A United Europe?

by Alexander Jousse
The Dollar Vigilante

Recently by Alexander Jousse: Italy On the Verge of a Full Revolt

Since the start of the European debt crisis, there has been some growing opposition to the idea of a united Europe. Well, this had to stop, so the best thing would be to label anyone against Europe as neo-Nazi holocaust denier. End of argument. Since the Nobel Mass Murderer Peace Prize was given to the EU, anyone who is against the EU is obviously against peace and the institutions that have worked so tirelessly to prevent the reincarnation of Hitler. If you are against peace in Europe, then you are obviously a pro-Hitler Nazi who loves war and gas chambers; then whatever you say can be comfortably ignored.

While Europe is very liberal about public nudity and mixed naked saunas, it does not tolerate the questioning of the current zeitgeist. Most Europeans are very proud of their slavery and piously pontificate on the superiority of their communist federation. The current riots across Europe are not against communism, but about who gets the money; the current oligarchy or the proletariat.

Communist, you say! 

Most people think that Europe is socialist, because that is how people in Europe describe it; even if you prefer to ignore the communist backgrounds of its leaders such as European Commission President Jose Barroso. When you spend some time reading official Commission press releases, you will come to the uncomfortable conclusion that the EU is not just Communist, but dangerously so. For example, consider this press release about milk quotas; obviously there must be some international crisis in milk production, why else have quotas? Read the press release further and you will note that the problem is not a shortage of milk, but a surplus of milk. Six countries have exceeded their milk production quotas and now the farmers must be punished for their heinous crime. The only difference is that they no longer shoot farmers, they merely force them into bankruptcy.

The EU, or more precisely the European Commission, has a propaganda department called DG-Comm. Its mission, in their own words, is “to develop for European citizens a sense of ownership of European integration and identity and to support their EU-wide civic participation”. Is that not collectivist double think or what? Besides the great DG-Comm media machine, there are several newspapers that publish hysterical warbling about some new problem that demands immediate action. According to one rag, the British government is “uncooperative and springs sudden surprises on their unsuspecting  EU partners”, or “the relationship between the EU and Switzerland is dysfunctional and Berns intransigence is threatening its access to the EU markets”. There are countless more examples of this aggressive group think coming out of Brussels ranging from the base to the more sophisticated, but al of it is nonsensical.  

Now, as to why I call the EU a federation instead of a common market or club is due to the following. The EU has a unique body of law called the Acquis Communautaire, which governs the relationship of all member states. It has a “Supreme Court”,  called the European Court of Justice, and its rulings supersede all national courts regarding EU law. Then there is the European Parliament, its law is the supreme law of Europe; failure to enact EU legislation results in large fines. The European Commision is the executive and administrative branch of the EU; soon it could have the power to veto national budgets. Then finally there is ECB; the central bank to rule all central banks and in darkness bind them. With the ECBs new mission to lower bond yields though its direct bond buying program; the EU can directly manipulate the economy of every member state and punish non-compliant ones. Currently the EU functions like a federation, but the euro elite want to change it into a “super state”. 

In order to solve the problems created by central planning, artificially low interest rates and money printing; the Commission has decided the solution is to do more of the same. They recently announced this plan as ‘”a new thinking for Europe”, and it is nothing more than a pimped up version of the usual communist claptrap, but including nice happy words such as democracy, fairness, equity, growth, protection, and reform.

With this plan the European elite will force political and economic integration through the manipulation of the financial system and subversion of the political systems within member states. To start the process, the Commission will shortly release a plan for direct oversight of the banks and member states budgets. This, coupled with the ECB’s direct bond-buying program; non-compliant states will be punished with withdrawal of funds, budget vetoes, or high bond yields. For ideological reasons a financial transactions tax will be forced upon everyone; it has a wide support within Europe and the only dissenting country is the United Kingdom. To keep everyone equally strangled within the EU,  there is the proposal to introduce a “fair” universal tax system; this will try to prevent the movement of jobs and people across the union and finally remove all of the ‘unfair’ tax competition. But in the lingo of the times, it is not tax competition but, “unfair tax subsidies implemented by rogue member states”.

Finally the most subversive proposal would be the creation of officially sanctioned, pan European political parties. Having political parties headquartered in Brussels but active in national legislatures will be a way to stifle anti-EU sentiments. Eventually national governments will be filled entirely by pro-EU clones. As many people in Europe see politics as the only way to succeed, the ambitious and foolish will readily sell themselves for career and job security.

These changes will certainly make it impossible to conduct business in Europe. One reason that parts of Eastern Europe were able to grow was the removal of red tape and punitive taxes. With a universal tax system companies can no longer increase profits by moving, areas with less developed infrastructure can no longer attract investors with low tax policies. What jobs that are left, will be clustered around decaying cities; this will lead to more centrally planned projects that will push Europe further into its death spiral. Slave on slave violence will increase, as everyone will be afraid of losing what little that they have.

So how can sane people fight this beast without becoming martyrs?

These rigidly bureaucratic systems provide the key to their own demise. The people within the system are obsessively afraid of official black marks and bad job reports. All of the work within the system revolves around shuffling documents, responding to official inquiries, writing documents about responding to inquiries, writing documents about past response to official inquiries and writing documents about improving future response to official inquiries. When an official complaint is made, people within the system will be forced to respond to it in a timely manner. If you flood the system with more and more valid-looking complaints, more resources will be required to handle the workload; the workload expands geometrically as more resources are required to officially document and monitor every stage of the process. The system will eventually collapse when it is forced to allocate the majority of its resources to managing trivial matters. 

As an example, last week a greedy plantation manager was forced to resign because of (cough cough) asking “Swedish match” for contributions in order for Snus to be sold within the EU. He was brought down by a complaint to OLAF, which has kindly provided a service to make anonymous complaints, click here to fire the commissioner of your choice.

Reprinted with permission from The Dollar Vigilante.

November 17, 2012

Alexander Jousse has been an anarcho-capitalist for eight years, learning through Lew Rockwell, Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises and Stefan Molyneux. But most importantly thinking, observing and asking questions. Alexander has lived in Italy for the last six years.

Copyright © 2012 The Dollar Vigilante