Frum has an article promoting the obvious view Brexit was an economic mistake. But then he adds:
These costs don’t necessarily make Brexit a “mistake”. Brexit was a trade: less prosperity for more sovereignty. Countries reasonably make such trades all the time. My native Canada would dramatically increase its prosperity if it abandoned its sovereignty and merged with the United States. By their continued independence, Canadians implicitly choose otherwise, and nobody criticizes them for “Canxit.” They know the cost, and they accept the cost as worth it.
I don’t agree. Would Canada “dramatically increase its prosperity” if it merged with the US? How so?
Canadian author Arthur Hailey wrote about a proposed USA-Canada merger in one of his first novels, “In High Places”, published in 1962. The premise was that an imminent Soviet attack on the US would result in Canada becoming a nuclear battlefield, unless the US border was moved thousands of miles to the north. I thought it was pretty far fetched when I read it, maybe 40 years ago.
I’ll start with aside aimed at that article that might amount to a mini-hijack:
The article said
These costs don’t necessarily make Brexit a “mistake”. Brexit was a trade: less prosperity for more sovereignty.
It is commonly argued over in the UK now that very little sovereignty was actually gained. How so? Because most of the “sovereignty” issues the public was clamoring about were EU product regulations that British exporters still need to comply with if they’re to sell to their largest market: the EU. Of course the UK manufacturers of whatever make those same products to the same specs for local consumption. And conversely, when UK people import EU goods, those of course are also made to EU standards.
The other issue the UK folks were upset about was supposedly uncontrolled immigration. Which they blamed on the EU. Now post-Brexit the excuse is gone but the regional economic & political reasons for the immigration are unchanged. And so, net of COVID & recession, is the actual amount of immigration.
The end result being that the UK public bought a lot of economic pain and got very little actual usable matters-to-them sovereignty in return.
Returning to the OP with that aside/hijack background in hand.
Were the US or Canada to merge, regardless of which legal arrangements survived, it would be real easy for many of the promised gains to be illusory or decades in the coming, while any pains would be pretty obvious almost immediately
Yes, it probably would increase Canada’s prosperity. How? By abandoning its fundamental principles of social democracy, social justice, and the quest for a peaceful society, and instead relentlessly pursuing the almighty dollar and maximal personal freedoms as the central purpose of everything. Or, IOW, what has been expressed as the “I got mine, Jack” philosophy. End result: some of us would be very much richer, average incomes would likely be higher, very large numbers of incomes would be lower, with rapidly increasing gaps between the rich and poor. Not coincidentally, health insurers would come roaring back and the public health care system would collapse overnight. Also, lots and lots more guns. As an extra added bonus, our moderate and generally reasonable and functional politics would all go to shit.
In short, no thanks. Canada is not choosing “lower prosperity”. It’s choosing higher standards of governance, justice, and social cohesiveness.
David Frum is normally one of the more reasonable American conservatives (actually, Canadian by birth) but what he seems to be proposing here is pure insanity.
Part of the problem is some regions, sectors of the economy, and classes might do very well, while others would suffer. To use a silly example, privatizing health care might make some doctors and corporations wealthier but wreak havoc on the bulk of the population. Is this a gain or a loss of prosperity?
I like how the particular argument ignores he rather large elephant in the room. There’s no actual ‘cost’ incurred or accepted for “Canxit”, except perhaps opportunity cost.
Nothing about that can be considered a “Canxit” of any sort. That’s like saying I’ve made the choice to divorce somebody because I never chose to actively pursue them romantically in the first place. That’s nonsensical on the face of it.
As for prosperity, define the term first. Whether that is per capita GDP or health/happiness or average salaries or whatever, define it first. If you provide only a fuzzy notion of what it is, of course you can make whatever argument you please to conclude your pet idea will fulfill it.
At least with Brexit, it was pretty simple - the UK appears to be actually worse off in most ways we’d measure prosperity. On a few measures, perhaps they are doing no better than they would have been. But it’s hard to argue there are any significant measures on which they are doing better.
I’m sure there are some measures of ‘prosperity’ where a US-Canada merger increases it for Canada, for example GDP, but it’s much more debatable that it is increased for all such measures - like public health or social equality, which could arguably get worse.
Oh, I’m sure of that, too, but that presupposes per capita GDP is sufficient prosperity by itself.
That sort of prosperity doesn’t end up looking very prosperous down lower on the income ladder, and I’m still waiting for any of those supply side policies to do some of that trickling down even here in the US.
Oh, probably. Didn’t cite it since my point is kinda tangential to the article, though maybe that is playing loose with attribution rules. They say one of the keys to happiness is to not follow the news. But I have been reading The Economist for thirty years and have learned too much to stop soon. The Atlantic is less reliable, admittedly.
The success of the US is in part related to its size. It is a huge market. Canada has indeed benefitted from proximity and a historic relationship. When competing against large markets, it helps not to throw away one’s easy access to large markets. When Canada takes over the US… I’ve said too much already…
Canada lacks some of the American competitive drive and innovative spirit. Only a few of our companies have done well by expanding southward, since here they often have benefits of scale, historical importance or barriers to competition. A lot of the way we do things is to “keep the peace”^ though sometimes inefficient or worse. But when push comes to shove, Canadians at best value what we do. At our worst, we define ourselves by what we are not.
^ These values are reflected in our highest law, the Constitution. Instead of happiness and dreams, we like “peace, order and good government”. The Constitution basically stresses being “reasonable” and acting in good faith.
Except the bill of rights, right? I can get on board with coalition governments and parliamentary systems, but the Canadian Constitution and Charter of Rights is an organizational mess.
Worse, the Charter of Rights gives rights, which is bullshit, whereas our Constitution’s Bill of Rights protects rights that are given to us by birth. This is not a subtle distinction.
Not that I question the importance of fundamental rights, but who is it exactly that accords these rights that the constitution merely “protects”?
Right, it’s not a subtle distinction – it’s a meaningless one rooted in fairy-tale fantasy. Fundamental rights are derived from fundamental rational principles of liberty and morality, not from sky fairies.
You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! I mean, if I went around saying I was an Emperor because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, people would put me away!
Wasn’t this the plot of a Clive Cussler “Dirk Pitt” novel?
The US Constitution is fatally flawed in that small rural states have power vastly out of proportion to their population and the equal representation in the Senate was designed to be unchangable. We have permanent minority rule built into our government and there isn’t a thing that can be done about it, short of making a new constitution from scratch. Additionally, as a practical matter there will never be another amendment and thus no chance of ending the endless mass shootings. “Natural rights”? I don’t think so. Every government decides what rights its citizens have, not nature.
If they don’t come from nature, then they’re not rights; they’re privleges.
I don’t believe in sky faires, and most of the sky faire mythos doesn’t really say a lot about natural rights, but I’m no expert in religion. Instead, we have folks like Lockes, Hobbes, etc., that speak much more eloquently that I do, using reason.
To think otherwise means that we’re all hypocrites when we criticise North Korea, Russia, China, etc., for human rights violations. After all, if the state grants rights, rather than human existence, then who are we to complain?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights
No, there is a logical basis for asserting human rights. And although those dictatorships fail miserably, sadly so does the US in many important areas (despite success in others) – with regard to things like the basic human right to health care, the right to live in a peaceful society, and the right to fair access to justice for all – the latter addressed in hypocritical principle, the former not addressed at all. No offense intended, just emphasizing why I as a Canadian I do not want to be part of the US.
