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Imperial Delusions

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Re: Imperial Delusions

#61

Post by the-dude »

gambiting wrote: post #46
the-dude wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess he is Czech. I have heard similar sentiments from former East Bloc's. I can't blame 'em.

I always find it surprising when people call Czech Republic or Poland "eastern block". Those two couldn't be possibly more central European if they tried. Czech Republic especially reaches only marginally more east than Germany, and I doubt you'd call Germans "eastern Europeans".

Eastern Bloc was about political alignment. And I said 'former'.

And citizens from the DDR were actually called East Germans or Ossies.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#62

Post by User23 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #52
Godel_unicode wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very common practice for economies to peg their sovereign currency to a trading partner; there are on the order of 66 countries pegged to the US Dollar, and 20-odd pegged to the euro. If a country wanted to move off of the euro, it would be pretty easy to create a sovereign currency pegged to the euro 1:1 by the countries central bank. Then in the future they could simply unpeg (or change the rate) if that bec…

"it would be pretty easy to create a sovereign currency pegged to the euro 1:1 by the countries central bank" How will you protect the peg? If moving off the euro is taken as a sign of your weakness, defending the peg against the market shorting you will bleed your central bank dry.

It’s easy to put a ceiling on your country’s currency trading range. The Swiss did this. Whenever the franc got too high their central bank would sell however much was necessary to stabilize the price.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#63

Post by raverbashing »

inglor_cz wrote: post #33
fulafel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sovereign countries can exit anything they decide to, unless overpowered by force.

Now the question is: are you still a sovereign country if you pooled your currency with N other countries that exert a common decision power through a central bank over it? Having power over your own currency, in good or bad, is a typical attribute of being sovereign. There are minor exceptions (like Kosovo adopting euro unilaterally), but they are very untypical.

Are you still a sovereign country when your currency is worth absolutely nothing and most internal transactions are done in a foreign currency? (case of several countries?)

"Having power over your own currency" is something not even the US has. Of course they're the hardest to push, but they don't have full control.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#64

Post by inglor_cz »

gambiting wrote: post #39
nradov wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws are only binding on sovereign states to the extent they choose to follow. Any Euro zone country could simply change their internal laws to adopt a different currency. The EU has no way to stop that, although they could potentially impose some sanctions.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted, it's exactly right. Poland agreed to adopt the Euro as one of the conditions of being accepted, and then the global financial crash happened and basically said you know what guys, we won't be doing that after all. If a country wants to stop using Euro they absolutely can - it was proposed as one of the solutions to the issue of Greek national debt, them going back to the lir…

The euro is based on a treaty, and that treaty has zero provisions for countries leaving it.

Maybe the best expression would be "there is no legally defined, binding procedure for leaving the euro". Which means that whoever tries this first must expect a wild ride with absolutely nothing to lean against.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#65

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

gambiting wrote: post #39
nradov wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws are only binding on sovereign states to the extent they choose to follow. Any Euro zone country could simply change their internal laws to adopt a different currency. The EU has no way to stop that, although they could potentially impose some sanctions.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted, it's exactly right. Poland agreed to adopt the Euro as one of the conditions of being accepted, and then the global financial crash happened and basically said you know what guys, we won't be doing that after all. If a country wants to stop using Euro they absolutely can - it was proposed as one of the solutions to the issue of Greek national debt, them going back to the lir…

Greece's own currency was the Drachma. The Lira belonged to Italy.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#66

Post by yunohn »

peteretep wrote: post #48
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think India is building an empire? I believe that they are focussed on lifting their masses out of poverty.

Are we saying a country with 1.4bn people, 22 official languages, 5 major religions, over 100 ethnic groups isn’t an empire? Before the Raj, most of it was the Mughal Empire (1500-1800). Before that, the Delhi Sultanate, pretty definitely an empire (1200-1500). The only thing missing is the nomenclature.

How do you define an empire? Your definition is quite odd to me.

India is structured like the USA, a collection of states, with central and regional powers. But they are very much internally focused, and rarely venture into global politics. They don’t intend to colonize any other states, nor make any attempts at militarizing anything outside their borders.

I would find it hard to ever compare India to a British-like empire…

Re: Imperial Delusions

#67

Post by raverbashing »

the-dude wrote: post #24
Bronze_Colossus wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not see the EU even close as an empire. Are you perhaps British? Or Greek? The EU don't even have a common foreign policy or a cohesive monetary policy across its member countries. The EU is imo a protective "members only club" if you're in you get good deals if you're not then tough luck.

My guess he is Czech. I have heard similar sentiments from former East Bloc's. I can't blame 'em.

Which I find funny, maybe it's some form of Stockholm syndrome from the URSS days.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#68

Post by inglor_cz »

gambiting wrote: post #55
inglor_cz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historical reasons. For 40 years, the continent was split right in the middle. Back then, it was absolutely natural to speak about the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, possibly with neutral Austria and Switzerland as the weird exceptions. Of course there are huge differences between, say, Czechia and Moldova, but we were part of a single allied bloc controlled by a single power for two generations, so there are som…

I mean I'm Polish, and perhaps wrongly, but I have never thought about myself as Eastern European - for me that means Belarussians, Ukrainians, Romanians......for me "central European" is completely the right term for Poland, Slovakia and Czechia, but I understand it might not be the commonly accepted view.

I do not feel particularly Eastern either, but it is true that the former cohesion of Central Europe was broken into two by running completely different economic systems on parts of it. Bavaria, Czechia, Saxony and Austria used to be fairly tightly connected before 1945, now the differences between wealth of the formerly Western and formerly Eastern parts of the region are massive.

Re: Imperial Delusions

#69

Post by navaati »

namelessoracle wrote: post #38
rantwasp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the EU is not an empire. and it’s members are loosely coupled at best. Look at what happened to the UK: they just got their toys and left. the EU just does not have the cohesion to act like and empire and conquer anything. It’s more like a big market

So was the US once. All it takes is a big external or internal threat to get power centralized....

Let's just hope it'll be done without a Civil War, then...

Re: Imperial Delusions

#70

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

inglor_cz wrote: post #30
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am no great fan of the EU, but the EU as a whole does not engage in much imperialism, besides that forced on it by the US.

Look at the Western Balkans. Russia, China, Turkey and the EU play a game of influence there, leading to some very weird spending. Given how the region usually works, bribes must be involved. This definitely looks like low-key imperialism, because the EU does not really have a reason to pay for an absurdly expensive Chinese-built highway in Montenegro, other than limiting influence of a competing power in that territ…

"Very wierd spending" is not, in and of itself, imperialism.

The Western Balkans and Turkey are the EU's immediate neighbors. Does the EU seek influence over what happens in such neighbors? No doubt. Does that count as imperialism? Not so clearly.

Russia is a major power, with the potential to be a major energy and military threat to the EU. Does the EU seek to drive the outcome of interactions with Russia? No doubt. Does that count as imperialism? No.

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