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Open Democracy today carries a notable article by Grazia letto Gillies, "an Italian economist living and working in London. She is Emeritus Professor of Applied Economics, London South Bank University and Visiting Professor, Birkbeck University of London. She is one of the initiators of the World Economics Association (www.worldeconomicsassociation.org). She has published extensively on the economics of Transnational Companies and on Globalization." The article is written in a way which I believe jibes very well with the attitude to the dominant political-economy if the majority of followers of this list. Paddy http://apling.freeservers.com __________ "The thought-provoking piece by Rossana Rossanda that started the debate on "The road to Europe" in Sbilanciamoci.info, il Manifesto and OpenDemocracy raises the issue of whether political integration should have preceded economic integration. My feeling is that it may not so much be a problem of the timing of the two types of integration but of the type of Union we created and under what type of ideological context. The European Monetary Union has been conceived and realized under the banner of neoliberalism and of the neoclassical economic paradigm: markets are efficient; they, through their price mechanism, are the best allocator of resources. They are the best regulators of economic activities, not the State. This ideology is antithetic to social cohesion both within and between countries. We could have built a different type of European Union, within a different ideological, economic and political context: one in which the markets could have played a role but under the power of the State to regulate them for the benefit of all; one in which social cohesion within and between European States could have played a large role. In such an ideological context, economic, political and social integration would necessarily have gone hand-in-hand and the issue of timing of economic versus political integration would not have arisen. But this would have required adherence to different economic paradigms and a different political starting point. These are, of course, counterfactual scenarios. Before I go back to full reality, let me start my analysis of the economic situation with another counterfactual assumption: a visit to Earth from a Martian. Were a Martian to visit Earth in the XXI century, she would have observed the following: (a) an enormous quantity of resources - human, technological and capital resources - allocated to the production of so-called financial products which seem to her totally useless; (b) people who work or invest in these products earn much more than the rest of the population; and (c) most Earthlings appear to be in need of basic products from food to roads and transportation to health services and education. Why, on Earth, are the resources not allocated to more useful production? ..... etc. Full article at <http://www.opendemocracy.net/grazia-ietto-gillies/road-to-europe-return-of- state?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=201210&utm_ campaign=Nightly_2011-09-04%2005%3a30> ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
