Raghuram Rajan: evaluation

Transcript context

…Do you think the European Union is a substitute for community? Or an enabler of it, on net? I think that, at least in the way that it has grown, it has actually created more reaction than a greater sense of community. And I’ll be very specific about that. What it’s done is, it’s taken powers up into the Union which traditionally used to belong at the country level and, within the country level, at the regional level. And as those paths migrate up, people in the country feel disempowered. “We can’t determine everything. Everything is determined by those bureaucrats in Brussels.” When that happens, there’s a reaction against the European Union. To some extent, the local politicians play into that. All the good stuff is because of them. All the bad stuff is because of those bureaucrats in the Union. There is no political consensus behind the Union itself, though if you ask, “What is the political consensus behind Europe?” — as a concept, I think it’s still pretty strong. Should the existence of the internet make us super optimistic about community? Or super pessimistic?…

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