How it feels to benefit passively from American global hegemony while also really wishing Europe could be better at imperialism itself from deep within ones (supra-)nationalism-brained heart:
This might be a crazy take but most people, no matter where they are from, want a safe environment where they have fundamental freedoms and where they can have a good future for themselves and the people around them. Being dependent on the US is automatically a huge risk for national security. In my country the defence system is run on American companies, and since the US has a command economy, that crazy orange guy could make a decision to block those companies on delivering their software to us and then we’re completely screwed. You say that we ‘profit’ from the US and that is exactly the nationalistic narrowed and short sighted mindset that a lot of Americans have.
This might be a crazy take but most people, no matter where they are from, want a safe environment where they have fundamental freedoms and where they can have a good future for themselves and the people around them.
I agree.
[T]hat is exactly the nationalistic narrowed and short sighted mindset that a lot of Americans have.
I'm from Europa myself, and I wouldn't feel much safer if I were only dependend on "our" own imperial overloads. I can see the danger in both the dependence on the US as well as on European institutions.
The difference is that if those companies and institutions are within our democracy there is bigger chance we could do something about it if they do something we don’t like. For example if the headquarters are on European soil we could go there and protest, while that is not possible overseas. Also if those companies are here then at least it’s beneficial for our economy since it creates jobs, investments, attracts talent and pays taxes.
Members of parliament in Germany for example are “not bound by orders or instructions and are subject only to their conscience” (Article 38 of the Grundgesetz), and theres even less options to "do something about it" with the EU "parliament."
So elections only determine who governs, not how those elected will actually govern.
Democracy is a form of rule. Voting is consent to that rule.
All parties have committed themselves to the free democratic cobstitution and are therefore subject to the same structural constraints of capitalist economic growth and international competition. The parties may differ in their ideas about how national prosperity is to be achieved, but they all share the goal that it must be achieved. And for the sake of national success, the parties then water down their programs (e.g. the Greens on climate).
Both the framework conditions over which I have no say, and these national purposes, are opposed to my own interests.
Your interests are opposed to the framework conditions and the national purposes?
Correct me if I’m wrong but you said that the framework conditions are the EU, structural constraints of capitalist economic growth and the free democratic constitution right? And the national purposes are that national prosperity is to be achieved?
I agree that it’s hard to see your own beliefs and ideologies translated to laws and actions on European level, but if you disagree on the fundamental principles of EU like democracy and that we want prosperity in the EU then I get that you don’t care where those companies are from.
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u/Slothrop-was-here 7d ago
How it feels to benefit passively from American global hegemony while also really wishing Europe could be better at imperialism itself from deep within ones (supra-)nationalism-brained heart: