In today’s highly interconnected and networked world, collaboration prevails over competition.

This is despite the pushback against globalisation by a number of authoritarian rulers and states.

After leaving the European Union, the United Kingdom is learning that it is unwise to walk away from a huge market and political bloc close to your country. Yes, regional markets have rules to follow. Regional organisations pool the power of member nations for the benefit of countries in the region. Then there is the further caveat that market regulations dictate the parameters within which market members operate. For the global marketplace, this denotes a loss of sovereignty — or, better-stated, shared sovereignty.

However, markets are rising tides that lift people and businesses to greater prosperity across cultures and geographies. That is the central idea behind market capitalism.

 

EU travels

A simple trip to Paris or any EU city in northwest Europe will teach a UK traveller the folly of Brexit. British travellers, for instance, have to queue at a number of EU airports in long lines for non-European travelers. UK businesses face EU tariffs and EU regulations while their European counterparts face much less regulation. There is a clear difference between the seamless rail links within the European continent and those in the UK.

Travel between major cities of Europe is seamless, pleasant and convenient once the traveller leaves Britain. Europe is in effect a single jurisdiction in terms of markets and travel.

Cooperation between European leaders who belong to one single marketplace has enhanced physical security, infrastructure development, and economic growth.

 

Some drawbacks

Yes, there are the drawbacks: loss of some sovereignty for EU countries, and the imposition of rules and regulations uniformly followed.

A single currency is the loss of national currencies. However, most Europeans will readily assert that the single currency and a European common market are more convenient and business friendly.

On the continent of Africa, there is the belief that if Africa possessed a single market it would have prevented war, poverty and horrific governance.

 

In the VI

Here at home, the Virgin Islands and United States VI share a common geography and a close social and cultural history. Both jurisdictions are a good analogy for what is happening in Europe, and why cooperation and collaboration are better than competition and even conflict in the journey towards greater social and economic prosperity.

 

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