The Past Speaks

That’s the title of a thoughtful piece on Brexit by  Johan Norberg that is aimed at US readers.

Many American libertarians have lauded British voters’ decision to leave the European Union. After all, any blow to such a federal structure must be good for liberty, right? Not so fast. Many European libertarians, like myself, view Brexit as a dangerous blow to openness and free trade that removes one of the strongest voices against E.U. centralization from the negotiating table in Brussels… The disconnect between libertarian views on Brexit lies in many Americans’ overly simplistic comparison of the E.U. to the U.S. federal government…A Timbro study by Alexander Fritz Englund showed that E.U. membership for the 28 countries resulted in a statistically significant increase in economic freedom in all of the sub-categories in The Economic Freedom of the World index. 

The full article is worth reading regardless of whether your perspective is libertarian, social democratic, or something else.