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Should the US and GB now form their own union?

4 points by bawana ↗ HN
It seems that the nation-state is buried in our DNA. We still like to belong to a tribe. All conflict today is still rooted in the differences of our tribes. Leaving aside for the moment why humans like to celebrate their differences rather than the strength of their synergistic cooperation, can we embrace this fact? Since the US and GB have more in common than GB and the EU, should we form our own 'Anglo-Saxon' union? Is language a strong enough denominator?

I feel bad for the those who struggled to start their businesses in GB now only to find their products and services in the EU more expensive. It seems the EU will get 'their pound of flesh' from GB one way or another. Can we help these young startups and companies by opening our markets to them?

The devaluation of the pound has been stark and no doubt a lot of US money is already flowing to GB. By exempting any new GB services and products from US sales and other taxes we could make a good first step in supporting their economy and the jobs they will lose by leaving the EU. The increased demand for US products and services will support jobs here. And GB in turn could eliminate taxes for all new US products and services. (the new vs old distinction is a compromise I make to the politicians whose salaries depend on money obtained through taxation. I do not want to jeopardize their view of the world by reducing their collections. New economic growth should not be taxed, at least for 20 years. We give our children this kind of support, why not our fledgling businesses?)

8 comments

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mtgx
In terms of being surveillance buddies, UK has certainly acted more like the 51st U.S. state than an EU member state (by helping US spy on EU countries).
[dead] eulji
Most of the Ost bloc countries like Brits more than the germans or french. UK could have benefited from investing more to the Ost bloc and forming new partnerships. Instead they let the Germans to enslave the Ost bloc economically and politically.
thatcat
'United Union' has a nice redundancy to it. don't forget Canada, Australia, South Africa, India, and Nigeria should also be considered since they have so many English speakers [0] and were colonies of the United Kingdom at one point.

I thought Brexit was intended as a nationalist policy to protect jobs so I'm not sure they'd be into any Unions with US considering the high number of unemployed adults that would enable to migrate to their tiny island.

[0]http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-most...

gjkood
Or you can just join the Commonwealth, which is the collection of countries that were part of the British Empire at some point.
bawana
Indeed, third world immigrants work for less than the natives. Same is true here in the US. But I dont think the pay scale between the UK and the US is that much different for most jobs. Anyway, Ireland has been playing tax shelter for many US corporations. I wonder if we are indirectly funding the EU this way. By making Britain part of the 'United Union', they might capture jobs that would otherwise go to Eire.
internaut
Would there be something wrong with a Trading block made up of countries that contain people who share a common culture? e.g. mostly but not exclusively white people in countries such as Australia, Canada, United States, Ireland, Scotland and so on. Nine out of ten of us have direct relations in these places. It could be called: The Anglo-sphere ex the Third World or Commonwealth 2.0.

If so, why is that?

Your answer must make sense in the context of the AU and ASEAN.

> I thought Brexit was intended as a nationalist policy to protect jobs

No. This is a misunderstanding perpetuated by media which is why they imagine babbling about currency fluctuations matters. It is true that people are (reasonably) angry about stagnant wages and a high cost of living but if they wanted handouts the Leave Campaign would have been largely about that, which it wasn't despite the press's noise making machine.

To explain fully I'll unfortunately need to break Godwin's law but it's for a good purpose, which is to use an historical comparison with knowledge you already know. When Hitler swept into power it is true that the middle classes were suffering from dire deprivation. It is however not true that he was voted in on economic grounds. When people get angry enough about circumstances they become political, and economic considerations become secondary. That's what you're seeing now. It's not like university students who are Marxists for a season, once you turn working class people political it is not easily undone.

This has a nasty implication that the establishment press is steadfastly refusing to acknowledge, which is that voiding the results of this referendum will almost certainly lead to violence. That's not an idle threat. One person has already been murdered as you know, and nearly 50% of those 52% of voters believed the government would tamper with the vote. Waving the idea of ignoring this result is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. If you think the police are going to protect students from working class rioters you are mistaken, which will mean unless they're willing to risk martial law the Remain camp must back down.

bawana
I wonder what prevents GB from doing a Greek thing? You know, the Greeks voted overwhelmingly not to honor the debt to the EU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_bailout_referendum,_2015

But in the end the govt did not honor that vote. Greece is still functioning-no increased amount of violence. And they have big payments due still. GB was smart to get out before they end up in the same hole.

internaut
Courage, which is a quality lacking in the world.

I am quite honestly not a fan of democracy despite this referendum suiting me. Despite that I think that the Greek vote should have been honoured for sensible fiscal reasons. They should have left the EU and adopted a new currency. My own country Ireland should have done the same thing. We famously voted No to the Lisbon Treaty and it was ignored. That was a mistake. We've been paying off a mountain of debt that does not rightfully belong to us. I think the Irish will gradually realize, along with it dawning on the others, that the European Union is unable to function without giving up sovereignty altogether.

Politically I much prefer a diversity of loosely tied independent trading nation states. That hedges against a lot of the worse outcomes. Milton Friedman predicted the common currency could not ultimately work and I have not seen a good argument against his points.

Suppose that a European Hegemony is a good idea but we just don't have the governmental apparatus to make it work in the present. That still leaves the question of the utility of the thing. What is it for?

Governments should exist for a purpose. They should solve problems people can't solve on their own. I see little evidence really fundamental issues like European reproduction rates, zero percent interest rates not to mention waves of foreigners who have decided to make Europe their home can be solved at present by the European Union.

It is annoying to have politicians and intellectuals pretend this is a solved problem we figured out decades ago. It is nothing of the sort. If interests are not aligned we cannot pull together with full strength.