just recognized that fact and set some rules for moving from the normal levels of lying, cheating and stealing to the almost as normal state of outright war. Europe is a continent of peoples, not of nations, the experience of nationhood is recent, compared to, say, China, and weak. Even when there were strong, cohesive nation-states, 2,000 years ago, they were surrounded and, eventually, overcome by the peoples.

The German volk, pictured above, are just the latest to swarm over their neighbours. Only the English, the Scandinavians and the Swiss seem inclined to both protect their own borders and eschew intruding into other realms, and those are very recent tendencies (a few hundred years, only) in all cases.

The Nation-States of Europe are a 19th Century Fiction imposed on the general populace by centralizing governments. The truer face of Europe is the loose confederation of City-States occasionally known as the Holy Roman Empire (or the Pragmatic Constantinian General Assembly).

France didn't become France until the cession of Nice to France in the 1860s.  Germany didn't become Germany until 1989.  Italy didn't become Italy until 1872.  Britain didn't become Britain until 1707 (modified up until 1921 - apparently still a work in progress).  Spain became Spain in 1492 but the Catalans, Basques and Castilians, amongst others, had very different understanding of their terms of association.  Norway and Denmark split the sheets in 1905 and the Faeroe Islanders are still looking for a better deal from Denmark.

There is a biological theory (I hope I am remembering this correctly) that suggests that the reason Africa is such a harbourage of pestilence and so difficult to cure is that as a result of it being a point of origin for so many gene pools it is extraordinarily difficult to contain diseases before they jump to a neighbouring pool, adapt to those newer genes and morph into something different.

My sense is that Europe, with its myriad isolated but interconnected valleys, each identified by a genetic, linguistic and cultural preponderance, but never able to achieve a perfect quarantine from its neighbours, is to politics what Africa is to disease.

Ideas jump from locale to locale and morph into something different.  Liberal is a case in point. Good or Bad. Fascist or Free. Wealthy or Greedy.

A very current aspect to this debate is the Merger/Takeover of EADS and BAE.

EADS = France + Germany.  It is European as long as Europe is French.  It is a Government held commercial enterprise.

BAE = UK.  It is a privately held firm that had a virtual monopoly on UK defense spending but is branching out to support other governments, to include the US.

For a European Army you need a modern equivalent of the Arsenal of Venice, if you see the world in French terms.

For a British Army you need Hiram Maxim and Armstrong.

The two visions are irreconcilable.

France and Germany could come together with the Arsenal of Venice version of EADs, primarily because Germany's "War Guilt" wouldn't let her do anything else other than accede to French demands.

Germany and Britain could come together over a "privatized" BAE model of EADs for a host of financial, cultural and historical reasons.

But the deal won't happen as a Three-Way because France and Britain can not come together.

France insists that it wants a "privatized" entity but when Britain insists that no government can hold more than 10% of the shares in the enterprise France demands a higher initial allocation with the proviso that it can buy up all "unwanted" shares at its leisure.

This would effectively mean that by fiat France could declare itself the sole producer or weapons for Europe.  A non-starter from the stand-point of the other nations both on economic and nationalist grounds.  And a very unwise policy if innovation is desired.

However, Colbert would have approved, as would Louis XIV and Napoleon.

In the words of that fine Frankish phrase: "Ordnung Muss Sein".

 

[a_majoor]

The idea of a "nation" and a "people" are very fluid. I had some first hand experience (as did many of you) in former Yugoslavia, where large swaths of territory were fought over because the "people" living there felt they belonged to a different "nation" than the one that claimed sovereignty over the region. To a lesser extent, we also see something similar in Afghanistan; most people there do not see themselves as Afghans but rather Pashtuns, Hazara and so on. Even our own home is riven by various forms of tribalism, ranging from regional sub groupings like ""Capers" and "Newfoundlanders" to provincial tribes (Quebec) to superregional groupings like "the West".

