I don't see it
that way at all. We must remember that we are looking at a symptom,
not the cause.
Think of it in
an economic context. In a community, you own a business that
utilizes labor from the neighborhood. As your business grew,
you have to bid for labor to take them away from competing use and
your cost of labor rises. Imagine it rises sufficiently that
people from other neighborhood find it worthwhile to travel to your
neighborhood to work. As your business increases and you
increase wages to pull in more labor, the labor may opt
to live where they work and starts to bid for living areas in your
neighborhood so prices of property rises. Other businesses also
find there is more demand for their goods so they start expanding
their business to provide for the increase in demand. In the short
term we may see prices in the neighborhood increase as there is a
demand for goods that is higher then supply. If wages don't
increase, the labor may move back to their own neighborhoods,
preferring instead to commute. However if wages are high
enough to pay for these higher prices, labor continues to stay in
the neighborhood and the new higher prices become standard. Because
of higher profit margins for these businesses, we see other
companies springing up. The foreigners integrate into the
neighborhood. We start to see a variety of good tailored to
specific groups and tastes. We see the neighborhood
economy improve and residents becoming relatively affluent
compared to other neighborhoods.
When governments
step in, they anticipate the stages. So to ease the flow of labor,
they remove boundaries between countries, removing the need for
visas, work permits etc. To ensure that a strong currency doesn't
keep people from moving into the neighborhood and preferring to
live away where the exchange rate is in their favor, they create a
common currency. Laws become common to facilitate easier
understanding and enforcement of contract agreements.
Firstly, an
economic model’s only concerns are economic in nature. Culture,
religion, tradition, family values, patriotism, moral values, the
arts etc are not economic in nature. Economic policy does not
address any other issue and more properly seeks to wipe these out
in favor of a more homogeneous economic outlook.
So one may argue what the new
values are, ie the impact of non-economic values on traditional
ones towards a new homogenous economic based standard. But it is
pointless to argue about maintaining those values when the entire
environment has changed so drastically from the one that originally
bred those values.
The reason for taking such a
drastic step in the first place was to create an entity similar to
the United States with States and a Federal Government. I assume
because that geopolitical make up was viewed as the appropriate
economic model. All the answers to the questions you raise may be
found by examining the American analogy.
The most interesting of which
is who will wear the one ring to rule them all?
Edited: I think America's founding fathers were mainly Aetheists
or Agnostic but now the country is predominantly Christian. You'll
find your answer in that bit of history.