"The best description of this process is fascist corporatism, which so far (and it is of course a crucial difference) lacks the paramilitary and repressive paraphernalia of real fascism."

Wrong. The EU already has it's own paramilitary: www.eurogendfor.org

"whereas in Europe, any idea outside the box is greeted with the jeer, "Isn't that rich?"

Where are you getting this nonsense from?

Been to Michigan lately?

Pop another Ritalin.

In the process of re-reading de Jouvenal's trilogy, in particular "On Power," one cannot help but be struck by the ongoing aggregation of power (an EU Army is now suggested) in this core of command, which despite its "parliament" is in no way a function of representative authority.

The difference between Europe and Mussolini is that Mussolini already knew that socialism didn't work.

"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic".
- Benjamin Franklin

"It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder".
- Frédéric Bastiat (“The Law”)

This well could be written about America.

We're about 90% of the way down the EU route, except for one thing: In the US it's service with a smile. We have Obama still peddiling the American Dream, telling us how anyone who is willing to try can make it (of course with an omnipresent federal helping hand), whereas in Europe, any idea outside the box is greeted with the jeer, "Isn't that rich?"

Apart from this idiom which is jarring to American ears, you get a lot more cultivated verbiage off the BBC, like "investing in our children's future," "new social model," "cowboy diplomacy," etc. This of course replaces the more honest but equally contemptuous verbiage to characterize American ideals, such as "uncivilized", "rootless," you know what I mean.

Before Europe can reform itself it must be more honest with itself. And in my opinion, the Cameroons are about the oiliest of them all: humorless, fawning, apologetic, and equivocal to the point of begging the question -- just what other side of what debate are we waiting to confront? Good luck, Europe.

re: "Since, as Gibbon puts it, truth rarely finds a favorable reception in the world"

This ought to be the motto for the 21st century.

The final sentence worries me, if Mr. Hannan were to receive a subsidy, he would then have been bought off in the way that Hedgehog Society would. We would then look through the window from man to pig and find it impossible to see the difference.

When will the people of the European countries wake up and reject the Euro-prats and failed politicians that so love the disasterous euro - project? Great review of a great book.

An excellent review of an excellent book which,unfortunately, won't be read by those who should.

Spot-on !

Till Thiel
Piding
Bavaria
Germany

As always, TD is as lucid, driven by common
sense & honesty.

I say vote for Theodore Dalrymple as Prime
Minister and Daniel Hannan as Chancellor of the Exchequeur, with immediate effect.

Hegel, Hegel, Hegel and a bit of Kant's Imperative thrown in for zest.
After all, as we saw with the likes of Eichmann, the Bureau nicely replaces all human sensibilities with clever architects, and remember Descartes' lethal dictum concerning clear and distinct ideas--no two can be uncongenial with one another. Hence, no two Bureaus can issue edicts which contravene one another. Which is patent nonsense.
As Xenophon teaches, and we ignore to our present peril, the true statesman as adumbrated in detail in the Cyropedia is very rare and so the English concept of Law as an organ substance is shown in its wisdom when we look at Europe now.
Bravo Dr. Dalrymple

Brilliant stuff!! But,will our rulers take note? I have been active in what used to be called the Anti-Common Market League since
the early sixties and things have gone from bad to worse ever since. The electorate should do a Tunesia or Egypt and take to the streets and refuse to move until Parliament
takes the necessary steps to secede from this
satanic organisation called the E.U.

The hedgehog example is interesting - but why make one up? If this is so pervasive - and I am not doubting that it is - then present a real example or show some statistics about how many of these types of dependent organizations there are.

I do a bit of volunteer work for a local citizens' group in Germany. I am sometimes surprised how quickly the organization looks for state support for its projects instead of first seeing if it could be done without state money. But it is never EU money. It is municipal money - then supplemented by local donations by citizens and companies. So my limited grass-roots experience does not confirm the hedgehog example. I would be interested in hearing about cases which do.

The universal franchise debased the electorate, from one with a claim to be capable of selecting good governments, to one whose claim was based on alleged right, without reference to competence. Since then, the politicians who have gained power are those whose self interested, facile and unfulfillable promises win the favour of this ignorant and unthinking electorate, while those who have higher qualities and ideals necessarily fail to do so. This is the national background to the EU and accounts for the absence of common sense and the defeat of reason. My question is: does Theodore Dalrymple support UKIP, as all right minded Englishmen should do?

The universal franchise debased the electorate, from one with a claim to be capable of selecting good governments, to one whose claim was based on alleged right, without reference to competence. Since then, the politicians who have gained power are those whose self interested, facile and unfulfillable promises win the favour of this ignorant and unthinking electorate, while those who have higher qualities and ideals necessarily fail to do so. This is the national background to the EU and accounts for the absence of common sense and the defeat of reason. My question is: does Theodore Dalrymple support UKIP, as all right minded Englishmen should do?

What leverage can be applied, and by whom, when the vested interests are so clearly benefitted by the current arrangement? We have much the same problem in America, with big business handing money under the table to the political class, and favoring the Democrats for one reason: they stand for the Concentration of Power into a few hands.

Any ideas? Americans used to value having a strongly divided, two-party system so neither could gain dominance, but the mooching class and the concentration-of-power crowd have been pushing for one-party government for the last several decades. Liberty doesn't appeal much to voters who are afraid of, as Simone de Beauvoir put it, "the risks and decisions of history-making," and the big boys with the money and power simply want More, and figure, I suppose, that they'll be free enough with the latitude their money affords them.

Too many Americans are selling their freedom for "three hots and a cot," and betting that there will always be enough "suckers" working to pay for it all.