From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
Subject: Re: European Democracy (was: Why did Denmark
Date: 15 Oct 1992 20:47:46 GMT
Organization: sgi
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1992Oct15.174230.3041@eua.ericsson.se>, etxjpll@eua.ericsson.se (Peter Lund) writes:
|> In article 1bi5uhINNfd9@fido.asd.sgi.com, livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
|> 
|> >Democracy is useful at the political level,
|> >but we don't have democratic control of markets becasue markets
|> >are better at managing themselves than democracy is.    Set democracy
|> >loose on markets and what you get is the UK from 1945-79.    I lived
|> >through that, and I don't want it back, thanks all the same.
|> 
|> The US federative ecomonic model with rather small share of common 
|> economic policy, does of course work. But there is a choise here. 
|> Do we (Europeans) want the economically very loose American model or 
|> do we want something else? I'd say something else. 

Well, if you think, as you seem to, that a "rather small share of 
common economic policy" works, why change?

|> The US model leads halfway to a economic policy, that I label a 
|> "lowest common denominator" policy. If one state lower its taxes, 
|> other states feel the presure to follow. If a large company wants 
|> to make a big investment somewhere, it will probably ask and deal 
|> with several different states before it decides where to invest. 
|> Then it will invest its money in that state where the best deal was 
|> struck (where the biggest concession from the political system was 
|> made). This type of political blackmail will move political power 
|> to the industry, away from our democratically elected leaders. 
|> This wouldn't be democracy, in my opinion!

And I'm asking, so what?    If one state in Europe decides to
compete with the others for a particular investment, so what?
Are you going to insist that the EC has to take a decision
centrally every time Germany and the UK are competing for the
same Japanese investment?   That's like saying that every time
Georgia and Kentucky are competing for the same Japanese investment
the Federal Government has to make the choice.

That's foolish.   Let Germany and the UK come up with their best
offers, and then let the Japanese investor decide.   After all,
its his money.

|> 
|> This difference in where political/economical power is, has been and 
|> I hope will still in the future be, the biggest political difference 
|> between the US and Europe.

If that's so - if you just want to do things differently to
the US - then maybe the UK should join NAFTA rather than the
EC.

However, I don't think that this is so.    The EC is not 
working in isolation.   They have to compete in a world market, 
and that increasingly means competing with economies which
use free markets becasue they are more efficient.    If the EC
interferes with markets because they have the illusion that
interfering with markets is somehow more "democratic", then
all that will happen is that jobs will move out of Europe to
places where governments leave markets alone.

jon. 
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec