Revolting Europe
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Spain’s disposable workers
If a weapon is given to someone, it is normal to use it when needed. And that’s exactly what Spanish businesses are doing with the legal weapons that they have been given to hire and fire workers at their convenience. As a result, the labour market has become a roller coaster, up and down in … Continue reading
Without a national currency there is no democracy
Enrico Grazzini explains how Italy can save itself from Euro death Europe, and especially in Italy, is still struggling to understand the crucial value of money in the economy, politics and democracy. Unfortunately, the error is shared by much of the left. Everyone understands (at least apparently) that there is no political democracy without a democratic … Continue reading
94 reasons why French trade unions have boycotted Hollande’s job summit
Francois Hollande’s jobs summit is becoming a farse. Unemployment in France has risen to a new high of 3.4 million. The socialist President is desperate to be seen to be doing something about it. But Monday yet another union walked out of the two day ‘social summit’, an unprecedented desertion by organised labour for any administration in Paris, … Continue reading
French left goes Greek
France’s left is in a sorry state. It took a bashing in local elections in March and then European elections in May. The ruling socialists plunged to an all time low of less than 14%. The radical Front de Gauche, comprising the communists and other leftists like Jean Luc Melenchon, polled just 6.3%, down from … Continue reading
How austerity has widened Italy’s North-South divide
Austerity policies have accentuated a North-South divide grounded in a distribution of public spending and the tax burden that is skewed against the Mezzzogiorno, argues economist Guglielmo Forges Davanzati “It is well known what kind of ideology has been disseminated in myriad ways among the masses in the North, by the propagandists of the bourgeoisie: the South … Continue reading
How PM Renzi’s Jobs Act will sink Italy
Italy’s new PM Matteo Renzi has pledged to slash the country’s record unemployment with his American-branded ‘Jobs Act’. But his labour reforms, which will see short term job contracts extended for up to 3 years, are more of the same medicine applied since the turn of the 1990s that have been such bad news for … Continue reading
From expansionary austerity to expansionary precariousness: the latest doctrine is another European illusion
Interview with economist Emiliano Brancaccio / Micromega The deregulatory labour reforms of Italy’s new PM Matteo Renzi will fail because it is proven that “more casualisation does not mean more jobs”, argues economist Emiliano Brancaccio. Indeed, ‘the wager on the race to the bottom could bring the wage deflation to the whole of the EU, and deflation … Continue reading
A Gathering Storm: Eurozone in 2014
Is Europe’s single currency bloc stabilising? Behind the current picture of calm storm clouds are gathering, says French economist Jacques Sapir, in this recent interview with Greek newspaper Kefalaio (Capital) Kefalaio: What is your reaction to the image of stability in the Eurozone promoted by European leaders? What are the possible ruptures (eg in the case … Continue reading
The salariat is the revolutionary class in the making
IN THE RADICAL PRESS / L’HUMANITE Hike pay roll taxes and and a wage for life for all. Radical ideas to take French society beyond capitalism. Interview with Bernard Frio, communist sociologist and labour market expert With over 10% unemployment in France, a labour market in crisis, you are advocating a ‘salaried wage revolution’, even … Continue reading
The recovery will come, but it will not redress the social imbalance
By Fondazione Condividere For a few weeks now I have seen many senior figures in Italy’s Letta government, but also European institutions, waving their arms to indicate the arrival of an imminent recovery in the horizon, with the same anxiety of Tom Hanks in “Cast Away” when waiting for the ship that will save him … Continue reading
Is Europe’s economy recovering?
By Juan Torres López The media tell us that the latest data from Eurostat indicate that Europe is out of recession and that the economy is finally recovering, because the statistics recorded positive GDP growth of 0.3% in the euro area during the second quarter. Obviously the fact that the figures show that there has … Continue reading
Democracy or the Euro?
According to the German Constitutional Court it is not acceptable that “the most important decisions at European level be negotiated in anonymous corridors of the Brussels bureaucracy.” In Italy too, we should ask ourselves whether it is right that economic policy is torn from popular sovereignty and dictated by foreign countries and international financial oligarchies. … Continue reading
Italians say ‘enough’ in mass protest against new government
“Enough. We can not wait any longer.” This was slogan behind which tens of thousands of workers, students, pensioners and radical left activists were marching in Rome Saturday in the first major protest against Italy’s new centre-left-right government. Led by metalworkers’ union Fiom, thousands of people marched to the beat of drums and whistles in … Continue reading
The political battle for full employment
By Juan Torres Lopez 70 years ago a very important Polish economist, Michal Kalecki, published an article (Political aspects of full employment) that I think has a great relevance today, particularly this May Day. Kalecki started out by recognizing that when he wrote that a substantial majority of economists believed that, even in a capitalist … Continue reading
An age old problem
Forget ageing – capital’s class war against labour is behind the crisis in pensions and welfare worldwide, says Vincent Navarro Thomas Malthus was an economist who believed that the resources of the planet were limited, fixed and constant. Hence he believed that the growth of the population would reach a level that there would not … Continue reading
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