Even in reporting and
analyzing seemingly-objective economic data for comparative purposes, political
ideology can creep in if that instinctual urge is powerful enough. Even in
comparisons of political entities that are on the same level (e.g., city,
region/province, kingdom, empire), “word-games” can be used to suggest that the
republics being compared are on different political levels. The use of linguistic
subterfuge is, I submit, underhanded and based on a stubborn refusal to admit
to oneself that the two or more political entities being compared are indeed on
the same level, rather than one being higher than the other. In the case of
comparing GDP and GDP per capita between E.U. and U.S. states, the very fact
that the states are being compared to each other, rather than a state in one
union to another union (as if a state in one political union were equivalent to
another union of states—a category mistake to be sure!), means that the
respective states are in fact equivalent even though different labels are used
according to whether a given state is in one union or another. In arguing these
points, I shall juxtaposition the respective labels to highlight the absurdity
of using different labels for ideological purposes.
In mid-April, 2026, Euronews,
which reflects Euroskeptic language in order to appease critics of the E.U.,
reported that top E.U. states and U.S. republics were roughly similar in “economic
size rankings.”[1] Even
though E.U. states, like U.S. states, were (and had been) semi-sovereign states,
Euronews belied its own economic likeness of the respective economic sizes of big
states in both unions by erroneously inventing the label, “EU countries” just
before “US states.” Then, in the next paragraph, the journalist used the label,
“European economies” for the E.U. states yet retained US states. In English,
the expression, “Something funny is going on here” is a way of applying suspicion
to another person’s underlying motives. In other words, something more is going
on in the writing of the article than merely comparing economic numbers. This
is the idea.
The “word games” bent on subtly
overlaying differentials are undercut when we turn to the numbers themselves.
In terms of GDP, the list from highest to lowest shows E.U. states and U.S.
states clustered: Germany, California, France, Texas, Italy, New York, Spain,
and Florida. That big states in one union of states are economically equivalent
to big states in the other union is good evidence that the respective states in
the two unions are equivalent more generally. To take one example, the GDP of
Spain in 2025 was €1.687 trillion and that of Florida was €1.624 trillion.[2]
To be sure, in making more general comparisons between the two semi-sovereign
states, Spain’s greater size, 3.6 times the territorial size of Florida, is
significant. However, that Spain’s 505,990 square kilometers falls between the 423,970
of California and the 695,662 of Texas strongly suggests that in terms of territory,
the large (and small) states of the respective unions cluster together, rather
than it being the case that a large state in one union clusters with the other
union overall. To be sure, the exception to this is Alaska being larger than
the E.U. itself, but otherwise, the large states in the two unions cluster not
only in terms of economic output, but also geographical size.
The article’s report of GDP per
capita even puts some large U.S. states above even large E.U. states
because New York, California, Illinois, Texas, and Florida have higher numbers
than do the Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy. The bar-graph in the article
even has all of the states in blue whereas the U.S. and E.U. are in other colors
so those two unions could be compared to each other. Even though the graph is
labeled as “EU’s top 5 economies vs. top 5 U.S. states” (notice, too, the
subtle, selective use of periods in “U.S.” but not “EU” as if this means that
the latter is an organization rather than a union of states!), that all of the
states are shown with blue bars indicates that the states of the respective
unions are equivalent (and that the unions can be compared with each other,
rather than to a state).
In making the argument of
state-equivalence, out of which I derived union-equivalence, I once read the
ten volumes of George Bancroft’s History of the United States of America,
From the Discovery of the American Continent after having taken Joanne
Freeman’s Yale course on the American Revolutionary War. In writing British
Colonies Forge an American Empire: A Basis for Trans-Atlantic Comparisons,
I wanted to highlight that according to Bancroft’s studies, people on both
sides of the Atlantic viewed the British colonies as being on the scale of the
countries in Europe at the time. Bancroft reports in his texts that both the political
elite in the colonies and in the British Empire’s host kingdom (i.e., Britain)
tended to view the United Colonies as being on the empire- rather than
kingdom-level.[3]
In fact, even New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and Southern (informal) sub-groups
of colonies were viewed as empires in themselves by some people! Not just a few
British politicians were nervous about there being an empire (or empires!)
within the empire; an empire consists of kingdom-level political entities. That
both Virginia and Ireland were regarded as members of the British Empire is
strong evidence that the British colonies in North America were regarded from
the start in the Greek rather than the Roman sense of a colonialization (i.e., a
colony constructed to be equivalent to the host country rather than as a part
thereof; for example, a city-state in Greece creating another city-state). This
is the historical underpinning for my conclusion that the U.S. states, rather
than the U.S. itself, are equivalent to E.U. states, and therefore I submit
that the claim that a state of the E.U. is equivalent to the U.S. is a political
category mistake. In historical terms, no one would have claimed that a kingdom
and an empire are equivalent because empires consisted of kingdoms. That both a
free-standing, or free, kingdom and an empire were both sovereign does not make
the two equivalent because sovereignty is merely an attribute rather than
definitive.
Comparative politics can extend
beyond comparing types of political systems (e.g., democracy, autocracy) to consider
the matter of equivalence in terms of city-states, regions, kingdoms, and
empires. Early in the seventeenth century, the European jurisprud Althusius
wrote Political Digest on federalism based on the Holy Roman Empire. In
his text, he clearly distinguished between the different levels in a federation:
the guilds, the cities, the regions, the kingdoms, and the empire. His theory
of federalism has the next-lower being members (and thus represented) in the next-higher,
with individuals being members only of the guilds. His isomorphic federalism is
more the case in the E.U. than the U.S. because none of the American states have
federal systems. By viewing the E.U. and the U.S. as equivalent, Althusius’s
theory could be seen to be applicable to the U.S., especially in regard to that
union’s large, internally heterogenous states like California, Illinois, and
New York. Comparing apples with apples, and oranges with oranges in comparative
politics can indeed have such significant practical benefits, but not if Europeans
and Americans go on treating individual states in one union as being equivalent
to the other union rather than to states thereof.
2. Ibid.
3. Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire: A Basis for Trans-Atlantic Comparisons.