When the political boundaries are not aligned with the populations, trouble could erupt unless the people have some belief that transcends their tribal affiliations. The American Creed is one such belief, and probably the strongest in any modern heterogeneous nation-state. Samuel Huntington spoke pf this in his book "Who are we?", and Robert Kaplan had an ironic comment in "Balkan Ghosts", where he pointed out all everyone wanted was a return top their "historic" borders, but defining the borders as being those at the height of their local kingdom or Empire.

I believe in the United States of America, as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.

— William Tyler Page, The American's Creed

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Thucydides,

How are you using nation and people? For this discussion I use 'state' to refer to a sovereign political entity. A nation refers to a group with a common culture, identity, language and world view. A nation state is what you get when a state consists of a single dominant nation.

Europe has many nations and is primarily made up of nation states. I think that
European nations are more distinct and enduring than European Unionists would like to believe. A state needs some form of underlying consensus to be effectively governed. The lack of such an underlying consensus within the EU is evident in the Greek resistance to outside austerity measures.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Back to immediate term economics in this report which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from The American Interest/Via Meadia (Walter Russell Mead's Blog):

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/10/10/latest-eu-failure-deficit-targets/

Latest EU Failure: Deficit Targets

October 10, 2012

A new IMF report showing that few European countries are expected to hit their target levels of budget deficits is adding fuel to the fires slowly consuming any remaining confidence in the policy pronouncements of European leaders. Shortly after agreeing to new deficit targets for 2013, few countries are on track to meet these targets even after serious budget cuts due to the faltering European economy, the IMF reports.

The list of affected countries includes usual offenders like Greece and Spain, where deficits are nearly two percentage points higher than the target, but also includes newer faces such as France and the Netherlands.

And it is difficult to see a policy fix to this problem, as many analysts now warn that any steps taken to meet these targets may end up making things worse by crippling the economy further. The WSJ reports:

    Pursuing more cuts to hit next year’s deficit targets would further roil Europe’s political waters and test the powers of these governments to push more austerity through restive national
    parliaments. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, is set in the coming weeks to review national austerity programs, making its own determination about whether the programs
    will hit the budget targets. If the commission believes the numbers don’t add up, it will discuss with other EU governments in the coming months whether to seek further cuts or relax the
    2013 targets for the governments in question.

This news is depressing enough on its own, but more depressing is the frequency with which the confident forecasts and carefully negotiated agreements of European leaders turn out to be worthless trash.  Is any sentient being on planet Earth when yet another European agreement and policy consensus turns out to be a tissue of lies and false hopes? Does a solitary person anywhere believe one word EU leaders say about the state of their economies?

Can anybody anywhere on earth recall such a train of stupid policy decisions, foolish assumptions and failed fixes as the member countries of the eurozone have made since Francois Mitterand demanded the establishment of a single European currency as the price for German unification?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Hmmm think I should buy acreage in Nevada, run a railhead to it and start buying up AFV's, vehicles , spare parts and aircraft from European countries selling off their armies.

 

[Edward Campbell]

And new Anglo-French tensions appear, this time over fishing according to a report from BBC News. The report quotes UK Liberal Democrat Transport Minister Norman Baker, who is MP for Lewes, as saying: "So far unverified reports suggest that up to 40 French boats surrounded five British vessels who appeared to be fishing legally, albeit in French waters ... that looks like premeditation and attempt to intimidate."

Aren't the Europeans wonderful? So entertaining!

 

[vonGarvin]

Aren't the Europeans wonderful? So entertaining!

That's one way to describe them...

 

[Old Sweat]

That wouldn't even get a twitch out of Drake's Drum!

  "Take my drum to England, hang it by the shore,
    And strike it when your powder's running low;
    If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port of
    heaven, and drum them up the channel as we
    drummed them long ago."
                                Sir Henry John Newbolt 1862-1938

 

[Kirkhill]

And new Anglo-French tensions appear, this time over fishing according to a report from BBC News. The report quotes UK Liberal Democrat Transport Minister Norman Baker, who is MP for Lewes, as saying: "So far unverified reports suggest that up to 40 French boats surrounded five British vessels who appeared to be fishing legally, albeit in French waters ... that looks like premeditation and attempt to intimidate."

