alt Hacker NewsHow Brussels writes so many laws
Comments
Legal productivity at the expense of actual productivity!
As a Belgian, it does frustrate me that this is what we’re getting known for.
I’m not so sure that equating more laws produced with “greater productivity” is necessarily the right idea.
A quick glance on who Luis Garicano is tells me all I need to know about these pieces.
Economics @ University of Chicago Professor @ LSE
Various memberships at pro American institutions
Expect deregulation narratives, freemarketeering dogmas and how lobbying is actually good for democracy.
> The Commission initiates legislation, but it has no reason to be reticent. It cannot make policy by announcing new spending commitments and investments, as the budget is tiny, around one percent of GDP, and what little money it has is mostly earmarked for agriculture (one-third) and regional aid (one-third). In Brussels, policy equals legislation. Unlike national civil servants and politicians, civil servants and politicians who work in Brussels have one main path to build a career: passing legislation.
This is also relevant in debt-brake discussions. Many who want a smaller government support limits on debts, but a smaller budget leaves passing laws as the only way for politicians to assert themselves. Often, spending money is a less harmful way for a politician to get a headline then passing a law.
I was pondering on this very thing not so long ago. I didn't discover anything new, of course, but I ended up convinced that the whole thing exists only because most people don't take a moment to think how absurd it is, and not so much time has passed since its somewhat forceful foundation (meaning, it wasn't something that "people of the Europe willingly decided to establish"). And, hence, it's only a matter of time it falls apart, and it may happen any time. Which is a pity, because I like open borders, I like EU as an idea, and I don't like wars, revolutions and other rapid changes, which I'd otherwise prefer to happen outside of my lifetime.
What I mean to say is that the whole EU political system is an epitome of citizen alienation, and it is like that by design. It is the purest faceless Kafkian bureaucratic machine. And, by the way, I think it works pretty well for what it is. I don't know how to measure it, but I suppose the overall quality of legislation is higher than what, say, Russia or USA produce. But the fact it is completely opaque by design, that no one is ever truly accountable for anything, I think, just isn't what anyone would willingly accept, and it's only a matter of time when the critical mass of people truly "notice" the fact.
You can often hear how some guy on the internet calls POTUS "the most powerful man in the world", which is always somewhat funny, because, of course, anyone sane understands how far from truth that is. It's laughable, how little he can really do as a president, how powerless he is to change something he truly wants to change. He is more of a glorified clown, than a ruler or a politic. But I come to believe it's really important to have a role like that in the government, somebody who ignorant people believe to be responsible for everything, somebody they can hate and blame for all that is wrong around them. It is important for the silliest psychological reasons, just by human nature.
Anyway, the comment is too long as it is, so I know I won't be able to properly explain myself, but the thing is I don't imagine things like the meaningless cookie-notification, or that idiotic bottlecap thing being possible almost anywhere but Brussels, certainly not that often. It is both ironic and very characteristic of the system, that both are only some very minor footnotes in an Appendix to some enormous legal package that is "mostly obviously good", and are about the only thing from the whole package that most people notice (and obviously are very costly in the end).
how else would they justify their abundant pay and perks
plus Brussels is a boring place, not much else to do other than LARPing as law makers
The more laws we have the more democracy we have! We need more! Look at all the problems around us
It seems like laws just sprout out of Brussels.