STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 3 February 2014

[Demeter]

35. Problems of Eurozone, European Integration Stem From Deeply Unpopular Elite Economic, Social Policy

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21508-problems-of-eurozone-european-integration-stem-from-deeply-unpopular-elite-economic-social-policy

The February 2014 issue of Harper's Magazine has an interesting discussion of Europe and the eurozone, "How Germany Reconquered Europe: the Euro and its Discontents." Some of the big questions of European unity, democracy and national sovereignty are debated in broad and direct terms not often seen in other analyses:

"The basic lesson of the past ten, twenty years - even of the past hundred years - is that the upper limit, not only of democracy but of political legitimacy, is the nation-state." (John N. Gray, London School of Economics.)

Then there is the Franco-German relationship, which is central to the eurozone:

"I'm really sorry, but the idea that there is such a thing as Franco-German friendship is just nonsense. In France we're very glad we have no big problems with Germany and the wars are over. But the idea of a special cultural or sociological link between German and France is nonsense. … Among the French bourgeoisie, the elite, there is a sort of reverence for Germany, because Germany is obviously more efficient and because the German people are obviously easier to govern than the French people, so there's this kind of friendship among the upper classes. …

From a French point of view, getting out of the euro would be a tremendously good thing. This would imply that our governing classes would start governing again, that we'd have full national responsibility. People tend to be resigned to the idea of the nation as a thing of the past. Yes, nationalism was responsible for violent conflicts across Europe and elsewhere. But the nation itself is not bad. The nation is the place for democracy, for making decisions. What would happen if the euro zone broke up? In France we would have some economic problems, adjustment problems, but being together as Frenchmen, doing things together, being, as we say in French, "in the same shit," would be great! It would be the beginning of a new age, you see? There's nothing terrifying about this." (Emmanuel Todd, National Institute of Demographic Studies, Paris.)

It is a rich discussion, in many ways, of the historical, cultural and practical problems of European unification and to a lesser extent, the eurozone. However, it is missing something that is of central importance, which is implicit in some of James Galbraith's comments but not sufficiently spelled out. That is the neoliberal political project of the eurozone and its policy-makers, the deliberate attempt to remake Europe and move it as far as politically possible away from its prior social-democratic underpinnings...

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