Aren't the Europeans wonderful? So entertaining!

And continually giving the lie to the myth of the pacifist European.

Contain Europeans within their national boundaries and deprive them of an army and they turn on each other like rats in box - with the exception that they seem to take more pleasure in the bloodshed than the rats do.

Channel that enjoyment into a proper army, or even a decent police force, and before you can say Putsch they are organizing a reforming mission to improve their neighbours or assist them on their way to paradise.

The frivolity never ends.

 

[a_majoor]

Thucydides,

How are you using nation and people? For this discussion I use 'state' to refer to a sovereign political entity. A nation refers to a group with a common culture, identity, language and world view. A nation state is what you get when a state consists of a single dominant nation.

Europe has many nations and is primarily made up of nation states. I think that
European nations are more distinct and enduring than European Unionists would like to believe. A state needs some form of underlying consensus to be effectively governed. The lack of such an underlying consensus within the EU is evident in the Greek resistance to outside austerity measures.

I'm probably using people the way you are using nation, and nation the way you are using State. to restate the argument then, most States that have large groups of disparate nations within need some sort of overarching idea to bin them together. I notice that the glue isn't all that strong in some places, there is a distint divide between Northern and Southern Italy, for example, and Spain is still made up of very distinct regions, despite being unified in the Reconquista during the 1400's. We have seen the greatest slippage in the States of Eastern Europe, for example the partitioning of Czechoslovakia as a peaceful example, and the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia at the other extreme. Many of the conflicts that are bubbling or boiling over in the Middle East are also driven by "nations" (although in this case I would preffer people, since sectarian divisions can split peoples of similar ethnic or regional backgrounds).

Ominous stressor are appearing in Europe, as the economic situation deteriorates and large pockets of unassimilated peoples (or nations) exist within the boundaries fo the various states of Europe, many of whome share little in the way of the values of their neighbours.

 

[Edward Campbell]

A contrarian view from Christine Legarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, or, at least, a contrarian view of what she said in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/breaking-views/europe-must-realize-austerity-doesnt-work/article4607683/

Europe must realize austerity doesn’t work

PIERRE BRIANÇON
Reuters Breakingviews

Published Thursday, Oct. 11 2012

The Greek economy has shrivelled to three quarters of what it was three years ago, before embarking on its successive turnaround-cum-bailout plans. Euro zone governments keep contributing religiously to their own recession by forcing ever higher degrees of pain on their sick economies.

Spain is slashing public spending and wonders why its gross domestic product is shrinking as well. Britain is slowly sinking under the mindless policies of austerity without perspective. Meanwhile, central bankers keep pushing for ever stricter fiscal discipline, under the eternal slogan of ideologues throughout centuries: “There’s no other way.”

From the unlikely corner of the International Monetary Fund now comes a call to reason: Stop the madness. There’s a time for cuts and a time for growth – but these cannot be done simultaneously.

Christine Lagarde, the IMF managing director, called for less front-loaded austerity this week. The Fund had given a more numbers-filled version of the same prescription earlier in its annual report, indicating that it had been wrong, more or less, in its previous estimates of austerity’s impact on growth. The consequences of brutal fiscal shrinking are more severe than it estimated – as revealed by the past years’ record.

Ms. Lagarde is right, although she would be more credible if she hadn’t once been just another European austerity cheerleader during her five years as France’s finance minister. So her current statements seem to reflect the position of her organization more than her own.

The problem is that no European leader dares say the same thing. It would take a bold finance minister today to go to a euro zone meeting and state calmly that fiscal discipline is for good times, not bad. Some are afraid of Germany, others fear markets.

Meanwhile it is left to the IMF’s economists to state the obvious. The record is clear. Austerity hasn’t worked. There’s little hope it will. Let’s first work on growth. Then we’ll be virtuous.

This is the normal Keynesian debate: virtue (cuts), to get the fiscal house in order, or stimulus (spending), in the hope that growth will result and, with it, fiscal room to grow one's way out of debt?

