I hate to quote Wikipedia, but:
Little changed politically once the Articles of Confederation went into effect, as ratification did little more than legalize what the Continental Congress had been doing. That body was renamed the Congress of the Confederation; but most Americans continued to call it the Continental Congress, since its organization remained the same
So basically we're disagreeing over whether or not a 12 (or 8) year period between 1777 (or arguably, 1781) and 1789 represents a confederation in which the concepts of free movement of labor and capital existed in a way at least somewhat analogous to the way they do in the EEC/EU.
I'd say they do not. Given that Wealth of Nations was only published in 1776, I'm not even sure that these concepts existed clearly in the minds of most of the people it would have to existed in in order for the post-AoC-pre-federal USA to be usefully said to be anything like the EU.
so you're disagreeing that the following sentence establishes freedom of movement and capital?
> the free inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from Justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states; and the people of each state shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other state, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively
ok
if the AoC did nothing more than codifying what was already the case when the land was just a bunch of GB colonies, I don't see how the AoC can be seen as analogous to the EU, which started from a set of distinct nations. it seems that all you're saying is that "within the colonies, there was free movement of labor and capital, and that continued after the revolution". that doesn't seem even remotely suprising - they were all colonies of a single nation.
we haven't mentioned the currency side of things - when the EEC/EU began, there wasn't even a common currency in use.
I don't remember claiming otherwise
> If you're a historical revisionist, you could make the claim that the separate colonies constituted separate nations before the AoC, but I wouldn't agree with you
I didn't claim this either
my only point was EU is not unique, it's a confederation and there have been many throughout history, several with freedom of movement and capital, including the rather well known United States (post-AoC but pre-federalisation)
you may disagree, but that would be historical revisionism