The Europa Discordia cartoon was the first real innovation in Merkel iconography in months...
tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
For example, recently my mind has been tending towards comparing Germany and Southern Europe, with Britain and India in the time of Empire.
The dominant power sets up a trading system that deindustrialises the other areas and then uses poor economic performance of those areas to justify repressive measures.
This is not that inaccurate (although history rhymes more than repeats) but it's bound to seem unfair to those in Germany, as there was no initial thrust to empire, it's merely economic logic of a flawed eurozone system at work.
This, perhaps, is nearly the present state of Bengal, and of some other of the English settlements in the East Indies. In a fertile country, which had before been much depopulated, where subsistence, consequently, should not be very difficult, and where, notwithstanding, three or four hundred thousand people die of hunger in one year, we maybe assured that the funds destined for the maintenance of the labouring poor are fast decaying. The difference between the genius of the British constitution, which protects and governs North America, and that of the mercantile company which oppresses and domineers in the East Indies, cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by the different state of those countries.
Is this all a bit farfetched? tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
So "a genius constitution" is hardly justified as a term. Asking if (whatever set of laws, constitution or not, prevailing in the EU) "enables" oppression within its purview doesn't parallel Smith's comparison of a constitution and a mercantile company in two different parts of the world.
If the point is to say that the current organisation of the EU permits oppression and domination by one member state over another, then the Smith quote doesn't seem apt to me.
