Concrete Achievements

Author: anthonyzach

  • A nice chiasmus, but… SV can solve problems because it doesn’t act under the…

    A nice chiasmus, but… SV can solve problems because it doesn’t act under the constraints of universalism, tax revenue and political control that DC does. It’s not hard to solve non-critical problems for the group of users you want to serve, with slugs of easy VC funding…. twitter.com/ezraklein/stat…

    It’s hard to solve problems that you can only indirectly affect, that are deep rooted and dependent on behaviours you can’t control in lives you don’t understand – when everything you do is immediately criticised, legitimately, by political opponents …

    When “universal” is the only acceptable service level, but you have to argue with Congress/Parliament for the money, and keep arguing every year for a programme that might take ten years to show results.

    It’s no wonder private sector types so often fall on their faces when they step into government.

  • Links from the week of 3 September 2018

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • The core choice of all choices is whether politicians think the British public will bear…

    The core choice of all choices is whether politicians think the British public will bear continued free movement. twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/s…

    Options are (a) No – so hard Brexit with all that entails, (b) Yes – so EEA is fine, no big numbers of voters care about ECJ; (c) Yes but only if the government lies about it stopping one day – temporary EEA is fine but get ready for endless arguments.

    The problem is that (a) is undeliverable without burning every bridge; (b) raises the question ‘why not stay in the EU and have a say in the rules then’ and (c) means Brexit paralysis continues for ever and I mean yes literally for ever until people choose (a) or (b).

    And this is before taking into account the views of the EU27 and EFTA, who probably prefer the UK having a good long time-out in (b), marginally, over the UK staying in with its neuroses intact.

  • Links from the week of 20 August 2018

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • Links from the week of 13 August 2018

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • Links from the week of 6 August 2018

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • Links from the week of 23 July 2018

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • I’m very conflicted about #peoplesvote.

    I’m very conflicted about #peoplesvote. I see what they want and I see why they want it – but I don’t know that they should get it.

    First thing to say is that I want a strong democratic EU. That’s my starting point, that’s my frame. But I’m also a Brit (and Polish, and a future Belgian, but unmistakably a Brit).

    I think that Britain has an enormous amount to offer the EU and vice versa. But not Britain in its current state, and not Britain with its current politics.

    The Britain of the Great Reform Act and Hobbes, Locke, Smith and Mill. The Britain of the NHS and the single market. They are huge contributors to European politics.

    But today, and for the last decade or more, Britain has been semi-detached. Outside the euro, outside Schengen – both marginal decisions at the time, now hardened into dogma and a universal conviction that both the Euro and Schengen are doomed.

    Do I think this Britain can come back and have things as they were? Not really. They would be a destabilising force just when Europe needs to get its act together on reforms.

    And the reforms (if they are to work) need to put more democracy and openness at EU level, which means less big-state diplomatic shenanigans and more Parliament and #openpolicy – the U.K. would have opposed this in 2008, let alone now.

    So do I want Britain back in the EU? Not if it’s going to have the same attitude, because if it is it will hinder reform not help it. A member state where even remain voters lecture their partners on the need to end Schengen (Y. Cooper)

    the need to break the principle of free movement (T Blair) and the need for the U.K. to have special treatment vs the euro zone (D Cameron) – what good would they do that would outweigh the damage?

    Add to that the impact of another referendum, which if Remain wins it will win by another narrow margin, and it looks even worse. The old awkward-squad U.K. will be like Luxembourg compared to angry, divided, resentful returner Britain.

    And yet … I am British. And I want my country in a strong Europe, made stronger by its commitment to it. That feels like an impossible dream today. I would be delighted if #peoplesvote could deliver that. But given where British politics is, I don’t think it can.

  • This is less interesting than I’d expected from the hype.

    This is less interesting than I’d expected from the hype. In particular the key issue – freedom of movement – is brushed away in a paragraph with “hmm, tricky”. The UK’s entire pitch is “all the trade and none of the immigrants”. twitter.com/cer_grant/stat…

    I don’t think the EU could move on that without inflaming countries whose migrants would become second class citizens, but even if it could, it shouldn’t – morally or strategically.

    Everything else – courts, money, etc – the U.K. has signalled it is going to be flexible on, because what it wants, what Cameron wanted and what it has always wanted is all the EU minus immigrants.

    If, as polls suggest, immigration attitudes are starting to turn positive in the U.K., why put the whole EU in hock to a fading xenophobic constituency.

  • This is a good (via @simonjhix) and worth reading.

    This is a good thread (via @simonjhix) and worth reading. I don’t agree, but it reflects a common problem with how people think of the EU’s actions – a sort of essentialism that sees the EU as a unit with fixed views. (Thread) twitter.com/danieljohnsalt…

    Why is this wrong? The EU is an assembly of member state and EU-level elected politicians. It has a bureaucratic culture, though that changes over time, but its political positions reflect the people who are elected to be there.

    When centre-right governments hold the reins, centre-right things happen. What happened to Greece happened to Greece because the political moment was one where governments who supported austerity held the reins in the EU.

    Had centre-left governments held the reins, things would have been different. Perhaps not very different given the pressure from national level, but different.

    (As an aside, saving the euro was not an ego trip. A collapse would have been a disaster that hit millions of people, affecting the poorest the most – the idea of the euro as just a policy choice is also a common UK error)

    So I understand why Greece made people angry. It made me angry, and in retrospect people have started to admit mistakes. But being angry at the EU *as an institution* rather than the people who made the decisions is the wrong way to look at it.

    It’s like being angry at parliamentary democracy for the chaos around Brexit, or at Congress for Trump. There might be structural weaknesses, but the driving force is the people in the system not the system.

    So my response to Daniel would be – the EU is never good or bad, except as we make it, through the politicians we send there and the actions we take as citizens. To control a world where decisions are global we need to be part of a democracy with global influence.

    The U.K. on its own will not just be poorer, though it will, it will be weaker and its citizens less able to shape the decisions that affect their lives. Stay in, campaign, elect the politicians who will make the Europe you want, locally, nationally and in Brussels.