![\"brexit\"](\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/brexit.jpg\")
On 23 June 2016, this British citizen will be voting to leave the European Union.<\/p>\nOn 23 June 2016, this British citizen will be voting to leave the European Union.<\/p>\n
To me it\u2019s clear: the EU has not only become too big for its own good, it\u2019s too big to do hardly anything good.<\/p>\n
Back in 1975 when the UK first confirmed membership in the EU (when it was called the European Economic Community), it made sense.<\/p>\n
Britain has always thrived on international trade, and the EU promised more trade.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not what happened. The EU didn\u2019t turn into a peaceful, efficient, multi-national trading bloc that enables commerce and prosperity.<\/p>\n
Rather it has become an ever-expanding, unaccountable bureaucracy ruling over vastly disparate nations who are increasingly at odds with one another.<\/p>\n
And it is precisely the size of this Leviathan that\u2019s the problem\u2026 something that was first identified several decades ago by economist Leopold Kohr.<\/p>\n
Kohr was an Austrian Jew who only narrowly escaped Hitler\u2019s Germany just before the outbreak of the Second World War.<\/p>\n
He had been born in Oberndorf in central Austria, a village of just 2,000 or so.<\/p>\n
And Oberndorf\u2019s tiny size came to play a crucial role in Kohr\u2019s thinking about the wealth of nations.<\/p>\n
Kohr\u2019s premise was simple: when you get too big, you start having serious problems.<\/p>\n
This applies to political unions, from the Roman Empire to the EU, as well as to companies.<\/p>\n
Even Warren Buffett has warned that large companies will eventually find it difficult to grow.<\/p>\n
Kohr graduated in 1928 and went off to study at the London School of Economics with the likes of fellow Austrian Friedrich von Hayek.<\/p>\n
In September 1941, Kohr began writing what would become his masterwork, \u2018The Breakdown of Nations\u2019.<\/p>\n
He wrote that instead of expanding, Europe should be shrinking back into small political regions (like Switzerland) with a commitment to private property rights and local democracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have ridiculed the many little states,\u201d wrote Kohr sadly, \u201cnow we are terrorised by their few successors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simply put, size creates unavoidable limits\u2026 and problems.<\/p>\n
And as the European Union has grown ever larger, it smashes horribly into Kohr\u2019s thesis.<\/p>\n
We can see this with the spate of problems in Europe ranging from horrific youth unemployment to major border crises to negative interest rates across the continent.<\/p>\n
Of all the world\u2019s population centers, Europe is the slowest growing (i.e. most rapidly shrinking) in the world.<\/p>\n
The promises of growth and prosperity proved hollow. Yet the Eurocrats want to give Europeans even more: more regulation, more negative interest rates, more size.<\/p>\n
Perhaps ECB Governing Council member Vitas Vasiliauskas sums this up the best from his comments last week:<\/p>\n
\u201cMarkets say the ECB is done, their box is empty. But we are magic people. Each time we take something and give to the markets \u2013 a rabbit out of the hat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vasiliauskas is the perfect embodiment of the EU bureaucracy: they believe they are special people capable of performing miracles.<\/p>\n
The arrogance and hubris in this statement are overwhelming and tell you everything you need to know about the unelected, unaccountable people who control our lives.<\/p>\n
If you want to understand this issue even more, I highly recommend the documentary Brexit: The Movie<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n