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PDF FormatWorld War I proved a humiliation for prophets of the new order, at the same time that it catalyzed the effort to unify Europe. The horrors of the “war to end all wars,” which was widely blamed on nationalism, led many to conclude that world peace could be ensured only by associations of international brotherhood, starting in Europe. After the war, a group called the League of Free Nations Association formed, with futurologist and lifelong socialist H.G. Wells at its helm. In a 1919 essay in the Atlantic Monthly entitled “The Idea of a League of Nations,” Wells called for a “World-League of Nations” which would bring together nation-states under a single political umbrella:
The League of Nations cannot be a little thing; it is either to be a great thing in the world, an overriding idea of a greater state, or nothing. Every state aims ultimately at the production of a sort of man, and it is an idle and wasteful diplomacy, a pandering to timidities and shams, to pretend that the World-League of Nations is not ultimately a state aiming at that ennobled individual whose city is the world.41
The next year the League of Nations was founded, albeit something of the “little thing” that Wells had warned against. In short order, politicians and pundits began to speak of the nation-state’s demise. In 1923 French Foreign Minister Aristide Briandׁthe former secretary-general of France’s Socialist Party, best known for the 1928 Kellogg-Briand pact outlawing war—called for Europe to be tied by “a federal bond.”42
In the decades that followed, the link between internationalism and socialism became a universal element of European politics. The powerful command economies in National-Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union both made ample use of internationalist rhetoric in justifying their expansionist designs.43 And in Western Europe, the dream of a united Europe continued to accompany the ever-increasing collectivization of Europe’s economies, especially once the Nazi threat had been eliminated. The League of Nations, which had failed to deliver anything resembling the “greater state” that Wells had envisioned, gave way to two new internationalist developments: The creation of a stronger United Nations, enjoying the superpower backing that the League had lacked, and a rejuvenated effort to unite Europe, with leaders envisioning as early as 1949 a “Council of Europe” whose principal institutions bore a striking resemblance to today’s EU—a Committee of Ministers which met in secret, and a parliament-like Consultative Assembly with no legislative authority.44 From the start, proposals were floated for a European army and a single currency as well.
The emergence of the Cold War all but paralyzed the UN, and any hope of a UN-based international utopia was dashed, at least for the time being. In Europe, however, the effect of the Cold War was precisely the opposite: Whereas integrationist sentiment had previously been based on a vision of peace and prosperity within Europe, the emergence of a strategic threat from the east imbued the effort to unify Europe with a new sense of urgency.45 In 1951, six countries, led by France, agreed to establish the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The object was, in the words of French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, “to place Franco-German production of coal and steel under a common High Authority... This proposal will build the first concrete foundation of a European federation…”46 The real significance of the treaty was not lost on German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who noted that the “political meaning” of the ECSC was “infinitely larger than its economic purpose... For the first time in history, countries want to renounce part of their sovereignty, voluntarily and without compulsion, in order to transfer it to a supranational structure.”47 The ECSC’s first president, Jean Monnet, was a lifelong internationalist who called for the establishment of a European army to supersede the national armies; he later headed the Action Committee for the United States of Europe (ACUSE), a pressure group which worked to expand the ECSC’s role.48
And expand it did. Over the years, the ECSC’s mandate ballooned to include the collectivization of everything from agriculture to monetary policy. The 1957 Treaty of Rome transformed the ECSC into the European Economic Community, and set as its goal “ever closer union”—an ideal allowing for no permanent solution short of complete union. As more areas of economic and social activity were drawn into the European vortex, additional countries joined in, some such as Britain desiring market access and political influence, others like Spain and Greece eager to emphasize their shift to democracy and also expecting agricultural and industrial subsidies. Subsequent agreements, such as the 1969 Hague Agreement, the Single European Act of 1987, and the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, brought Europe ever closer to the longed-for unification, each national government voluntarily giving over an increased share of its democratic authority to the discretion of the larger collective—a collective which itself has taken on a life of its own, struggling for ever more power while shying away from the burdens of accountability which are the hallmark of representative government.
Though the intellectual climate has shifted dramatically over the decades, with privatization, deregulation and decentralization taking hold around the world since the 1980s, the collectivists in Brussels have steadied the course. Driven by steadfast ideals, and insulated from public opinion by the absence of democratic controls, the main concern among EU bureaucrats has been to minimize the impact of world events on their fiefdoms and to harness the powers of global trade in an unceasing effort to substitute their authority for that of both national governments and private citizens. To this day, French officials routinely deride free markets as “Anglo-Saxon decadence.”49 Only with political union, they say, can Europe protect its collectivized economies from the titans of America and Japan.