Tradition, since 1933, has favoured stimulus and, by and large, it has worked ~ but, and it is a big, HUGE BUT, few countries have ever followed through with Keynes' prescriptions and, when times are good, cut back and restored virtue; consequently, upwardly spiraling spending, especially on entitlements, has become a permanent characteristic of all Western countries until, as now, some, rather a lot of virtue is urgently needed.

Unlike what Mme. Legarde is reported to have said, I'm not convinced that "austerity hasn't worked." It's not clear to me that enough austerity has been applied for long enough to measure its effects. What is clear to me is that Europeans, specially spendthrift, entitled Southern (Latinate) Europeans have had enough of austerity and they want stimulus.

Latinate Europe in 2012

 

[Kirkhill]

ERC:

Shouldn't the prescription for Europe be the same as that for China and the US?

While I was a youngster my mother tried very hard to encourage greenery in the house.  Unfortunately she didn't inherit her father's green thumb.  The only thing that grew was a particularly hardy fern.  It grew when she overwatered it.  It grew when she underwatered it.  It didn't grow prettily.  It defied all attempts to turn it into a bush.  It grew rattily in whatever direction it could.  It could not be controlled.  It did not thrive but it would not die.

She named that plant. For some personally obscure reason she called it "Let Glasgow Flourish".

My own sense is that governments of all stripes should follow that sage advice and "Let their people flourish".

They should stop working so hard and just let people get on and do things.  I don't care what.  I don't even really care that some things will be illegal, or that people will harm themselves or will even harm others.  In poor economic times all those things will happen anyway.  The surest cure for them is prosperity.

I have seen government attempts to create the ideal society.  I have seen business incubators and research parks and industrial parks with every conceivable advantage known to man and nothing revolutionary emerges from them.

Equally I have seen prosperity emerge from the rough edge of nowhere where every muddy open space ( I was going to say street corner but there were no corners nor were there any streets) housed a "coffee kiosk" the size of a British telephone booth. Those booths supplied not only your coffee but also any intoxicant known to man and the personal services of the attractive young lady inside.  There was the occasional knife fight in the public space but by and large people were way too busy attending to their business to be bothered about much else than making money.

The sure sign that the end is nigh is the paving of streets.

This usually happens when the busy businessmen (and women) discover they have time on their hands due to a lack of business.  The shortfall comes as a result of increased competition and decreased supply of raw materials.  Thoughts turn away from making money to spending money.

With that change muddy paths become paved streets.  Open spaces are policed.  And the hookers walk away from their kiosks.

If politicians really want to see their countries flourish then they should stop trying so hard.

The problem isn't whether the government taxes too much or it spends too little.  It is that it regulates at all. 

The only cure for Europe's ills, and China's ills, and the US's ills, is to do the Reagan thing and stop regulating.  You can't both bleed and feed a patient simultaneously and expect it to flourish.  There can come a time when it is necessary to both stop bleeding, and, more radically, stop feeding it and just let the patient seek out its own course.

The number of coffee kiosks will tell you when the patient is sufficiently healthy that you can start bleeding it again.


PS:

Edinburgh is the heart of the rational enlightenment with its planned streets and drained lochs. That attracted the likes of Voltaire.

Glasgow was the home of the Tobacco Lords.  These were smugglers and rum runners and slavers that made their money selling contraband American tobacco to the French and black slaves, bought from Arab slavers, to the Americans.  Glasgow attracted the starving riff raff from the highlands and islands and put them to work in factories and shipyards.  The workers suffered bow legs from rickets, cirrhosis of the liver and black lung and occsionally were short some chunk of their body or other.  They were stunted, runty wee versions of their highland cousins that gained the respect of the government's enemies when dressed in scarlet.  But the Glaswegians had big families.  And Glasgow flourished.

Glasgow flourished and Edinburgh could afford to build streets to attract Voltaire away from the salons of Paris for a couple of weeks of vacation.

 

[Edward Campbell]

ERC:

Shouldn't the prescription for Europe be the same as that for China and the US?

