From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 23 2002 - 11:47:23 MDT
Charlie Stross wrote:
Ah, but the EU does other things. For starters, it's globalization done
right -- with free movement of labour alongside free movement of goods
and services.
### Actually, I agree with you - since one of the main uses for a good
government is displacing the bad ones (govt. function #1), it's nice to have
a government which limits the local strongmen in their ability to keep the
citizen-laborers under their thumb. If your 15 or so governments get
replaced by the EU, it's like having 14 leeches off your back. But the
replacement bloodsucker is a mighty big one. Now all you need to do is
starve it down to a manageable size.
-------
Efficient trade requires some degree of standardization
of, for example, weights and measures, labelling, quality metrics, and
so on: these are things the EU is good at.
### Again, surprisingly, I kind of agree with you - provision of certain
types of information-related services, govt. function #2. Except that this
function costs peanuts compared to the 10 billion we know is wasted by the
EU (plus a hideously large sum we'll hear about once real accountants get a
look at the books). Take a scalpel and chop 4/5 off the leeches' length,
that will do.
-----
And one thing we don't
hear a lot about is the size of the EU bureaucracy -- which, in total,
employs fewer officials
### Yes, but how much money does each one of them waste? I bet it's more
than the Scots do, per capita. Not that I want to promulgate any
stereotypes.
---------
Summary: the EU has problems but we'd have bigger problems without the
EU, and the problems are probably fixable.
### You are right on both counts. Take a scalpel and start slashing.
Rafal
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