quinta-feira, outubro 28, 2004
Richard Epstein, Professor de Direito na Universidade de Chigado deu recentemente uma conferência intitulada "American Federalism: Lessons for Britain And the EU". A New Frontiers Foundation disponibilizou a transcrição e um sumário de três páginas.
Um resumo dos pontos mais importantes:
There is a theoretical question you have to answer: why would anyone want to engage in a system of federalism to begin with? What are the conditions under which it is likely to be successful and the conditions under which it is likely to fail?
If you have a very high degree of heterogeneity amongst the various units that you are trying to put together and they are not facing any kind of external threat which would require some degree of military cohesion, then an open trade union is probably going to be a better way in which you can facilitate interactions than a federalist system.
There is no need whatsoever to have a strong federal system if the only object that you wish to have is to secure free trade across various borders.
When you come inside the European Union, harmonisation will in fact become a synonym for cartelisation.
Remember all the talk of community, all the talk of sharing, all the talk of enlightened self-interest, all the talk of public responsibility - every single piece of legislation that you find that invokes those values turns out in the end to be a covert effort on the part of one group to create a monopoly power for itself by excluding its rivals.
Your federalism is the absolute inverse of ours. We joined together because of the military stuff - you are joining together when you refuse to do the military stuff. We are joined together with a common language, you are joining together in circumstances where you won't invite each other to dinner.
If you believe centralised management will outperform individual choice in the way you put together goods and services, that will influence everything that happens thereafter. I happen to think that the localised version of the world is more powerful than the centralised version of the world. I think you have to find good reasons to create centralised authority, not good reasons to abandon it, and where you start will determine in large part where you end. The single most powerful condemnation of the EU Constitution is it starts everything off on the wrong foot.
I would think that the model of the Articles of Confederation is a better model for you than the one of the United States Constitution. I would rather start from a non-discrimination rule because I see what happened in the United States when we gave affirmative powers to regulate commerce - and it has been one long disaster.
[With the current dynamic of the EU and the Constitution] you run the risk of serious economic implosion because there's no feedback mechanism on the people who have the power to dictate to everybody.
posted by Miguel Noronha 4:53 da tarde
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