While I was a youngster my mother tried very hard to encourage greenery in the house.  Unfortunately she didn't inherit her father's green thumb.  The only thing that grew was a particularly hardy fern.  It grew when she overwatered it.  It grew when she underwatered it.  It didn't grow prettily.  It defied all attempts to turn it into a bush.  It grew rattily in whatever direction it could.  It could not be controlled.  It did not thrive but it would not die.

She named that plant. For some personally obscure reason she called it "Let Glasgow Flourish".

My own sense is that governments of all stripes should follow that sage advice and "Let their people flourish".

They should stop working so hard and just let people get on and do things.  I don't care what.  I don't even really care that some things will be illegal, or that people will harm themselves or will even harm others.  In poor economic times all those things will happen anyway.  The surest cure for them is prosperity.

I have seen government attempts to create the ideal society.  I have seen business incubators and research parks and industrial parks with every conceivable advantage known to man and nothing revolutionary emerges from them.

Equally I have seen prosperity emerge from the rough edge of nowhere where every muddy open space ( I was going to say street corner but there were no corners nor were there any streets) housed a "coffee kiosk" the size of a British telephone booth. Those booths supplied not only your coffee but also any intoxicant known to man and the personal services of the attractive young lady inside.  There was the occasional knife fight in the public space but by and large people were way too busy attending to their business to be bothered about much else than making money.

The sure sign that the end is nigh is the paving of streets.

This usually happens when the busy businessmen (and women) discover they have time on their hands due to a lack of business.  The shortfall comes as a result of increased competition and decreased supply of raw materials.  Thoughts turn away from making money to spending money.

With that change muddy paths become paved streets.  Open spaces are policed.  And the hookers walk away from their kiosks.

If politicians really want to see their countries flourish then they should stop trying so hard.

The problem isn't whether the government taxes too much or it spends too little.  It is that it regulates at all. 

The only cure for Europe's ills, and China's ills, and the US's ills, is to do the Reagan thing and stop regulating.  You can't both bleed and feed a patient simultaneously and expect it to flourish.  There can come a time when it is necessary to both stop bleeding, and, more radically, stop feeding it and just let the patient seek out its own course.

The number of coffee kiosks will tell you when the patient is sufficiently healthy that you can start bleeding it again.


PS:

Edinburgh is the heart of the rational enlightenment with its planned streets and drained lochs. That attracted the likes of Voltaire.

Glasgow was the home of the Tobacco Lords.  These were smugglers and rum runners and slavers that made their money selling contraband American tobacco to the French and black slaves, bought from Arab slavers, to the Americans.  Glasgow attracted the starving riff raff from the highlands and islands and put them to work in factories and shipyards.  The workers suffered bow legs from rickets, cirrhosis of the liver and black lung and occsionally were short some chunk of their body or other.  They were stunted, runty wee versions of their highland cousins that gained the respect of the government's enemies when dressed in scarlet.  But the Glaswegians had big families.  And Glasgow flourished.

Glasgow flourished and Edinburgh could afford to build streets to attract Voltaire away from the salons of Paris for a couple of weeks of vacation.

While I don't disagree with you, my highland friend, I recognize that "we" - the big WE that even includes Beijing - have decided that we cannot and will not o the "Reagan thing" any more. I was surprised, two years ago, at just how much the Chinese Government changed since Hu Jintao took over - it now intrudes, in an most unConfcian manner, into the private lives of the Chinese; it's not just minimum wages that went up, despite much hand-wringing from the new right, it is a whole range of new social services for e.g. the elderly - nothing even remotely like what we have, but shocking for China, and new banking and commercial regulations to protect consumers - once again, nothing like North America or Europe but, until now, unheard of in China. Next thing you know the Chinese will start to be treated like Hong Kong people, or Taiwanese or, <gasp> even Singaporeans. But, my point is that the sorts of raw, blood red, tooth and claw capitalism that I agree will work is fast disappearing, everywhere.

