I’m sorry, but why is the USA not a kind of supranational organization, like the EU?

r/

I mean it is United STATES of America, and the European UNION.

I’ve heard that it’s because of the federal government. Is that true?

I’m just curious about the history. Thanks!

Comments

  1. edparadox Avatar

    The USA is a country, contrary to the EU which is, as the name suggests, an union of countries.

    Yes, like e.g. Germany, its government is based on federalism, but a seperation between national and regional governmental bodies does not explain why it should be anything other than a country.

    See federalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalism

  2. mack2028 Avatar

    because that concept didn’t exist when the founding documents of the US were drawn up and the people in charge derive too much of their power from keeping it the way it is to do the overhaul that is required to solve a lot of the political issues.

  3. xiaorobear Avatar

    Since you asked about the history of it, you might be interested in looking into the Articles of Confederation. Basically, before the final US constitution that we use today, they originally established an intentionally much much weaker government, with the aim of being more like what you describe. That early federal government didn’t have the power to do much except handle foreign policy, while the states were each free to run themselves. It couldn’t enforce basically anything, could only request funding from the states and not demand its own taxes, couldn’t regulate interstate commerce, etc. So while this was preferrable for many states, it quickly ran into issues. For example, when pirates were attacking US ships, and the government wanted to create a navy and build some ships… they couldn’t fund it. When some states refused to pay their debts from loans during the Revolutionary War, the government… couldn’t do anything about it. No one had confidence in the currency this government issued, which caused more problems. The idea of a military chain of command was unclear.

    So, the politicians of the time decided to create a stronger federal government, that did have the ability to levy taxes, run the military, and regulate interstate commerce. Over the past couple centuries that government has gotten stronger, too.