Monday, September 24, 2012

Poor States in the U.S. and E.U.: A Drawback of Federalism

The state-debt crisis in the E.U. has had the unfortunate effect of exacerbating the prejudice in the northern states against the poorer southern states. The people in the latter states are purportedly lazier or more corrupt (e.g., Greece’s patronage system). Historically, it has even been thought that the warmer climate makes people less industriousness. Faced with this long history of prejudice, it is difficult to assume that shifting more governmental sovereignty from the states to the Union will somehow make Europe one big happy family. In other words, federalizing more competencies is unlikely to make every state economically on par with Germany.

The complete essay is in Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon.