Is the European Union (EU) draining our country of the vitality needed to create prosperity for all? Are we losing the means for improving living standards, including motivation, ethical standards, resources, funding and efficient resource allocation pathways, which cost us dearly?
There is evidence for the EU’s actual cost to the UK being far greater than the figures usually highlighted, such as our annual net contribution (often stated as £55 million per day) or the extra £1.7 billion demanded last year because our economy is apparently ‘thriving’. The problem is that it is easy to slip into the simplification of ignoring items that cannot be easily quantified: the McNamara Fallacy, which can have disastrous decision-making consequences.
Our net contribution to the EU (visible and quantifiable) effectively disappears from our economy and boosts economies elsewhere. Obviously this money can no longer help us, and in certain areas of the economy our money could have made a considerable difference; there is a multiplier effect present. For example, ‘EU tax pounds’ (spent on EU bureaucrats and their perks) if used to fund research or retained by businesses and invested in production efficiency could have helped produce scientific breakthroughs, better products, lower prices, more competitive enterprises and higher paid jobs, in turn worth many pounds of return for each pound used (or ‘invested’). So to service the voracious appetite of the EU, we have worked hard to raise the money in the first place and then had to forego a considerable benefit (opportunity cost) because we cannot allocate that money more beneficially in ways we choose. This is only the start of where we are losing out.
The EU works hard at devising ever-expanding legalistic rules and regulations, which are of a ‘one size fits all’ nature to apply to all member countries. There is always a direct cost for compliance (by the targeted individuals and organisations) and enforcement (by one or more regulatory bodies). And an opportunity cost, if the money could have been better used elsewhere, for example, on research, improving competitiveness, skills and productivity, paying higher wages, or reducing prices. These rules and regulations may also be ill-conceived with harmful effects and resulting opportunity costs, for example, creating other victims, continuing obsolete practices, shrinking the talent pool available of people who could otherwise be more productive, and imposing dis-proportionate burdens on smaller and more innovative enterprises making their existence and growth less likely.
EU social engineering, in particular the destruction of the democratic nation state and heritage, transfer of wealth (and businesses) to the less successful EU nations, uncontrolled mass migration, and forcing authoritarian legalistic regulations upon societies, have costs not just in financial terms or individual quality of life, but in identity, ethical standards and social cohesion. Inevitability a problem created by the EU needs to be managed somehow (if at all possible), and this has costs, and diverts resources that could be more productive elsewhere. Again substantial opportunity costs exist.
The opportunity costs identified so far are part of a bigger issue, that of the quality or performance of government. Poor government will inevitably cost more than it should through higher taxation (and associated opportunity costs) than if it were better run or more efficient, and there will be costs and opportunity costs arising from the consequences of its poor policies and mistakes (for example, the destruction our fishing industry or the negative effects of the Euro). The EU is a remote, bureaucratic, ideologically driven and autocratic institution. It is also a centre of corporatism, rule of us, by the few, for the few: big government, big business, big other organisations. Based on its track record, the EU can be expected to deliver inferior government performance than a much more democratic national government in tune with the People and the Internet Age; for example, there is empirical evidence that countries outside the EU do better economically than their equivalents inside.
Various writers have plotted the direction of bureaucracies with somewhat similar conclusions regarding their increasing arbitrary unreality and costs, and destructive or inhumane effects, including Franz Kafka, The Castle, C Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson’s Law and The Law and Carroll Quigley, The Evolution of Civilizations. Economist and political scientist, Joseph Schumpeter has written about corporatism in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. The EU has emasculated national parliaments and disenfranchised electorates pretty much in textbook form. Such activities bear direct costs or burdens and much larger opportunity costs; loss of democratic accountability and sovereignty impact our lives in many intangible ways. More tangibly we cannot readily carry out (Schumpeter’s) Creative Destruction to the increasingly obsolete EU in order to facilitate much innovation, wealth creation and improved wellbeing; again a considerable opportunity cost. The EU appears far more interested in seizing and somewhat arbitrarily re-distributing existing wealth than in supporting us all becoming richer through the creation of new wealth, resulting in us all being poorer.
Yet the biggest opportunity cost of all would be the decline and ultimately the collapse of European civilisation, hastened by the actions (or inactivity in the face of crises) of the EU. Parkinson in East and West and Quigley in The Evolution of Civilizations are too close for comfort in their prescient analyses of civilisations. The EU certainly displays characteristics of evolving from something that may have been useful into an extravagant institution that exists for its own sake, which these authors identify as a prelude to decay (of civilisations) and ultimately invasion. It is hard to see how the sclerotic EU can defy historical precedence and rejuvenate itself or Europe. Commonly the mainstream (such as the EU) is set in its ways and slow to adapt, progress (paradigm shifts or ‘thinking outside the box’ in particular) coming from the periphery as noted by Thomas Kuhn in relation to science in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
The actual cost of the EU in a competitive, changing world is far greater than the obvious headline monetary figures, which are just the tip of a very large and destructive iceberg. It is an increasingly burdensome and out-of-date political/bureaucratic experiment. Historically our country, operating on the periphery of Europe, has performed better, often leading in many different fields including intellectual curiosity, philosophy, political thought and democracy, science, technology, education, international trade, financial services and the rule of law. Being held back and down by the institutionalised EU millstone around our collective necks rather than setting an example to everyone makes not just us, but the world poorer: the hidden costs of EU membership.
