For obvious reasons, this
meme above has been doing the rounds recently - purporting to offer a Monty
Python-esque rhetorical look at how we've benefitted so greatly from being in
the EU. It's a remarkable creation, because pretty much none of the
proclamations on the list actually do offer a net benefit to our being in the
EU, and the few that do point towards being benefits that would require a lot more
unpacking before a robust conclusion is reached, making the list almost entirely superfluous.
To show why, I've grouped them into my perceived categories of error, and highlighted them in the following way:
Category 1 Yellow - Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc Fallacy: in these cases: Since Y (outcome) followed event X (the formation of the EU), Y must have been caused by X. It almost certainly would have happened anyway, especially with the technological advances we’ve made.
Category 2 Red - Irrelevant, this is one for markets to solve in accordance with their own domestic political legislation, not the EU.
Category 3 Blue - Not a benefit at all because it’s a bad policy, or at the very least one that falls under number Category 1, and probably would have been introduced domestically if good.
Category 4 Green - Too vague to be meaningful, and/or no attempt to justify net benefits in a cost-benefit analysis to determine which aspects of the policy are good and which are not.
(Some have two colours where both apply)
The ones un-highlighted,
I've left for comment – they are:
- The right to work in the EU
My comment: Sorry, no, that’s slippery. You can’t create something like the EU, tell us we have a right to work in it, and then claim it as a benefit. People should have the right to work wherever they want
- 3 million jobs
My comment: No,
this fails to understand the basics of economics. Jobs are a cost, not a
benefit. Plus if you create the EU and it's a net bad institution, then the
jobs are providing less value than if the workers would doing more productive
things. The o
- Single market, with no export charges or red tape
My comment: Indeed, but the whole world should be a single market with no export changes and as little bureaucracy as possible.
Final comment:
I think the best things about the EU involve connectivity and collaboration for
the mutual benefit of EU citizens – things like mutually established healthcare across Europe, visa-free
travel across
Alas, most of the so-called benefits listed on the viral document are embarrassingly weak - and the creator needs to think a bit harder.
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