Harold, stimulating as always. I only wish you had not used that particular quotation of Churchill to make your point. Because of course it was conflicting Christian faiths and ethics which during various centuries divided Europe. Or at least that is what the nations pretended. The mind set of most was power through territory. I would not be the first to suggest that among the movers and shakers religion was often identity-creating disguise for emerging secular ideologies. In the 17th century for example most English protestants could have amicably lived alongside catholics were it not for the politics. What really got the Englishman hot under the collar was France’s effort to export its political economy model of arbitrary absolutism (‘Mr de Gaulle, it were France what done the betrayals in them days’). Had it not been for wars of religion England (with its distinctive obsession for rules-based procedural governance) might have diverged from the European pattern even sooner than it did. Although England was eventually the model to emulate (note my virtuous disdain for dates and milestones), it only became so after the mask of religion had slipped. The self-inflicted relative decline of ‘catholic’ countries stemmed from models of political economy, not religion. Thenceforth, competition was between models of capitalism. You might agree that WWI had a little bit to do with competing models of capitalism? Certainly I think this underlies what is occurring today in Europe’s fringes and in East Asia, although my personal view is that debates about ‘varieties of capitalism’ resembles religion.



I’m sure we could find other Churchill quotes to the effect that liberty or freedom under rule of law had (and has) the potential to bind Europe together. Yes, I found it! In the same text you linked to Churchill says: “There is a remedy which, if it were generally and spontaneously adopted, would as if by a miracle transform the whole scene, and would in a few years make all Europe as free and as happy as Switzerland. What is this sovereign remedy? It is to re-create the European Family, or as much of it as we can, and provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe.”



Spontaneous? Sounds almost Hayekian. Churchill knew better than anyone that Germany was intermittently the party spoiler, but, crucially, he acknowledges Germany’s post-religious historical experience of nation building as the model. “The ancient states and principalities of Germany, freely joined together for mutual convenience in a federal system, might each take their individual place among the United States of Europe. I shall not try to make a detailed programme for hundreds of millions of people who want to be happy and free, prosperous and safe, who wish to enjoy the freedoms of which the great President Roosevelt spoke ... If this is their wish, they have only to say so, and means can certainly be found, and machinery erected, to carry that wish into full fruition.”



Machinery? Hm, that doesn’t sound Hayekian. Joachim Whaley says towards the end of his massive new 2-volume opus on German history (which I’m sure you will have read, but I have not as yet!): “Memories of a universal Christian empire played a small role again at the end of the eighteenth century in the definition of the Germans as a universal and post-national people.” I’m pretty certain Whaley’s stress is on the secular lessons of the past relating to cosmopolitan federal models which are modern and embody post-religious constructivist European concepts of freedom. Bringing religion into the argument could be a backward step into the boggy fields of 17th century wars.