How historians will look back on Euroland’s demise - FT.com

How historians will look back on Euroland’s demise - FT.com
By Norman Davies

If Sparta and Rome perished”, asked Rousseau in his Social Contract, “how can any state hope to live for ever? The Body Politick, like the body of a man, begins to die as soon as it is born; it contains the seeds of its own destruction.”...

Most recently, the demise of Euroland came into view. It is not a sovereign state, but it is a body politick of sorts and subject to the same vagaries of fortune afflicting everything else. Launched only a dozen years ago, it may join the long list of organisations that have died young. It lacks viable organs of fiscal management and political governance; by general consent, it must reconstruct itself rapidly or break up. “The eurozone is doomed”, its critics argue. Britain’s Foreign Secretary describes it as “a burning building with no exits”. George Soros warns of possible “meltdown”...