The European Union's American Pedigree: Lessons from the Other Side of the Atlantic

The European Union is a continental movement with an American pedigree. The phenomena of European “integration” and “harmonization” (innocuous terms for a pernicious enterprise) re-enact the evolution of the American Union: the judicial conversion of sovereign states into municipalities and, concomitantly, the homogenization-centralization of political life by a stratified agent turned superior. The commonalities between the American and European unions reflect the recurrent dynamics by which autonomy is undermined.

Volume 16, Number 1 (2002)