Remaking mankind . . . again

On its way to the USA

[Reprinted from Issues & Views January 14, 2002]

George Will, writing about the euro, Europe's new common currency, in "Europe's future is as ugly as their new currency," Washington Post (12/20/01):

The common currency serves the political objective of changing Europe's civic discourse by supplanting political reasoning with economic calculation. The euro is an instrument for producing a European superstate, which requires erasing from the nations' populations their national identities, which means their distinctive memories. Here we go again, yet another European campaign against ``false consciousness,'' this time meaning patriotism.

Under the euro, nations cede fundamental attributes of sovereignty--control of monetary (and hence, effectively, fiscal) policy to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. This advances the integration of Europe's nations into a continental federation, under which nations will be as ``sovereign'' as Louisiana and Idaho are. . . .

Who wants the euro and the superstate it implies? The EU's disparate publics do not, but two elites do. One is a commercial elite that believes the business of Europe is business--never mind freedom, democracy, justice, culture, different national characters--and that a common currency will expedite it a bit. The other elite consists of the sort of intellectuals Europe always has a surplus of--those eager to remake mankind in order to make it worthy of the shimmering future the intellectuals are dreaming up.

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