Chris Burford: This remarkable success within a short space of human history, has been of benefit to the working people of Europe, and of the world, not withstanding the imperialist nature of the new EU. Perhaps it was also a by-product of the strength of the communist movement in western Europe and the need for capitalism to show a more peaceful and progressive face. It is a triumph of the vision of people like Jean Monnet that markets should be regulated and answerable to the democratic will of the people, and that negotiation and cooperation between capitalist enterprises under this degree of social foresight is progressive.
---- The Euro-Zone is a victory for the ruling class, not the working class. It is part and parcel with the privatization and deregulation that have swept Europe in the past 20 years as it seeks to compete as a bloc with US capitalism. Jobs and social services have been slashed in an effort to make this new emerging supra-national imperialist bloc "leaner and meaner". It has produced xenophobia and racism because of working class insecurity anxious to blame the outsider for stealing jobs. The Euro-Zone goes hand in hand with the onslaught against Eastern Europe which has rapidly been turned into a maquila zone to Western Europe much as Mexico and Central America has become for the USA. When impudent Yugoslavia decided that this was not an acceptable choice, NATO bombed them into submission. Rather than looking at the Euro-Zone as a "progressive reform", the attitude of comedian Rik Mayall might be more appropriate, who dressed as Hitler, said: "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer" in an anti-Euro TV ad. The comedian then reappears saying in English: "Euro? Oh yes please." Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
