Zhou_Enlai wrote:

That whiff you get is technocracy not elitism. That whiff has been around for a long time and it's one of the reasons I was opposed to Maastricht and Nice. However I think Lisbon would have let some fresh air in.

I agree that Ireland won't hold up the others if the rest of them want to go ahead. Politically, such obstructionism would be suicidal. Given that we voted No I think we have to seriously consider entering the slow lane of a two speed EU. Whatever the politicians say, it seems to be what the people want.

arnaudherve wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

What is there on climate change ?

Climate change in the Lisbon treaty is "soft law". That is, general principles that are not precise, not compelling and are used as a fashionable icing on the cake.

arnaudherve wrote:

I would have preferred a strong industrial policy of independence from oil, even without a treaty.

ibis wrote:

The EU has binding commitments on CO2 reduction. It has a mechanism for doing it. With Lisbon, it would have a commitment to making all EU law take account of climate change.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Boyd Barrett is a decent enough speaker and he did well to stop Bowman and Curran shouting him down for the last comment but at the end of the day I see no concrete suggestions from him.

Auditor #9 wrote:

ibis wrote:

The EU has binding commitments on CO2 reduction. It has a mechanism for doing it. With Lisbon, it would have a commitment to making all EU law take account of climate change.

I don't think any parties in the EU would be against energy and CO2 control. Why do we need QMV and a major Treaty to enact such an EU-wide law?

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Boyd Barrett is a decent enough speaker and he did well to stop Bowman and Curran shouting him down for the last comment but at the end of the day I see no concrete suggestions from him. I was not impressed by McGuinness. I think attributing smirks and elitism to her is unjustified. She was out of her depth and trying to hide it.

To be honest, I don't think any pro Lisbon politician can open their mouth without being accused of being a bullying undemocratic arrogant scare-mongerer who turns into a snivelling spineless coward in the face of other EU politicians. Unfortunately, life isn't that exciting or simple.

ibis wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

ibis wrote:

The EU has binding commitments on CO2 reduction. It has a mechanism for doing it. With Lisbon, it would have a commitment to making all EU law take account of climate change.

I don't think any parties in the EU would be against energy and CO2 control. Why do we need QMV and a major Treaty to enact such an EU-wide law?

Currently, there is no way to amend the EU treaties except by a Treaty and an Inter-Governmental Conference - and by the time you've had one of those, the kitchen sink is in there.

Quote :

The main problem in the EU is not so much that there is a democratic deficit. The demoratic deficit is neither as wide nor as sinister as many people fear. Besides, Lisbon offered an improvement in many areas. The real issue is both a deficit in understanding and a deficit of trust.

Deficit in understanding: citizens know the EU is no longer an economic community. It is political. It deepened and enlarged very quickly. But the Union and national governments didn’t take people along in explaining how the Union works and what is the rational for its increasing areas of competence.

This is interlinked with the next issue: Deficit in trust. It is not easy to connect with electorates that are often apathetic towards their own national political elites. Indeed the general disconnection between the governed and the governing everywhere is a particular problem in a structure the size of the EU and which is recent and in many ways experimental.

But one way or another, the Union will continue to stumble until some effort is made to address the twin deficits in understanding and trust.

But here’s quesiton: is it possible to address these concerns without first building or enhancing the notion of a European identity?

In any case. Here’s what I think should happen but which I believe will certainly not happen. The leaders of the Union should acknowledge the problems that I’m trying to articulate about and which began to emerge since the last enlargement, most notably with the Dutch and French referenda. Then re-articulate over a sustained period why the various strands of Lisbon are necessary. Then break Lisbon into three or four seperate chunks (which is arguably the way this package should have been done from the start). And argue the case for each on its separate merits and re-run the ratification process. Slow and cumbersone - yes, totally. But it would enhance the trust and understand in the Union a thousand fold.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

What if the juggernaut decides that it won't steamroll us? What if it decides that it will respect our decision and so will go around us?

The Irish people have a right to reject the Lisbon Treaty. Do people think they have a right to stop the rest of the EU signing up to an EU-esque Treaty?

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

ibis wrote:

Assuming he means CCCTB rather than Closed Circuit Television...no, every expert opinion (including some honest ones on the No side!) up to and including the Irish Institute of Taxation have agreed that it's a veto area.

Then how come Ray Kinsella of UCD thinks that this Treaty will lead to a CCCTB within the next few years?

cookiemonster wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

ibis wrote:

Assuming he means CCCTB rather than Closed Circuit Television...no, every expert opinion (including some honest ones on the No side!) up to and including the Irish Institute of Taxation have agreed that it's a veto area.

