Comment on Majority of Americans continue to favor moving away from Electoral College
sj_zero 1 year agoBritain has been a disaster for Britain. Their leadership is terrible. It would be weak as part of the EU as well. At least this way the bad decisions are their own, and they can pay the consequences for them, and perhaps change them at sometime in the future.
Contrast with Greece, which isn't in good shape, but is stuck doing what other people from competing regions tell them to do.
PizzaMan@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Absolutely. Tbeir leadership is a joke. However the actual effect of them leaving the EU was what I was referring to. They have to pay way more for import/export, they no longer have the same freedom to travel, it’s fucked their economy, there is less competition for products so the items available to them are worse.
It’s not just the leadership, it’s the effects of leaving itself that are a huge part of the issue.
I’m not super familiar with Greece’s particular situation, but I think what we’ve seen from Brexit would make it pretty clear that it would be a disaster for Greece to leave as well. The economic hardships caused by increasing the barrier to entry for trade is disastrous. It would also make it significantly harder for them to compete, because anything to find with Greece would become more expensive.
And this is all ignoring one of the biggest reasons for the EU, which is to avoid war. The amount of bloodshed Europe had to go through to get to the current level of cooperation and stability was also disastrous. Taking a step towards that happening again is a terrible idea, and that applies here in the U.S. as well.
If each state was it’s own independent country, the incentive for war suddenly increases.
sj_zero 1 year ago
The Brits are just ahead of the curve, deglobalization is occurring.
Stuff like peace was caused by the hegemony of the American empire, but the American empire appears to be teetering and a new age of multipolar pluralism is imminent, which is already leading to wars because countries don't think a weakened United states can stop them.
What we seem to be seeing now is war in europe and civil war in America. It isn't unprecedented in history, world war 1 started in a other era when everyone thought all the entangling alliances would prevent another war.
Talk of civil war in America is sorta debatable but a lot of people are calling some of the big events of the past few years civil war-like. The polarization, mistrust, and escalation of violence and use of institutional power to harm political opponents doesn't bode well.
Of course, my view isn't the most likely one out there, and it's all a matter of interpretation.
PizzaMan@lemmy.world 1 year ago
On destroying their economy? On making it harder for their citizens to travel (and therefore their freedom)?
If that’s being ahead of the curve then nobody in their right mind will want to be “ahead”.
The U.S. has definitely played a part. But it’s downright ridiculous to assign credit for the relative stability of international politics (a famously not so sinple/straightforward thing) on a single country/thing.
The E.U., NATO, and the countless trade agreements that are flying around have played a huge part.
Alliances were the only thing they used. Nowadays international trade does far more to prevent war than it ever has. Nobody ever wants to go to war with a big trade partner, as it would destroy your economy.
What you’re saying is downright bizarre. Somehow you hold the view that international war is right around the corner because of a weakened U.S., and at the same time you think countries ought to be dividing themselves and cutting off ties. It makes no sense at all.
sj_zero 1 year ago
In an era of deglobalization as it appears we're entering, it's going to increase the cost of things and increase the pain of making and buying things. If that's an inevitability (and I'd accept that perhaps it isn't), then getting ahead of the curve will mean that when the effects of deglobalization are just starting to hurt others, the brits will be further along in the process, potentially giving them a competitive advantage. Globalization and deglobalization are both situations that had positive and negative elements. Globalization has definitely increased global wealth and helped us buy cheap stuff, but it's also helped create more inequality and made global labour a race to the bottom. This isn't the first or last cycle of globalization or deglobalization, so even if you'd prefer it not happen, if it's going to happen anyway I suspect it might be better to have the pain sooner so you can have the benefits sooner too.
I suppose deglobalization doesn't necessarily mean a total end of trade. For example, even during eras of deglobalization, countries tended to continue to trade with their immediate neighbors. One benefit of getting in on deglobalization earlier than others would be fostering those relationships with trading partners outside of the context of globalization early with commensurate benefits of being an early mover.
The European Union isn't a very old organization, only being about 50 years old. It's entirely possible for such an organization to collapse under the strain of future issues such as an expanded and more militaristic Russia, and multiple impending sovereign debt crises resulting in part from a long-term cyclic increase in the cost of debt. Greece had just one such crisis and it resulted in much conflict as a relatively healthy Germany took the lead in helping to deal with that. If multiple such crises occurred and perhaps if the core economies in Europe such as Germany were not as healthy. In such a situation, countries already established with other countries individually would definitely benefit compared to countries suddenly fighting to figure out how to deal with multiple major issues at once.
There have been a number of different eras where hegemony of a certain empire makes wars largely uneconomical for other players. The Roman Empire's biggest rival was itself, for example. While there are other factors at play, those could come and go but the world superpower putting its thumb on the scale has an outsized impact.
If trade were necessarily a panacaea that ended all war, then there wouldn't be a war in Ukraine right now. Instead, we're seeing the western world tearing itself apart trying to use tools that aren't as powerful as they act and it seems they're in the process they're creating a more multipolar world since other countries go "Ok, I'll buy if they don't".
It seems to me that there are interconnected but separate issues related to unifying countries for the purpose of mutual aid and dividing countries for the purpose of giving different ethnic, religious, or political groups autonomy to prevent civil conflict, and that's why my viewpoints seem to be contradictory. While in an era of increased global conflict you might want to maintain a larger union to have more resources to defend against attack, you also need to ensure that the global conflict isn't internal civil war or other conflicts so your unified country can properly deal with internal and external crises. We have historical examples like Yugoslavia which point to a dangers of maintaining large unions when there isn't the civic harmony to support such unions. Both are occurring right now, because the same holistic factors that lead to one also lead to the other.
Some obvious potential counterpoints to what I've said would be that you might not think that a cycle of deglobalization is occurring so one country deglobalizing while everyone else further globalizes would not necessarily lead to competitive advantage (particularly for an island nation with limited local resources) since all it would do is increase local prices, and I think there's arguments to be made both ways but the conclusions I've personally come to based on the way the world is right now is that we're deglobalizing; You could remain completely unconvinced that the hegemonic power of the American empire is the driving force of the past 70 years of relative peace, and while I could give more examples where this happened, the world is complex enough that we could both have good facts and good logic and still come to different conclusions; My argument about trade not necessarily being a panacaea is certainly a bit weak because although it is true I can come up with examples where trade did not stop conflict, we also have examples of longstanding relationships where trade helped with cultural exchange and other beneficial effects so it's entirely possible to disagree with good logic and true facts; and finally my viewpoint of the contradictory nature of larger countries and civil conflicts isn't the only view on the matter and there have been examples throughout history of multicultural unions that didn't have massive existential problems as a result, such as imperial China or imperial Rome. Again, it's a matter where looking at things from different viewpoints two people could come to quite different opinions using solid logic and true facts.