One of the folks I talked to in Paris is a science writer who lives in Oxford. He bemoaned the stupidity of his Brexiting countrymen (and women). His main argument was that the UK transferred much less to poorer EU states than rich US states did to poorer US states. Thus he couldn’t understand why Brits whined about contributing to, say, the Greeks.
This raises a simple question: why was the EU set up as an inter-country welfare system to begin with? If getting together in a union makes everyone richer wouldn’t the poorer states be happy to join without handouts?
The harder question for me to understand is why the union is fundamentally tied to geography. With container shipping it costs less to send a product from Korea to England than from England to Italy by rail. Did someone in England actually decide that it would be better to be clustered with no-growth high-debt Italy than with high-growth low-debt Korea?
They want to create as much international dependency as possible. They would assimilate Korea into the Borg, if they could.
Because the project is an attempt to put an end to centuries of war on the continent through closer economic integration.
What Pierre said. This is a political union that doesn’t make economic sense except if war is avoided. It is hard to imagine today the animosity between France and Germany just 75-100 years ago.
What Pierre and David said backed up by http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WF.CHAP7.HTM
Additionally, 40-60 years ago Korea was a war torn agricultural state of little importance and container ships were fewer and far more expensive. Italy, on the other hand, had olives and a still undead fascist undercurrent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Social_Movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_massacre
But boy, did they have the slogans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Fascism#Italian_Fascist_slogans
Also the union might make a bit economic sense: with no toll barriers, national producers of light bulbs or cars were no longer protected from outside competition. They had to improve or die. Improved products were popular on the world market. i.e. the 50 year curve of
http://www.statista.com/statistics/347054/unit-sales-of-mercedes-benz-cars/
These unions, including the United State of America, are fundamentally about geopolitics and ethnicity. You have to try taking off your merchant bean counting hat. The point of the EU is ultimately to wield power internationally and have a unified defense. A trade block of koreans and scots and chileans can’t do this. America is what it is in substantial part because it unified to dominate the continent and project power.
Pierre says: “Because the project is an attempt to put an end to centuries of war on the continent through closer economic integration.” This is my understanding, as well. Seems like it would be easier just to prevent Germany from re-arming, but I guess that’s a little too direct of a solution to propose, eh?