Sid: Max, I'm really having problems with your analysis. It strikes me as rooted in wishful thinking. How do you reconcile your hopes with what is actually happening in the context of European neoliberalization? Max: There's something to be said for wishful thinking. There were remarks here on utopianism not too long ago ... which resonated with me. Sid: Max, there's a distinction between wishful thinking and utopian vision. To me, the former leads to self deception in appraising the actual state of affairs that we're facing, while the latter is rooted in the value-based desire for change that we visionaries bring to involvement in things social, economic and political. > How about elaborating on how the reactionary project that is currently > being pursued by forces sympathetic to capital will open the way for > qualitatively different, progressive results? Max: Call me schizo but I opposed NAFTA and look optimistically at the EU. There is a difference, namely that NAFTA is a mere trade/investment agreement, whereas the EU is a new federal government with the rudiments of a social policy and fiscal system, among other things. Sid: To summarize my anti-NAFTA argument in a single phrase, NAFTA was _not about trade_. (The same argument applies to a host of other international "trade" and "investment" that have been negotiated in recent years.) Rather, they are about the enshrinement of terms and conditions designed to tie the hands of governments who might attempt to regulate corporate behaviour in a manner deemed undesirable by transnational capital. Max: You make it sound like it is the EU which is at the root of unemployment and other dimensions of desperation, whereas the lack of a federation is associated with, though not necessarily the cause, of the troubles you're talking about. It's not some paradise that is being forsaken by moving towards unification. Sid: No, what I'm saying is that the kind of harmonization that is taking place in the context of European unification is designed to limit governments' ability to respond to their citizens demands for social spending, regulation, etc. It is this move in the direction of surrendering fiscal and monetary tools to a neoliberal Europe that people are protesting in the streets. Max: There is some level of deficit spending which is excessive, even for me, the princeling of deficit doves in the US. Sid: Do you have evidence that indicates to your satisfaction either that deficit spending has been excessive among the countries of Europe or that capping it at 3% would somehow be optimum? Max: As far as the privatizations go, there are in my view some enterprises which might just as well be private as public. I don't regard every expansion of the public sector as positive and every contraction as negative. Sid: Max, may I be so bold as to argue that your take on this is situated squarely in the context of the US experience, where the public sector is the least developed of any in the world? In the European context, shrinkage of the public sector is not a neutral, technical matter; rather it is directly linked to the attacks on Europe's social safety net and governments' ability to influence the private sector. Max: I've acknowledged that so far, on the whole, the EU project is more negative than positive in content. Sid: On this we're in agreement. Where we part company is that you find the form somehow inherently conducive to progressive change in the longer term. I don't. Max: Am I preaching sacrifice from my comfortable distance? Consider the stance of opposition to the EU. Where does that leave the working class? I would say nowhere special. In either case, support or opposition, prospects for workers depend on what else they are doing. Unification or the status quo could become more unpleasant or less. Unification provides a fundamental framework for progressive policies which has no counter-part under the status quo. Sid: With all due respect, Max, I think this is nonsense. The unprecedented demos that are being organized across Europe are not taking place because people see the unification process as neutral or progressive. The individual European states -- with all their warts -- have historically provided an existing framework for positive alternatives to what is now being built at the level of a unified Europe. This is not to idealize the status quo, but rather to point out that the creation of the very framework that you're putting your hope in has been designed by the very powers that folks on Pen so broadly condemn. Max: My contention is that an awakened class can do more with an EU than without it. Without it we have the certainty of dominion under the Bundesbank and the constant refrain that austerity is required for competitive reasons. With it we have the possibility of something better. Sid: Please explain how the dominion of the Bundesbank is certain in a system where individual countries maintain the power to set their own bank rates and how the anti-social power that it exemplifies will be reduced in the context of a centralized European fiscal and monetary mechanism. Max: Would you favor the devolution of Canada so that the provinces could escape the fetters of those neo-liberal aspects or tendencies inherent in the nation as it stands today? Sid: Max, I neither favour nor oppose centralization or decentralization in the abstract. (Which is precisely what I think you're doing on this issue.) In the Canadian context, the federal government has historically played the role of social standard setter that you hope to see in a unified Europe. And the forces that want to destroy social programs and standards in Canada are promoting devolution of powers to the provinces to undermine the federal government's ability to set and enforce these standards. Having said that, it is necessary to point out that the same federal government that has historically played a progressive role of standard setter has, for the past 4 years, been at the forefront of the neoliberal destruction of social programs and spending by through its gutting of expenditures on health care, education and social services. My conclusion? That it's crucial to look at the concrete particulars of the situation rather than endorsing centralization or decentralization in the abstract. A further illustration of the same point: in an area very near and dear to my heart, communications policy, it was Canada's *provincial* governments that historically defended universally available, affordable access to phone service. It was the *federal* government that was the hand maiden of the corporate sector's pursuit of deregulation and contrived competition designed to benefit big capital. In this instance, my union sided with consumers and provincial governments to *oppose* this federal power grab in an effort that ultimately proved unsuccessful. As expected, when the feds succeeded in this constitutional battle, they used their newfound powers to ram through a host of destructive, anti-social changes to telecom policy. I see this experience as further reenforcement of my views on the issue of centralization and decentralization. When we tried to get help in fending off the federal power grab from the man who was the NDP's parliamentary communications critic at that time, he adopted your line of reasoning: that as a federalist, he couldn't oppose the federal government's attempt to seize jurisdiction over telecommunications. Arguments from us and our allies that he had to examine the substance rather than the form of the proposed jurisdictional changes and the motivation of those who were promoting these changes fell on deaf ears. Max: I met with a Scottish radical recently who looked with anticipation at the pending devolution of the UK, since it would give anti-Tory Scotland an escape from the conservative depredations of the city of London. Sid: That's the very argument I'm making, along with a host of other opponents of European unification. Max: For the sake of full disclosure, I should acknowledge that I am conniving with European social democrats and labor on the EU project. Sid: Hope springs eternal in the social democratic breast. Suffice it to say that from my perspective, it seems that a host of social democratic and labour folk gave the idea of the EU a ringing endorsement in principle long before they had examined the concrete changes it would actually entail. Now they're having to do a great deal of after-the-fact damage control. ================= Maggie: I think Max is right, there is a big difference between NAFTA and the EU. First, NAFTA was put together by non-elected businessmen (all men, no women allowed presumably). Sid: Wasn't Charlene Bareshevsky involved, Maggie? Maggie: In effect, NAFTA rule becomes a way of avoiding local political pressure to increase standards of quality of life and living. The EU, by contrast, was set up by referendum and politicians. Now, I am sure many of the builders of the EU agreement can be criticized from many angles but the bottom line was that the policies of the EU tended to meet the HIGHEST standards of any of the member countries, not eradicate local standards. So, all countries had to now obey the highest ecological standard, or safety standard, etc. In many cases, the EU did not avoid standards, it raised them for many of the member countries. Sid: I, for one, am not impressed by the "democratic" nature of the EU project. Furthermore, I have seen nothing to indicate that the policies of the EU were designed to meet the highest of standards. I think this is the p.r. spin that the professional promoters of the EU have been putting out. But the reality is profoundly different. For recent Pen joiners, I will take the liberty of posting what I think was a great piece on Maastricht that ran in The Ecologist magazine about four years ago. It responds to a host of the pro-EU arguments that folks raise. Cheers, Sid
