
I've liked to snigger at the USA's apparent inability to govern itself out of a wet paper bag, in contrast to our competently-run social democracies on this side of the pond. The ongoing crisis of the euro has made it clear that I really don't have all that much to snigger about. This is a monetary crisis. It's about money. Money is not wealth. It's a representation of wealth. That means that there are technical solutions to it, whether it's about splitting up the euro into more reasonably functional currency areas, or coming up with a program to keep it together until the eurozone's economies converge enough to be one.
Yet we're clearly not able to come up with those solutions. We keep kicking the can down the road and hoping it'll go away.
I love the European idea. The EU and its predecessors have managed to bring an unprecedented period of stability, peace, and prosperity to what is historically probably the most war-ridden region in the world. Even now, we have countries queuing to join. It is a unique experiment in political history; a voluntary empire with no emperor and no single hegemonic people, family, religion, or political ideology. It's hardly surprising that it's not an easy thing to maintain, since we're in uncharted territory all of the time. I would really hate to see it go.