China is still like Britain was 200 years ago and like America 150 years ago: full of opportunities for the risk takers; hellish for the weak and timid; Hong Kong is like New York and London 25 years ago: there are massive fortunes being made within the "rules," such as they are; Singapore is where we mostly want to end up: rich, safe and secure ... and told what to do and what to think, all day, every day, by a benevolent government.

 

[bridges]

But, my point is that the sorts of raw, blood red, tooth and claw capitalism that I agree will work [for whom?  -b.] is fast disappearing, everywhere.

China is still like Britain was 200 years ago and like America 150 years ago: full of opportunities for the risk takers; hellish for the weak and timid; Hong Kong is like New York and London 25 years ago: there are massive fortunes being made within the "rules," such as they are; Singapore is where we mostly want to end up: rich, safe and secure ... and told what to do and what to think, all day, every day, by a benevolent government.

[inserts & colours mine]  Surely these are not the only two options ... a society where the lucky or most ambitious end up with the spoils & everyone else is condemned to poverty, or a society where the sick & elderly are taken care of but the rest of us (while we're waiting to get to one of those conditions) are under someone's thumb.  Sounds like a false dichotomy to me.  At any rate, I suspect the answer lies in the middle ground, between the constant push-and-pull of those who want to make money and those who want to take care of others.  I believe that our society has the resources and smarts to make both possible, without one being at the expense of the other.

As an aside, I have a couple of friends who are native Singaporeans & still live there - they are hardly told what to think, by anyone.  Unless it's really a government operative infiltrating our communications unbeknownst to me... hmm...  :Tin-Foil-Hat: 

 

[bridges]

In its awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union earlier today, the Norwegian Nobel Committee seems to have taken a long view of things.  Perhaps this current crisis, too, shall pass. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

[inserts & colours mine]  Surely these are not the only two options ... a society where the lucky or most ambitious end up with the spoils & everyone else is condemned to poverty, or a society where the sick & elderly are taken care of but the rest of us (while we're waiting to get to one of those conditions) are under someone's thumb.  No, not the only model ... but it is the model that will produce the desired results, adequate prosperity for most (greatest good for the greatest number, etc) in the minimum time. Sounds like a false dichotomy to me.  At any rate, I suspect the answer lies in the middle ground, between the constant push-and-pull of those who want to make money and those who want to take care of others.  BUT: the people who make the money must, first, agree to surrender some of it (pay taxes) to care for those who, as a Confucian would say, should care for themselves. BUT, again, sometimes -witness North America circa 2012 - many, many people do not want to surrender even as much as they do now to care for the "undeserving poor." I believe that our society has the resources and smarts to make both possible, without one being at the expense of the other. That is what about 40% of Canadians believe, 35% disagree and 25% are honest enough to admit they don't know.

As an aside, I have a couple of friends who are native Singaporeans & still live there - they are hardly told what to think, by anyone.  Unless it's really a government operative infiltrating our communications unbeknownst to me... hmm...  :Tin-Foil-Hat: I too have some Singaporean friends and I have spent some time there. Singapore is a unique society, one that actually propagates a "code of values:"

          Nation before community and society above self: Putting the interests of society ahead of the individual.
          Family as the basic unit of society: The family is identified as the most stable fundamental building block of the nation.
          Community support and respect for the individual: Recognises that the individual has rights, which should be respected and not light encroached upon.
          Encourages the community to support and have compassion for the disadvantaged individual who may have been left behind by the free market system.
          Consensus, not conflict: Resolving issues through consensus and not conflict stresses the importance of compromise and national unity.
          Racial and religious harmony: Recognises the need for different communities to live harmoniously with one another in order for all to prosper.

That's an official, government, statement of values that is taught in every school and serves as a guide for e.g. the civil service. But, many, most I think, Canadians would happily exchange Canadian liberalism and our loose values for Singapore's imposed values, prosperity, and highly developed welfare state.

 

[Kirkhill]

ERC, a minor point of correction:

Although I have worn the Campbell tartan, also known as Government tartan, my forebears wore the Grey Breeks of Marr and stood against the Tcheuchters.  They would have called me a Sassenach, not incorrectly.

