While it was an experiment to bring them together, nothing has divided Europe as much as the euro.
Interpretation
The euro, although intended to unify Europe, has instead caused significant divisions among its member countries.
Joseph Stiglitz highlights the paradox of the euro as a currency meant to foster unity within Europe but has ultimately led to conflicts and disparities. The quote suggests that economic policies and shared currencies can create unintended consequences, exacerbating divisions rather than promoting cooperation among nations.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the economic challenges faced by the European Union.
Free migration within Europe means that countries that have done a better job at reducing unemployment will predictably end up with more than their fair share of refugees. Workers in these countries bear the cost in depressed wages and higher unemployment, while employers benefit from cheaper labor.
I don't think we can have democracies that work where most of the people are not benefiting economically, where most of the people are worried about their job security.
Let me put it very forcefully: No large economy has ever recovered from an economic downturn through austerity. It's not going to happen in the United States, and it's not going to happen in Europe.
What separates developing countries from developed countries is as much a gap in knowledge as a gap in resources.
One of the arguments I make for the failure of the euro is that, at the time it was being constructed, there was a 'neo-liberal' ideology which said that all we need to do to make this thing work is to get deficits low, keep inflation low, and take down barriers, and then everything would be fine.
Trump sees the world in terms of a zero-sum game. In reality, globalisation, if well managed, is a positive-sum force: America gains if its friends and allies - whether Australia, the E.U., or Mexico - are stronger. But Trump's approach threatens to turn it into a negative-sum game: America will lose, too.
Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.
Prosperity cannot be restored by raids upon the public Treasury.
The reason we should do a carbon tax is because it's the right thing to do. It's economics 101, elementary stuff.
There's nothing in Keynesian economics that would allow you to solve stagflation. But there's nothing in neoclassical economics that would allow you to solve stagflation, either.
It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only those individuals know.
Money differs from an automobile or mistress in being equally important to those who have it and those who do not.
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