Here We Go Again

[poliphilo]

Once upon a time- not so long ago- there was a thing called the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There was also a thing called the Ottoman Empire.  In their time they seemed like they were going to last forever. Only they didn't. Then there was the USSR...

Super states are inefficient. Power is centralised and ignorant and unresponsive. Their populations resent them. When they go it's all of a sudden- as if the only thing sustaining them were bluff. One day they blot out the sun, the next there's nothing left of them but a cloud of dust.

Once the cracks appear there's nothing to be done to save them. As now, with the EU...

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've always been a supporter of the EU, but suddenly it seems like a (good) idea that has had its day. You look at other experiments of this kind- and once they start coming apart they collapse very quickly. As you say, the politicians are busily trying to shore up the unsustainable.

First Greece, then Italy, then...?

I applaud Papandreou and his inconvenient democratic impulse.

[veronikos.livejournal.com]

I think Italy is further down the list. Unless, of course, they have also been cooking their books...which I would not disbelieve.

The EU will continue to exist, though. The administrative machinery, alone, is now too unwieldy to dismantle. *There* is the real hydra.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You reckon?

Its administrative machinery didn't save the USSR.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Neither do I to be honest... :)