Hazony: the EU as an autocratic bureaucracy
In the December 2018 episode “Liberalism vs. Nationalism,” Yoram Hazony raised the European Union while arguing that democracy in the American or British sense is difficult to maintain even in countries considered advanced. He observed that the French state collapsed in the 1950s and that a military intervention took over the government and reestablished a new constitution, then asked whether the French and Germans had succeeded in being self-determining independent democratic nations since then. His answer was that he looks at the European Union not as a very democratic institution, describing it instead as a bureaucracy that autocratically imposes laws on countries that haven’t asked for those laws. Liberalism vs. Nationalism (2018)
Hazony’s broader argument in the episode was about American foreign policy, which he characterized as assuming that any kind of bad government needs to be stopped rather than only genocide. He called that view utopian — well-intentioned but not realistic — and said he does not think the United States has the ability to enter a foreign country it does not understand well and reshape its culture to make it a democracy in America’s image. The EU served in his remarks as evidence for the limits of that project: if the French and the Germans are not capable of maintaining a self-governing independent nation, he asked, why should we expect countries in other civilizations to do things the way we do. Liberalism vs. Nationalism (2018)
Zadek: the EU and the knowledge problem
Later in the same episode, Bob Zadek connected the European Union to a Hayekian argument about central planning. He invoked Hayek’s reminder that the unfettered marketplace, with millions of human beings making independent decisions, dictates the value of any good or service, and that central planning fails because planners are not smart enough. Zadek put aside the moral question of whether planners should usurp freedom of choice and rested on the practical one: nobody is smart enough to replace the function of millions of people operating in their own self-interest. Liberalism vs. Nationalism (2018)
Zadek then applied that point to the European Union, which he called, in his opinion, a somewhat failed experiment. He extended the same reasoning to the United States, describing American federalism as nationalism one notch down and arguing that states should have much more power because Washington does not know enough to manage each and every state. In his framing, the problem at the international level that Hazony pointed to and the problem at the national level within the United States are the same conversation with the same limitations. Liberalism vs. Nationalism (2018)
The EU and European taxation
The March 2019 episode with David Henderson on Trumponomics, deficits and immigration touched on the European Union in the context of a value-added tax. Henderson said that many economist friends argue for a value-added tax and that he understands the economic arguments for it, but that they do not take account of how the politics would change: a VAT would breach the roughly 17 to 18 percent of GDP that the US government has kept revenues at over the last 65 or 70 years, and taxation would move toward European levels. David Henderson on Trumponomics, Deficits, and Immigration (2019)
Henderson pointed to Europe in the mid-1960s, when as part of the European Union and as part of some agreements, countries had to impose a value-added tax. Some countries did so with the idea of revenue neutrality, some to reduce government revenues as a percentage of GDP, and some to increase revenues as a percentage of GDP. The ones that did it to increase revenues succeeded; the ones that did it to hold revenues constant failed; and the one that did it to reduce revenues as a percentage of GDP also failed, if he remembered correctly. He added that on a chart of government revenues as a percentage of GDP, Western Europe starts a little higher than the United States and then diverges sharply after the mid-1960s, which is when Western Europe got very large government. David Henderson on Trumponomics, Deficits, and Immigration (2019)
Logan: NATO, the EU and European security
In the March 2022 episode with Justin Logan on Ukraine, Bob Zadek asked whether NATO had become a democracy club rather than simply a mutual defense treaty, and whether that need was already filled by the European Union — which he described as a club for people who have their fiscal and political house in order. Logan answered that NATO’s mission as a military alliance could be met by the EU, and identified two fundamental distinctions between them. The first and most important is that the United States is in NATO and not in the EU, which matters a great deal in military terms. The second, as Zadek had pointed out, is that NATO is a security organization and the European Union is not. Justin Logan on Ukraine (2022)
Logan described efforts, particularly in the 1990s and going back to the 1950s, to develop what was called a third force in Europe — a collective security organization among states that were both NATO members and EU members, pooling a security capability to secure themselves. The United States historically did not like the idea, he said, because it likes having influence and being able to tell countries what to do. He argued that Washington was assiduous through the 1990s and 2000s in stifling European security cooperation because it wanted those countries to stay in NATO and remain subject to American influence. Justin Logan on Ukraine (2022)
Logan added that it is not as though a meaningful European defense capability, a European army able to defend itself from Russia, or a European navy would attack the United States, and that the US would not engage in security competition or war with the European Union. He said that only in recent years, and perhaps recent months, have there been glimmers of change in Washington, in an era when the United States is supposed to be pivoting to Asia and dealing with China. Justin Logan on Ukraine (2022)
Across episodes: no development
The European Union appears in three episodes — “Liberalism vs. Nationalism” (2018), the David Henderson episode on Trumponomics, deficits and immigration (2019), and Justin Logan on Ukraine (2022) — but the excerpts show no development of a single argument across them: Hazony and Zadek treat the EU as an illustration of the limits of central planning and of imposed democracy, Henderson mentions it only as the setting for the mid-1960s value-added tax, and Logan discusses it only in contrast to NATO.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not describe the European Union’s institutions, founding treaties, membership, lawmaking procedures or history beyond the mid-1960s value-added tax episode and Hazony’s characterization of it as a bureaucracy. They do not state when the EU was founded, which countries belong to it, or how its laws are made or enforced. No guest offers a systematic account of the EU’s economic or foreign policy, and the excerpts contain no discussion of Brexit, the euro, or the European Commission, Parliament or Court of Justice.