Do any nation states act out of altruistic reasons?
*Should* any nation state act out of purely altruistic reasons?
No, but Sweden comes close. As to whether they should act out of purely altruistic reasons, my opinion is nah. Running on the basis that altruism is concern for the welfare of others without concern for welfare of the self, that can be applied to a great degree of success to individual relations, but on the international scale is not particularly feasible, and I suspect prone to nation collapse. Governments more concerned with showing virtue than running the wheels of the country don't tend to lead to wheels turning smoothly, the theocracy never was all that successful
Yeah but if we go to "Altruistic at their core" we start to open up a can of worms. We should just give a benefit of the doubt for some things.
For example the classic purpose of "Gifting" was a show of power. You thrust immense amounts of food on a rival or neighbor to show just how well off you are.
Don't know about that, the classics purposes of gifting were threefold: Social, sexual & diplomatic. Social, for if you were giving someone something valuable without expectation of a return in favour or exchange in goods, you were expressing an exchange of goods without all the haggling or profit seeking of market merchantry, reinforcing or establishing a new relationship through this ceremonial activity. There's a sheer wealth of epics, documents and whatnot detailing how everyone from merchants to princes would gift one another, just look to Chinese or Greek officers in classical antiquity exchanging arms and weapons to build relations and respect amongst one another. This connection would even apply to diplomacy, so you get some interesting stuff where for example in the Iliad the two warring sides exchange gifts, weapons and armour incredibly frequently, and this helps to ensure that at the end of the day, despite the two seeking to kill one another - they'll still respect truces and burial rites, allowing the other to recover their dead and wounded. And in seeking alliances, relations or marriages, it helps to send a gift to a representative beforehand! This practice still continues to this day, and is a problem the USA has had to tackle with through the ages. In its founding years the USA wished to not send diplomatic gifts for fear of corruption, yet realized the simple reality that to not send diplomatic gifts would be to insult many of the nations they intended to deal with! And the most recent gaff involved our former Prime Minister Gordon Brown giving Barack Obama a pen holder carved from the wood of HMS Gannet, one of the Victorian ships which crushed the slave trade - the sister ship of HMS Resolute, whose wood was carved into the Oval Office desk. In return Obama gave him a DVD boxset. Obama's endorsement of Remain boosted Leave :]
The final reason of course is simply sexual, and is a practice unlikely to go away for thousands of years. Suitors will woo with gifts, whether in nature or civilization
Thrusting immense wealth in the direction of your neighbour with no expectation of returns is overawing your neighbour, however that is a practice that occurs after gifting - it certainly was not a cheap affair, and only one available to the richest of Empires. I can only think of one big instance of overawing through gifts and that would be China's treasure fleet, which displayed the might of Imperial China and won many tributaries
Hah, that's like saying that a Korean election and the Korean war are the same because they both begin with the word Korean.
The referendum was an internal matter - the people of a country deciding its future path. The negotiations are basically just more moves in the Great Game (particularly given today's Schrodinger's Putin, who is simultaneously the puppet-master behind every side in every conflict), so it's natural the USA, being our closest ally, would show their hand.
Pretty much, the USA is the most important flank country of Europe and they are always involved in these affairs, were involved in this affair from the start and were invited to act by Nigel and Theresa. The alternative then is to say that we must willingly diplomatically isolate ourselves from our friends, which is simply nonsensical and likely to result in chuckling EU negotiators for days on end ;P
Even so, I don't think the US are trying to intimidate for altruistic reasons. If the EU succeeds in making clearings for Euro transactions go through the EU rather than London, it'll cost murrican companies a pretty penny in altering their business to be able to conform to those regulations.
Of course, the USA and UK are family yet policy is informed by reality, self-interest and calculation more than fondness or cultural ties - though, such things certainly factor in immensely under an Anglophile president. If London were to lose its centre as the place where most euro denominated swaps take place, the country that would directly benefit the most would be the USA itself, so it's nice to see they're backing us anyways
I can sympathize with the EU too, since the notion of London retaining vital European financial infrastructure whilst remaining outside the bloc's regulations even nominally would be a major headache for them. It would be especially embarrassing for example if some crisis in London caused the entire European financial system to collapse because they couldn't legally regulate their own system
Though I can say for certain this is not anything new. The EU's been trying to regulate London since forever and
has failed consistently so this is a notable moment where that could change, thus the USA is stepping in to pressure for the status quo which saves them effort and money needed to adapt to whatever new challenges could emerge. In the long run if we had stayed in the UK, eventually the EU would have acquired the legal right to force the UK either to accept the euro or to move all euro clearing to the Eurozone... So everyone is forced into this awkward boat. I think even after Brexit the EU will continue to raise this issue if it does not succeed now
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