Then how come Ray Kinsella of UCD thinks that this Treaty will lead to a CCCTB within the next few years?

Years?!

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ireland won't stop the EU going ahead with whatever it wants to do but isn't it at all worrying that there is a deep whiff of elitism and democratic neglect about how this has been managed all along ? The trouble for the EU is that it might start to be seen widely for what it seems to be shaping up to becoming: Authoritarian rather than Authoritative.

....Is a massive technocracy unavoidable at this point ? A two-speed Europe might not be a bad idea for peripheral states and it would be interesting to see how the make-up of the institutions would pan out in it....

Jacques Ellul - the Technological Society, p.162 wrote:

Technique as a general phenomenon (as we shall see when we study the political milieu) always gives rise to an aristocracy of technicians who guard secrets to which no outsider has access. Decisions which have a serious basis take on the appearance of arbitrary and incomprehensible decrees. A cleavage like this, which is inevitable in the advance of technique, is decisive for the future of the democracies. Economic life, not in its content but in its direction, will henceforth entirely elude popular control. No democracy is possible in the face of a perfected economic technique. The decisions of the voters, and even of the elected, are oversimplified,incoherent, and technically inadmissible. It is a grave illusion to believe that democratic control or decision-making can be reconciled by economic technique. Little by little the elements necessary for the creation of this technique are taking shape; and soon they will be perfected.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ireland won't stop the EU going ahead with whatever it wants to do but isn't it at all worrying that there is a deep whiff of elitism and democratic neglect about how this has been managed all along ? The trouble for the EU is that it might start to be seen widely for what it seems to be shaping up to becoming: Authoritarian rather than Authoritative.

....Is a massive technocracy unavoidable at this point ? A two-speed Europe might not be a bad idea for peripheral states and it would be interesting to see how the make-up of the institutions would pan out in it....

For You A#9:

Jacques Ellul - the Technological Society, p.162 wrote:

Technique as a general phenomenon (as we shall see when we study the political milieu) always gives rise to an aristocracy of technicians who guard secrets to which no outsider has access. Decisions which have a serious basis take on the appearance of arbitrary and incomprehensible decrees. A cleavage like this, which is inevitable in the advance of technique, is decisive for the future of the democracies. Economic life, not in its content but in its direction, will henceforth entirely elude popular control. No democracy is possible in the face of a perfected economic technique. The decisions of the voters, and even of the elected, are oversimplified,incoherent, and technically inadmissible. It is a grave illusion to believe that democratic control or decision-making can be reconciled by economic technique. Little by little the elements necessary for the creation of this technique are taking shape; and soon they will be perfected.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Interesting quote Zhou - gives me the shivers. Brave New World came to mind. Also Demolition Man made a mental appearance, with Denis Leary smoking a cigar the size of Cincinnati. I'm reading Stiglitz globalisation and discontents and he is saying what i've been saying here - for vital feedback the public nature of information is crucial in the survival of systems - any systems.

If your bowels can't communicate to your brain what they need to do then you could have problems (luckily some of those functions are automatic)

Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't.... People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were the soverign gods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War. That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are dropping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled -- after the Nine Years' War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been good for happiness.

The result [of atomic power], pretty obviously, will be a series of economic and social changes unprecedented in rapidity and completeness. All the existing patterns of human life will be disrupted and new patterns will have to improvised to conform with the nonhuman fact of atomic power. Procrustes in modern dress, the nuclear scientist will prepare the bed on which mankind must lie; and if mankind doesn't fit -- well, that will be just too bad for mankind.

cactus flower wrote:

The poor man must have lived his whole life in monasteries or universities he is so far off the ball.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

The poor man must have lived his whole life in monasteries or universities he is so far off the ball.

That's the end of that so

Quote :

economics has made efforts to become more and more scientific

Jacques Ellul wrote:

At the same time economists feel, as a kind of challenge, the ineffectiveness of their system. Nothing has exposed the vanity of political economy better than their contradictory diagnoses and therapies for economic crises. For some the cause of the crisis is an unsaleable surplus of goods; for others, insufficiency of production. For some it is an excess of savings; for others, a lack of them. And as far as the proposed remedies are concerned some economists would raise the discount rate and other would lower it. Some hold that wages must be stabilised and others demonstrate that they must be lowered. Such contradictions can only arise from a defect of method. And the economists bitterly resent the ironical attitude the public has towards them. One of them recently wrote "The public believes in the physicist, but it has not confidence in the economist." Policymakers absolutely cannot rely on what the economists say, nor follow their contradictory counsels with respect to action. All this, then, made it mandatory to replace the regime of theories, which gave birth to nothing but opinion, with a rigorous methond which "sticks" to facts.