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European Capitalism at the Crossroads
The Eurozone turmoil is a structural crisis of European capitalism associated with the euro as world money. More broadly, the crisis reflects the culmination of tensions which have accumulated over three decades of neoliberalism in Europe. To create a global means of payment and reserve, the European Monetary Union (EMU) brought together countries of uneven and diverging competitiveness. The result was a situation of embedded current account surpluses for the core and deficits for the periphery, contributing to the accumulation of private and public debt. The response to the crisis was dictated by the interests of banks and large bondholders, entailing austerity and attempting to shift the social balance in favour of capital. For an effective response, the Left must break with Europeanist ideology. It must propose an alternative programme, rejecting the EMU and advocating social and economic transformation which would reverse neoliberalism in the interests of labour.

Keywords

European Monetary Union, Greek crisis, centre-periphery, public debts, Euro