V
The downfall of Communism has breathed new life into the process of European unification. No longer distracted by the bear next door (which, in addition to threatening the region, had given socialist internationalists a terrible name), Europe’s leaders have taken full advantage of the geopolitical upheaval to push ahead with Europe’s plans for conquering itselfׁand often over the objections of a hesitant public. As European elites prepare for the next stage of integration through economic and monetary union, popular support appears to have run aground. The Maastricht Treaty barely passed a 1992 referendum in France. After it failed in Denmark, the government negotiated some special exemptions and made citizens vote again to get things right. The British government resisted calls for a referendum on Maastricht, but a plebiscite has been promised should Britain decide to join the monetary union. Other governments are not taking the risk. In Germany, where a solid majority opposes replacing the trusty Deutsche mark with the sporty euro, the government has decided not to ask the public for its opinion.
In the meantime, the Cold War’s end has also meant a genuine resurrection of the most grandiose of plans for the UN. Again, it was the Cold War that had thwarted efforts to make the UN the global “greater state” which the League of Nations had never become. The fall of the Soviet Union has broken the stalemate that left the UN so incapable of proper global governance and rekindled hopes for a new order. Now having to convince no one other than a United States already eager for UN reform, reformers established the CGG and set to work formulating their plan of how to reallocate the world's resources, and how to convince the world’s leading democracies to part with enough of their independent discretionary powers as to allow the UN to govern the world’s affairs without obstruction.
The call to international dialogue in political and economic relations is, to be sure, a noble one. Projects such as NAFTA and NATO, despite their numerous flaws, demonstrate that democratic governments do not have to default on the mandate of their respective electorates in order to achieve international cooperation. On the contrary, legislators and executive bodies all over the free world are empowered to negotiate with their peers and conclude whatever agreements they deem necessary—subject always to the watchful eye of those whom they represent. What sets the EU, UN and other internationalist projects apart is that they demand the forfeiture of democratic sovereignty to an ever-growing bureaucracy capable of imposing its decisions without having to answer to the populations whose lives are most affected.
Perhaps it should not surprise us that globalism—the belief in subordinating the political and economic decisionmaking of nations to the authority of a larger governing body—has so often come together with socialism—the belief in subordinating the political and economic decisionmaking of individuals to the authority of a larger governing body. What should surprise us, however, is how often the world can fall for the same fallacy, no matter how much evidence to the contrary.
Jason Elbaum is a researcher at Imperial College, London.
Notes
1. “Bill’s Last Chance,” Newsweek International, December 29, 1997/January 5, 1998, p. 55.
2. Dudley Fishburn, ed., The World in 1995 (London: The Economist Publications, 1994), p. 14.
3. Latin American Economic System (SELA), Integration Bulletin for Latin America and the Caribbean, No. 8, September 1997.
4. Speech in Davos, January 26, 1995.
5. Shimon Peres, The New Middle East (New York: Henry Holt, 1993), pp. 73, 81, 98.
6. Peres, New Middle East, p. 62.
7. Though the EU formally came into being only with the Maastricht Treaty, to minimize confusion the term “European Union” will be used to refer to all stages of the European Community.
8. David Pryce-Jones, “European Union, A Disaster in the Making,” Commentary, June 1997, p. 33.
9. Christopher Booker and Richard North, The Castle of Lies: Why Britain Must Get Out of Europe (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1996), p. 156.
10. Timothy Bainbridge and Anthony Teasdale, The Penguin Companion to the European Union (London: Penguin, 1995), pp. 92-93.
11. Bainbridge and Teasdale, Penguin Companion, p. 161.
12. “Serving the European Union: A Citizen’s Guide to the Institutions of the European Union” (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1996), p. 14.
13. Booker and North, Castle of Lies, p. 156.
14. Booker and North, Castle of Lies, p. 152.
15. Booker and North, Castle of Lies, pp. 36-37.
16. Booker and North, Castle of Lies, pp. 132-133.
17. Booker and North, Castle of Lies, pp. 139-140.
18. Dick Leonard, Guide to the European Union (London: The Economist Publications, 1997), p. 55.
19. Bernard Connolly, The Rotten Heart of Europe (London: Faber and Faber, 1995), p. vii.
20. Connolly, Rotten Heart, pp. xvi, xviii.
21. Financial Times, February 19, 1998.
22. East Jerusalem was formally annexed in 1967, the Golan Heights in 1981.
23. Ha’aretz, May 19, 21, 26, 1998, and June 11, 1998.
24. Ingvar Carlsson, lecture at the Center for International and Comparative Studies, Northwestern University, Chicago, October 23, 1996.
25. Commission on Global Governance, Summary of Our Global Neighborhood, February 6, 1995, pp. 8-10.
26. Economist James Tobin, cited in Ronald Bailey, “Who Is Maurice Strong?” National Review, September 1, 1997, p. 34.
27. In traditional democratic political theory, “civil society” refers to the variety of non-governmental associations to which people belong: Companies, churches, schools, charities, labor unions, clubs, etc. Only a hermit could avoid being a member of several such groups. In a democratic society, these associations often take on responsibilities which otherwise might be left to government: Charities support the poor, churches offer moral guidance, an employer might provide health insurance, etc. Yet unlike government services funded by tax money and often imposed coercively, civil society associations are voluntary. When services are provided by voluntary associations rather than government, individual liberty is maximized and a creative diversity of public services comes into being. No one would suggest that it would be democratic for the groups of civil society to run the government; they are important to democracy precisely because they are separate from government.
