The UK’s relationship to what is now called the European Union has always been ambivalent
With Scotland’s independence referendum in the rear-view mirror, the UK is on course for another mass public consultation, perhaps even as early as this coming June. The question will be direct: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union? This is known in media parlance as Brexit,…
The intellectual divorce between economics and political science led to the Greek crisis
Economics is a subject with a long and distinguished pedigree, featuring such towering intellectuals and philosophers as Plato and Aristotle to economists like Sir James Steuart and Francois Quesnay, the Frenchman who gave the study its modern foundations. Unfortunately, the discipline split into two distinctive subject areas in the 20th century – economics and political…
Absent its own currency and the ability to conduct an independent monetary policy, no country can be really sovereign
As I write this, the Greek drama is at its umpteenth crisis point. Will it go over the brink this time? If it does, could it conceivably take the euro with it? And what in heaven’s name is going on in Europe – purportedly the world’s most sophisticated polity. Theoretically, the 1648 Peace of Westphalia…
But it may have been better for Europe if he had won
June is a big month for historical anniversaries. Last week, I wrote about the 800th birthday of Magna Carta – the medieval charter that’s often described as seminal to the development of parliamentary democracy. This week, it’s the Battle of Waterloo, the clash that finally ended the Napoleonic era. It all happened on June 18,…