But back to the debate.


bridges:

The ideal is to keep between the white lines.  Machiavelli offered useful advice to the Medicis to that end.  Basically the advice was to stroke the masses so that you can feed them and bleed them simultaneously and thus the Prince can keep him and his in the style to which they become accustomed.

The problem is eventually the Prince screws up and/or the masses get wise (The Emperor Has No Clothes!).

When the Prince screws up the system fails, everybody dies and we get to start all over again from scratch.  This time without the benefit of clergy or Princes.

You are back to raw, blood red, tooth and claw capitalism, will ye, nill ye.

So the Prince might as well accept the inevitable  and acquiesce with the greatest good grace possible and follow the advice given to timorous young Victorian wives: "Lie back and think of England".

Come the morning you might be surprised to discover you enjoyed the experience.  At very least you are most likely to discover, as I note below, that you're still here.  (Edit: apparently the tag line, which used to grace my postings,  "And we're still here" is NOT still there - there's a lesson in that somewhere I am sure.)

The alternative, for the screwed up Prince that decides to challenge the masses, is likely to be a lot less pleasant.

The secret to retaining control is to always let the other guy think that he is in charge.  That is why, given ERC's succinct summary of China, Hong Kong and Singapore, I prefer Hong Kong's long term prospects over either of the others.

 

[Kirkhill]

I suspect a lot of French blood in the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

They have always been careful of their honour and demanded futile gestures to preserve their own self love while staying alive.

The Germans were never that afflicted. They actually believed in Death before Dishonour.

The Brits believed that honour was appropriate but like everything else should be managed moderately, especially if it a meant a loss in revenues.

As for the Italians....they gave up worrying about honour a couple of millenia ago.  Pass the Chianti.

 

[Edward Campbell]

ERC, a minor point of correction:

Although I have worn the Campbell tartan, also known as Government tartan, my forebears wore the Grey Breeks of Marr and stood against the Tcheuchters.  They would have called me a Sassenach, not incorrectly.

But back to the debate.


bridges:

The ideal is to keep between the white lines.  Machiavelli offered useful advice to the Medicis to that end.  Basically the advice was to stroke the masses so that you can feed them and bleed them simultaneously and thus the Prince can keep him and his in the style to which they become accustomed.

The problem is eventually the Prince screws up and/or the masses get wise (The Emperor Has No Clothes!).

When the Prince screws up the system fails, everybody dies and we get to start all over again from scratch.  This time without the benefit of clergy or Princes.

You are back to raw, blood red, tooth and claw capitalism, will ye, nill ye.

So the Prince might as well accept the inevitable  and acquiesce with the greatest good grace possible and follow the advice given to timorous young Victorian wives: "Lie back and think of England".

Come the morning you might be surprised to discover you enjoyed the experience.  At very least you are most likely to discover, as I note below, that you're still here.  (Edit: apparently the tag line, which used to grace my postings,  "And we're still here" is NOT still there - there's a lesson in that somewhere I am sure.)

The alternative, for the screwed up Prince that decides to challenge the masses, is likely to be a lot less pleasant.

The secret to retaining control is to always let the other guy think that he is in charge.  That is why, given ERC's succinct summary of China, Hong Kong and Singapore, I prefer Hong Kong's long term prospects over either of the others.

Machiavelli was right, and so was Keynes, but ... the way we "feed and bleed" the masses is through public works not entitlements. The old, conservative, saw that "the best social programme is a job" is very, very true. Plus, as we are learning in Europe and America, entitlements are hard, often too hard, to change or slow, much less stop. We, in the entitled West, have gone "welfare mad." No one must fail or suffer too much, even if they bring failure and suffering down on their own heads. That's madness. There is, I suggest, nothing much that can ever be done to, either:

1. Adequately tax the top 1% of society; or

2. Help the bottom 1%.

That doesn't mean we should stop trying but we ought not to hope that we can succeed.