None of this applies to “international civil society.” Very few people in the world are members of any kind of international association, whether a global employer, a charity like Save the Children or an advocacy group like Greenpeace. Neither do these groups display the diversity present on the local level; almost without exception, international non-governmental organizations are decidedly internationalist. Finally, the role the UN envisions for these groups is to subvert national governments by creating coordinated public pressure for internationalist projects. Unlike in democratic societies, where voluntary associations of civil society mediate between government and citizens, the UN’s model would have NGOs impose their will on governments and their citizens, like it or not.
28. The only notable exception was the August 1998 missile assault against terrorist bases in Sudan and Afghanistan, when the U.S. acted unilaterally. Still, a White House official insisted, “This is not the start of a new foreign policy doctrine.” The Daily Telegraph, August 22, 1998.
29. Commission on Global Governance, Summary, pp. 4, 7.
30. Bailey, “Who Is Maurice Strong?” p. 36.
31. Press release, UN General Assembly First Committee, October 21, 1997.
32. George Soros, “Avoiding a Breakdown,” Financial Times, December 31, 1997.
33. Henry Kaufman, “The Need for a New IMF,” Time, February 2, 1998.
34. Obviously, not all those who have believed in the “softening” of borders or the facilitating of international commerce through treaties have also been socialists. The point is that the internationalist movement as it stands today is the product of the thought and efforts of socialist leaders and activists, and that we should not, therefore, be surprised if the institutions they produce are fundamentally at odds with liberty and democratic control.
35. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Considerations sur le Gouvernement de Pologne,” in Oeuvres Complétes (Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1952), p. 531.
36. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality,” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Basic Political Writings, trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), p. 60.
37. Henri Comte de Saint-Simon, “The Reorganization of the European Community,” in Henri Comte de Saint-Simon, Selected Political Writings (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1952), p. 68.
38. “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” reprinted in Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978), second edition, p. 488.
39. Jean Jaurés, “Internationalism and Peace: A Speech by Jean Jaurés,” in European Socialism and the Problems of War and Militarism (New York: Garland, 1972), pp. 3, 5.
40. Gustave Hervé, “Antipatriotism: Address of Gustave Hervé at the Close of His Trial for Anti-Militarist Activity,” in European Socialism, p. 11.
41. H.G. Wells et al., “The Idea of a League of Nations,” Atlantic Monthly, January 1919, pp. 106-115, and February 1919, pp. 77-82.
42. Aristide Briand, from a speech before the Tenth Assembly of the Society of Nations, September 5, 1929, in Georges Suarez, Briand (Paris: Plon, 1952), vol. 6, p. 327.
43. According to the Nazis, a strong Germany required lebensraum, “living space,” meaning the ability to exploit resources from across the continent; Germany frequently employed pan-European rhetoric in justifying its expansionist efforts during both world wars. Cf. Niall Ferguson, “Another Power Play Unlikely to Succeed,” Financial Times, January 5, 1998, p. 18. German businessmen and academics met in Berlin in 1942 to discuss a “European Economic Community,” an idea received enthusiastically by Ribbentrop and Goebbels, and adopted by Third Reich Economics Minister Walter Funk. The National-Socialist version of the “EEC” was responsible for the mobilization of industry in the conquered areas of Europe for the Reich’s war effort. The rhetoric and structure of today’s European Union bear striking similarities to those of the Nazi program.
44. William L. Shirer, Midcentury Journey (New York: Signet, 1961), pp. 246-247.
45. See Timothy Garton Ash, “Europe’s Endangered Liberal Order,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 1998, p. 65.
46. John Pinder, European Community: The Building of a Nation (Oxford: Oxford, 1995), second edition, p. 1.
47. Bainbridge and Teasdale, Penguin Companion, p. 159.
48. Leonard, Guide, pp. 4-5. Monnet’s plan for a single army for Europe resulted in the creation of the European Defense Community, signed onto by all six ECSC countries in 1952. The plan never took wing, however, due to the French National Assembly's failure to ratify the treaty.
49. The Maastricht campaign in France, for example, relied heavily upon such rhetoric. See Connolly, Rotten Heart, pp. viii, xviii, 75.
Tellingly, once the European single currency is launched, the EU has proposed that the Group of Eight conference of leading world economies be replaced by a Group of Three: the heads of state of the U.S., Japan and the European Union. Europe would finally have the honor it deserves, as this triumvirate of dollar, yen and euro manages the world economy, presumably at the expense of those not at the table. Britain (not yet planning to join the single currency) and Canada would lose their seats.
