The liberal theory of the political system resembles the neo-classical concept of the market: If all act in their interests, the public good will in the end emerge strengthened from the process. Of course, general rules must apply, but basically, everyone should be allowed to promote his or her own interests to their best ability. Looking at the reality in the centre of European politics one might have second thoughts about this. The European Parliament and, even more so, the European Commission, have become the main targets of a gigantic lobby industry. Washington is the only place where more lobbyists are to be found.
Archive for March, 2010
The European Commission – Target of a Gigantic Lobby Industry
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
Making Use of the Vacuum of Hegemony
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
Anna Striethorst (Brussels) – “Why Seems the Crisis to Favour Rather the Right than the Left?” In March 2010, the leftist network Transform!Europe invited experts from all over Europe to Palma de Mallorca to discuss strategic options for the left during the crisis.
The debate first of all addressed the question of an analysis as to whether the crisis has in fact strengthened the position of right-wing political forces, as assumed at the outset. A study by the Austrian Barbara Steiner, who had compared the results of the elections in a number of European countries, arrived at no clear conclusion. Many took issue with the thesis of the Czech Jiri Malek that crises always help the rightists: Ruurik Holm from Finland pointed out, for example, that the Finnish economic crisis during the nineties has led to a landslide victory of the left. Other participants argued that the right, too, had been caught unprepared by the crisis and would now have to reconsider its neo-liberal positions. Some even went as far as Richard Detje of the magazine Sozialismus, who noted a vacuum of hegemony, in view of the obsolescence of deregulation and depoliticising. In his opinion, the situation has seldom been as open as now; the left, he said, must make use of this.
The Design Flaws of the Eurozone
Monday, March 15th, 2010
Not long ago, the columnists of the major newspapers would not in their wildest dreams have been able to imagine the events happening today. The taxpayers of the two largest European countries, Germany and France, are to help Greece out of its macroeconomic mess. But no! The word “macro-economics” is quite wrong here, because that makes it sound like rational policy. But: Greece necessarily reacts to its “social environment”, which is the international community. And that is structured by rules and by relationships of power and exchange. Here, certain groups with their institutions rule over other groups – be they the lower classes of their own countries, or other countries which have a lower level of technological development in the international division of labour.
For a Continued Emancipation of The Left
Monday, March 1st, 2010
Birgit Daiber (Brussels) and Cornelia Hildebrandt (Berlin) – The old socialist model imploded in 1989. The perversion of the idea of socialism by Stalinism, the democratic deficits inherent in its system, the failure of the planned economy, the bureaucratic paralysis of the societies subjected to its claim that political leadership belong to the communist parties… not much was left of the wealth of ideas of the left’s history; the hope of humankind had worn itself out in “real existing socialisms”.
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