But ASEAN's old guard opted for immediate integration, in effect making itself answerable for the other nations' advancement.

CNN: RETOOLING ASEAN

Does the passage of time or the intensity of the economic crisis mean that the old post-war arguments for further integration might be lessening, and that other countries might see a "UKIP effect" in which the heresies, once confined to the fringe, may become newly and respectably mainstream?

BBC: Why is Cameron's Europe speech so significant?

The integration of China and other emerging economies into the world trading system has, in effect, more than doubled the global labour force, and by curbing workers' bargaining power it has restrained pay demands in most developed economies in recent years.

ECONOMIST: Why China is not to blame for the surge in global inflation

The optimists' gloss on all that was that Italy's financial woes are being quarantined - and the rest of the eurozone is galloping towards the kind of fiscal integration that would (at the last) allow the European Central Bank to (in effect) underwrite the credit-worthiness of all member states (see my post, The eurozone's borrowing costs may stay lethally high, for more on this).

BBC: Are markets betting on IMF bailout of Italy?