This article is right on the money, spot on!!!
Where are the comments on the Extremism Bill…. thread? What I get asked for is to fill in my details in a box which is not a Disqus component. Yet here the usual Disqus format is presented. What is going on? I had hope to reply to someone who had replied to me.
This is a valuable article, in my opinion, because it attacks the “enemy within” in another guise i.e. the hidden effects of “lost opportunity” which to me is that it is our national capital that is being expended as some form of national “backsheesh”, by rapacious EU moguls, when we would be far better using it to our own benefit as opportunity funds, never mind the ability to employ it in reducing our debts and deficit and devastating interest payments.
I think Hague coined the phrase “stealth Taxes”, this is also another aspect of “stealth” – assume emanating from the word “steal” – need I say more? It`s criminal really!
“……prelude to decay and ultimately invasion”
A significant phrase, in my opinion – hasn`t the “invasion” already commenced – I`m sure there is a purpose/direction behind these millions arriving on the EU`s shores ( and it`s not just the effects of global warming).
I didn`t read the word “Totalitarian” in the article – isn`t this what we are getting? or does “corporatism” qualify.
But try selling even half of the article to the British people – god help us – there`s no chance!
Our annual contribution is not £55m a day. Never has been.
We should leave and find out the true value.
Doubt the Eu or the Tory government will tell us the real truth and value.
After all, if you cannot produce an accountable and audited set of accounts for the last 30 years, where are we going to find the absolute facts, apart from to leave?
We know what the true value is. It is a matter or record.
So, enlighten us.
You should keep yourself better informed. Ask UKIP – even they have the figures (CEBR report, for example).
So no figures from you then, given your assertions? Simply another ad hominen statement.
You should DYOR. It is a matter of record. I am amazed you don’t know it. Why not look at the last UKIP manifesto? It’s in there.
I do and I have. I am interested in your assertion that the costs are not £55 million per day and your evidence to prove it. Truthfully, honestly and with accurate accounted for figures.
You have an alternative view??
Well, you haven’t done your research. Or you would know.
Never have we given the EU anything like £55m a day.
Look at the UKIP manifesto.
You are avoiding the issue.
Where are the true figures and what proof do you have that £55 million a day is the wrong figure.
Is it more or is it less?
UKIP’s manifesto (2010?, 2014?)has estimates, not quotes.
Well, you are certainly worth a chuckle.
You have that the wrong way around, I am afraid.
Farage trotted out the spurious claim of £55m a day. And the claim been repeated by his enthusiastic followers ever since.
But it is a claim, nonetheless.
That means the burden is on you to substantiate that claim. I can’t wait.
Good luck.
My name is not Farage, and since the claim is disputed, perhaps you cuold throw some light on your claim that £55 million a day is not accurate.
Given the unaudited accounts of the EU.
And the creative accounting of the UK government.
If you do not know the answer, which is a given from your prevarication, why do you think you can dispute it?
Good grief.
Audited accounts have got nothing to do with contributions. The accounts detail how those contributions are spent.
All right then, put it this way.
Our contributions to the EU are only £1 per month for every man, woman and child. I challenge you to disprove that.
Pluck a figure out of the air, is your philosophy then?
So any further comment from you is really irrelevant and vacuous?
Thanks for the confirmation.
I keep trying to post the source for you, with the true figures, but the mods keep deleting it. I wonder why that is.
Add this lot together for the link:
http://www.
parliament
.uk
/briefing-papers/
SN06091.pdf
As you will see, we have never paid anything like what Farage, and you, suggest.
Funny, I suggested that the figures will only be known once we leave.
And I wouldn’t trust the civil services/governments figures on anything.
And are we talking net figures or gross and what value if any, does it contribute, either through subscriptions or any remedial benefit?
I think you are just being a spokesperson for the establishment.
Of course the figures are known now! It is money we hand over every year and the Treasury is required to publish it.
You asked for the figures, because you were too lazy to research them yourself. I provided them.
Your response it to call civil servants untrustworthy and cast aspersions on my character.
To a kipper, a lie is merely a fact they do not like.
This is why you are seen as swivel-eyed loons.
No, you do not know the figures are correct any more than the revelations about the failure of reducing the debt and the defecit of the UK, its banks and insurance companies.
But the Tory government were elected to do this and have failed time and time yet again.
Your reduction to insults and verbiage reduce your discussion to a childish diatribe, and as usual anonimity will be your friend.
I see. Bottom 10%. Move along.
An excellent article. Well said Nigel Moore.