I have caught up with this particular debate a bit late, but I don't think
anyone has mentioned about the conflicts that may arise in the case of
Britain from the competing institutional memberships
viz.NATO,UN,Commonwealth and EEC.Euro is the monetary element in the
EEC.S.K.Mallick
On Wed, 20 Feb 2002 [log in to unmask] wrote:
> My own position is similar to Michael Fisher's:
>
> >the Euro ... constitutes a class
> >strategy designed to enhance deflationary discipline across
> >Europe, partly
> >by means of developing an institutional architecture that
> >seeks to render
> >national monetary and fiscal policy immune to national
> >political pressures.
> >That the Euro is designed to enhance the power of capital over
> >labour means
> >that it must be opposed.
>
> -- but Michael has overlooked Bruce Robinson's stipulation that:
>
> >in a Euro referendum I would be a
> >determined ... ballot paper spoiler
>
> The absent (a.k.a. abstentionists) are always wrong, but spoiling one's
> ballot is not abstaining.
>
> *However* I still don't agree with Bruce's tactic.
>
> The Euro as designed in the Maastricht Treaty (unaccountable central bank,
> with "price stability", i.e. deflation, stipulated as a priority that
> over-rides any other objective -- *including* the other objectives of the
> Treaty, incidentally) is clearly a disaster for the working class.
>
> As such, it's imperative to *prevent* it, not merely register a protest
> about alternatives which are also unpalatable, albeit less so.
>
> Voting against is the only means available for this.
>
> I'd certainly like to see CSE/Capital+Class intervene in this debate -- not,
> however, to advocate a particular view, but (as the rubric in the journal
> has it) to develop "a materialist critique of [this aspect of] capitalism in
> the Marxist tradition".
>
> Perhaps list members who would like to participate in this project would
> contact either me or Alfredo Saad Filho.
>
> Julian Wells
>
> OU Business School
> The Open University
> Walton Hall
> Milton Keynes
> MK7 6AA
> United Kingdom
> +44 1908 654658
>
|