No, there’s not a market-liberal case for Brexit | Bleeding Heart Libertarians - Jacob T. Levy:
June 27, 2016 - "I’ve been dismayed to see how many – not a majority, but a long way above 'none' – of my libertarian friends on social media are either enthusiastic about British exit from the EU or indifferent-leaning-favorable....
"The market-liberal case for Brexit blends together a view that eliminating a level of government is usually good; generalized skepticism of distant and central authority; and specific beliefs about the planning, socialist, or overregulatory propensities of the EU in particular relative to the UK. For there to be a good market-liberal case for Brexit, the weight of these arguments had better be overwhelming, given the obvious goods of liberalized migration and trade across the EU....
"Now, the 'one less level of government / distant bureaucrats' hunches should only ever be hunches. With Madison, Acton, and Hayek, I think there’s a great deal to be said for compound systems in which a relatively distant and unloved center exists to check the relatively local units that engender too much enthusiasm for state power, and that when 'decentralization' means 'vesting sole power in a Weberian nation-state,' the virtues of decentralization will be very hard to come by. The natural skepticism of a level of government like that found in Brussels gives way to considerable overconfidence in the level of government like that found in London. An system of both institutional checks and balances and popular vigilance against abuses of power is replaced by a system that has neither....
"The single-market rules and regulations have some genuinely market-friendly features. One of the most important of these is the set of policies that prohibit subsidies and trade distortions favoring national-champion firms. Think about the competition to lavish subsidies on professional sports teams in the United States … applied to much bigger and more important sectors of the economy. That kind of crony capitalism is ruled out by the EU.... And Brexit supporters are well aware of this....
"On the regulatory side – which is what the right-leaning British press talks about a lot – there's the usual number of silly and micromanaging stories that emerge out of any regulatory system. Bananas and vacuum cleaners and light bulbs, oh my. But these are anecdata....
"According to the 2015 Economic Freedom of the World report’s overall measure for regulatory burden, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Ireland, and Romania are all less regulated than the UK. The most recent Heritage index of 'business freedom' ranks Denmark, Finland, Germany, and Sweden ahead of the UK; for labor freedom, Denmark, Austria, and Ireland. In all these cases, these relatively-liberal EU countries compare favorably with other developed countries in or out of the EU.... I don’t see any reason to think that there’s some tremendous unmet demand for deregulation in the British political system, or that overall leaving the EU will much lighten the total regulatory load when the UK is often above the EU floor anyway.
"One final thought.... The UK has been an important part of the relatively liberal bloc ... And the desire to placate Britain has put brakes on some of the most statist tendencies in Brussels. (This is similar the kind of thing I argue about federalism in general. A pluralistic federation like Canada is probably freer with a skeptical Quebec on the inside and always threatening to leave than either rump-Canada or Quebec would be post-separation).... [T]he likelihood is that overall economic freedom will decline even if there’s some increase in it in Britain — which, again, I don’t see any reason to expect."
http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2016/06/no-theres-not-a-market-liberal-case-for-brexit/
'via Blog this'
June 27, 2016 - "I’ve been dismayed to see how many – not a majority, but a long way above 'none' – of my libertarian friends on social media are either enthusiastic about British exit from the EU or indifferent-leaning-favorable....
"The market-liberal case for Brexit blends together a view that eliminating a level of government is usually good; generalized skepticism of distant and central authority; and specific beliefs about the planning, socialist, or overregulatory propensities of the EU in particular relative to the UK. For there to be a good market-liberal case for Brexit, the weight of these arguments had better be overwhelming, given the obvious goods of liberalized migration and trade across the EU....
"Now, the 'one less level of government / distant bureaucrats' hunches should only ever be hunches. With Madison, Acton, and Hayek, I think there’s a great deal to be said for compound systems in which a relatively distant and unloved center exists to check the relatively local units that engender too much enthusiasm for state power, and that when 'decentralization' means 'vesting sole power in a Weberian nation-state,' the virtues of decentralization will be very hard to come by. The natural skepticism of a level of government like that found in Brussels gives way to considerable overconfidence in the level of government like that found in London. An system of both institutional checks and balances and popular vigilance against abuses of power is replaced by a system that has neither....
"The single-market rules and regulations have some genuinely market-friendly features. One of the most important of these is the set of policies that prohibit subsidies and trade distortions favoring national-champion firms. Think about the competition to lavish subsidies on professional sports teams in the United States … applied to much bigger and more important sectors of the economy. That kind of crony capitalism is ruled out by the EU.... And Brexit supporters are well aware of this....
"On the regulatory side – which is what the right-leaning British press talks about a lot – there's the usual number of silly and micromanaging stories that emerge out of any regulatory system. Bananas and vacuum cleaners and light bulbs, oh my. But these are anecdata....
"According to the 2015 Economic Freedom of the World report’s overall measure for regulatory burden, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Ireland, and Romania are all less regulated than the UK. The most recent Heritage index of 'business freedom' ranks Denmark, Finland, Germany, and Sweden ahead of the UK; for labor freedom, Denmark, Austria, and Ireland. In all these cases, these relatively-liberal EU countries compare favorably with other developed countries in or out of the EU.... I don’t see any reason to think that there’s some tremendous unmet demand for deregulation in the British political system, or that overall leaving the EU will much lighten the total regulatory load when the UK is often above the EU floor anyway.
"One final thought.... The UK has been an important part of the relatively liberal bloc ... And the desire to placate Britain has put brakes on some of the most statist tendencies in Brussels. (This is similar the kind of thing I argue about federalism in general. A pluralistic federation like Canada is probably freer with a skeptical Quebec on the inside and always threatening to leave than either rump-Canada or Quebec would be post-separation).... [T]he likelihood is that overall economic freedom will decline even if there’s some increase in it in Britain — which, again, I don’t see any reason to expect."
http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2016/06/no-theres-not-a-market-liberal-case-for-brexit/
'via Blog this'
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