Those of us in the remaining 98% can and should, however, work hard, pay our fair share, help those who, through no fault of their own, cannot keep up with even our minimal standards and save for our own comfort. To do that we need, broadly, to be left alone to use our labour and private property for our own benefits, not the governments'. The care of the poor, the helpless, the sick and weak should to the greatest extent possible, be a private matter - supported, through tax breaks, by the community at large; the state should act only when charity is, demonstrably, unwilling or unable to do so. But, we will not get (back) to that "happy" state, where we were as recently as the 1930s, because our "welfare madness" is too deeply entrenched ... or maybe not, maybe we will see, in 2020, in Greece and Spain, how people cope when governments will not, because they cannot, help.

 

[bridges]

Singapore is a unique society, one that actually propagates a "code of values:"

          Nation before community and society above self: Putting the interests of society ahead of the individual.
          Family as the basic unit of society: The family is identified as the most stable fundamental building block of the nation.
          Community support and respect for the individual: Recognises that the individual has rights, which should be respected and not light encroached upon.
          Encourages the community to support and have compassion for the disadvantaged individual who may have been left behind by the free market system.
          Consensus, not conflict: Resolving issues through consensus and not conflict stresses the importance of compromise and national unity.
          Racial and religious harmony: Recognises the need for different communities to live harmoniously with one another in order for all to prosper.

That's an official, government, statement of values that is taught in every school and serves as a guide for e.g. the civil service. But, many, most I think, Canadians would happily exchange Canadian liberalism and our loose values for Singapore's imposed values, prosperity, and highly developed welfare state.

Interesting.  Thanks for this.

It could be said that we, too, propagate a code of values in our constitution, Charter of Rights & Freedoms, etc.  Does the statement of values from Singapore come from the current government only, or from the country's laws & constitution?  I wonder if it was derived at least in part from public input.  Do you see it as having a greater influence on their society than our constitution & Charter do on ours?

Kirkhill,

Ah, that "lie back and think of England" thing again!  Even as a metaphor, I'm not sure we need to screw people for society to prosper. 

Machiavelli was right, and so was Keynes, but ... the way we "feed and bleed" the masses is through public works not entitlements. The old, conservative, saw that "the best social programme is a job" is very, very true. Plus, as we are learning in Europe and America, entitlements are hard, often too hard, to change or slow, much less stop. We, in the entitled West, have gone "welfare mad." No one must fail or suffer too much, even if they bring failure and suffering down on their own heads. That's madness. There is, I suggest, nothing much that can ever be done to, either:

1. Adequately tax the top 1% of society; or

2. Help the bottom 1%.

That doesn't mean we should stop trying but we ought not to hope that we can succeed.

Those of us in the remaining 98% can and should, however, work hard, pay our fair share, help those who, through no fault of their own, cannot keep up with even our minimal standards and save for our own comfort. To do that we need, broadly, to be left alone to use our labour and private property for our own benefits, not the governments'. The care of the poor, the helpless, the sick and weak should to the greatest extent possible, be a private matter - supported, through tax breaks, by the community at large; the state should act only when charity is, demonstrably, unwilling or unable to do so. But, we will not get (back) to that "happy" state, where we were as recently as the 1930s, because our "welfare madness" is too deeply entrenched ... or maybe not, maybe we will see, in 2020, in Greece and Spain, how people cope when governments will not, because they cannot, help.

Then things like roads, food inspectors, defence, immigration controls, etc. etc., all supported by whom - charity?  I always thought our taxes were, at least in principle, meant to pay for things that we, as a society, have agreed should happen, and we're basically employing the government to make it so on our behalf.  That would be for the benefit of all of us, not for the benefit of the government.  I know that's the ideal, and there's also much waste and self-serving policy implementation, but I'm not sure that means we should throw out the state as an actor in our society. 

And as for private charity, there is much already - I know this from looking at my own tax returns.  Unfortunately it's often not enough - just ask anyone working at the food bank, SPCA, cancer society, what-have-you.  If the only people who support these requirements financially are the ones with the means & motivation to do so privately, a lot of things in our society that we consider important wouldn't get done. 

On the other hand - maybe we should do this:
http://www.basicincome.com/