Race to the bottom and dynamics of the EU

There are 2 other issues raised by Trond which I would like to touch
upon.

Throughout the 1980s there was a sort of balance in Europe, leaving
aside the UK that was experiencing a frontal class war with the
capitalists hell-bent on destroying the industry because it contained
workers. The balance was between the clientele Christian Democratic
orientation of the EEC which characterized the Common Market from its
very inception and the antinflationary stance of Germany. France
contained both elements (France is a very clientele oriented state,
efficient but clientelistic just the same, see the whole story of ELF
and Pasqua) and eventually Mitterrand shifted the rudder towards the
German position. Italy did not join the deflationary pack until the
Amato government in 1992 and more firmly until the center-left
government of Prodi in 1996. This precarious and conflicting balance had
however a significant impact on the new entrants: Spain, Portugal and
Greece. The profile of the new entrants was closer to the clientele
structure of Italy and also of France. Thus the new entrants were not
required to implement drastic institutionally imposed deflationary
policies. Spain and Portugal inflicted upon themselves such a policy
when they decided to join the EMS but there was no superior force
imposing those policies upon them meanwhile they all got hefty EU
contributions. Thus there existed two tendencies, intersecting and
contradicting each other, within the EEC. A deflationary one stemming
from Gemany joined by Mitterrand based on the functioning of the EMS and
an expansionary one determined by both clientele's needs and the EEC
moneys to the underdeveloped areas. Moreover governments were not
required to curtail their regional contributions whereas nowadays they
are.
Today the situation is very different as macroeconomic clientelism is
gone (not however that of giving money to this or that group) and
deflationary policies are a prererquiste in order to obtain EU funds.
This is what the Eastern European countries are now compelled to do. To
qualify for EU's structural funds they must first implement negative
adjustment policies. This is why in Poland there is such a big
disenchantment with the EU but the ruling elites and the ersatz
bourgeoisie see the EU with Greek-like eyes. So it is a true race to the
bottom. The Easterns have to adjust by expanding unemployment and social
distress and by becoming 'competitive', the structural funds have become
part of the policy to activate and stimulate the race to the bottom. In
the past, with all its shortocmings, based on privileging large
agribusinesses, Green Europe, as it was called, did however allow a
signficant trickle down to the small farmers thereby lifting their
incomes. Furthermore the contributions from the EEC were added on top of
the regional policies of the governments of the relevant countries.
However in the last two decades the Green policy has become exclusively
oriented to fund the large oligopolistic agribusinesses but in a
situation where the rural population in Western Europe is now well below
5% This is not the case in Eastern Europe but they will still have to
apply policies totally geared to big agribusiness and will not have the
freedom to develop their own regional policies.

The second point concerns the attititude towards the EU. I think the EU
is running into a total stalemate. This may open up significant
political space which will depend upon the social struggles that the
stalemate may induce.

joseph halevi

-----Original Message-----
From: trond andresen [mailto:trond.andresen_at_itk.ntnu.no]
Sent: Wednesday, 1 June 2005 8:59 PM
To: Marc Lavoie; she_forum_at_itk.ntnu.no
Cc: shaun310_at_coombs.anu.edu.au; Political Economy
Subject: RE: [HE] The French 'NO'

At 14:47 31.05.2005, Marc Lavoie wrote:
>Hi!
>
>I can confirm what Joseph Halevi just said.
>..........................(snip).............
>what really
>struck me was the depth of the debates among ordinary French citizens.
Last
>Saturday, on the eve of the vote, I had supper with friends that were
>neither intellectuals nor politically involved, and I was amazed at the

>depth of their knowledge of the constitution.
>.....

I agree with Marc and Joseph: The discussion in France has been an
unusually
informed one. As opposed to in Spain. And the more knowledgeable the
more a
population tends towards rejecting the proposed "constitution". This
really
says it all, but will not have much impact on the autistic so-called
European elite.

But I write this to make another point: While the French have updated
themselves very thoroughly on the character of EU during the campaign,
they
seem to have illusions about there being a fundamental difference
between
the "neoliberal constitution", and the EU as such: "I am against the
proposed constitution, but for the EU".

I cannot see the important difference. Neoliberalism was set in stone in
the
original Treaty of Rome, with the four "freedoms": Unfettered movement
of
goods, services, labour and capital. National control of a macroeconomy
is
through this impossible. The Euro and the further removal of national
autonomy in all sorts of areas are in my opinion logical extensions of
the
principles in the Treaty of Rome. This has also, quite correctly, been
pointed out by some of the supporters of the "constitution": they say
that
there is nothing new in the neoliberal principles formulated in that
document, so why all the fuss?

This is the reason that a majority in Norway has voted no to mebership,
both
in 1972 and 1994. This quite well-informed majority has the same
political
composition as that of the today's French NO majority -- it is not and
has
not been a right-wing, xenophobic movement.

The race to the bottom now happening because of poorer Eastern European
countries having joined, has been the intention all along. To some
degree it
has been taking place for many years, by industries being moved to more
exploitation-favourable countries like Spain and Portugal.

The French has IMO now -- through the debate about the "constitution" --

started to discover what the EU really is. Good.

Trond Andresen

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Received on 03-06-05