According to the New York Times, the IMF had more influence
in the European debt crisis than did many E.U. states. Put another way,
Christine Lagarde, head of the organization, became “a quasi head of state.”
Without the advice and money from the IMF, the euro might have collapsed. If
one could believe the rhetoric, the E.U. itself might have broken up. But the
threat to the Union lies not in the euro, but, rather, on the emphasis on the
state governments and in particular their respective officials. Indeed, the
crucial role of the IMF during the debt crisis may have been in looking out for
the interests of the E.U. in contradistinction to the various interests of the
state governments. “In the absence of a strong federal government in Europe,”
according to the Times, the IMF has helped “impose order on quarreling [state]
leaders.” Put another way, if the balance of power in the federal system did
not reside with the states at the expense of the federal government, the
Europeans would not have had to rely on the IMF so much. For example, Lagarde played an important role, according to
the Times, in “overcoming German reluctance to accept proposals intended to
strengthen the euro zone, like a centralized bank supervisor.” Because the
proposals involved shifting additional governmental sovereignty from the state
governments to the federal level, the heads of the state governments faced a
conflict of interest in assessing whether to support a federal regulator even
though it would be in the interest of the whole.
The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.
The world itself might just be such a ride, with us mere earthlings playing
out our respective roles while spinning around and around as the world goes by
once and then again, and again. Lest it seem monotonous to go around in
circles, it is possible—at least in
principle—to learn something new on each pass. Weighing against a learning-curve that might
thwart an eternal recurrence of past failures are other, less salubrious
proclivities of the mind. These include (but are not limited to) avarice,
power, and even the force of habit. More damning still may be the arrogance of
pride—the hubris of presumption. 
