Autor: Wolfgang Streeck

Wolfgang Streeck: Europe is Being Subjugated to US Power

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Interview by Chris Bambery, Conter, September 30, 2022.

The economic crisis in Britian, the war in Ukraine, and the disorder in the Eurozone are all intimately connected. Chris Bambery spoke to Wolfgang Streeck, an economic sociologist at the University of Cologne and a leading commentator on European capitalism, about the crisis in the EU and the implications for Scotland.

Chris Bambery: Once again we seem to be seeing a renewed debt crisis emerging in the EU with Portugal, Italy and Spain paying higher interest on its state debt than Germany and its satellites? How serious is this and how uneven is the EU today?

Wolfgang Streeck: It is getting more uneven by the day. Economic convergence has been promised but was never delivered. Instead divergence between the center, Germany in particular, and the Mediterranean periphery has long been growing. This is a direct consequence of EMU, the EU’s monetary union. Lagging countries may be able to catch up with more competitive countries in a common market by internal devaluation, meaning essentially lower labour costs. But this has never been successful without being flanked by external devaluation, adjusting a country’s international terms of exchange to its real productivity. (…)

Read the entire interview on conter.scot

Not Quite Enough: How the Pandemic Failed to Save Europe

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Review Essay, Society, published online, September 28, 2022.

Luuk van Middelaar’s most recent book on Europe, like his previous work, is serious stuff. Don’t expect your run-of-the-mill “European integration” spiel, liberally funded by the European Commission, dealing with issues like How-the-Commission-constructed-a-Treaty-base-where-there-is-none; or the encouraging results of the latest “European Semester” and what additional data Croatia must supply next time for even more economic stability and convergence to ensue; or why monetary union requires fiscal union to deliver its full benefits; and how the Treaties must be rewritten to consummate the unity of Europe by allowing for the magic of neo-functionalist spillover. None of the usual obsession here with the design and implementation of “programs”, their odds and ends and how they grow out of the infighting between the Commission’s General Directorates, the EU’s various supranational would-be authorities and its member states — all of this on the assumption that “integration” must ultimately move forward as foreseen by “integration theory”. (…)

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Labour Law and Political Economy

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The Law and Political Economy Project, September 9, 2022.

What happened to work and workers as the state-managed capitalism of the postwar era – the postwar settlement as it is sometimes called – was replaced by neoliberal capitalism? What were the losses, the gains if any, and how if at all can the losses be recovered? Are growing inequality, widespread precarity, stepped-up market pressure on wages and employment conditions, the intensification of work, declining social protection and mounting tensions between work and family life inevitable or incurable, or can they, do they need to, be mitigated? In short: can remedies be found for the ailments of a neoliberal labour regime, and how exactly should they be conceived and applied? (…)

Continue reading on lpeproject.org

Fahrenheit: Speciale Festivalfilosofia

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Festival della Filosofia di Modena, 17 settembre 2022.

In diretta dal Festival della Filosofia di Modena. Con Felice Cimatti. Tutta l’edizione 2022 è imperniata sulla parola chiave giustizia. In 53 lezioni magistrali vengono affrontate le varie declinazioni di questo tema, per mostrarne le trasformazioni nelle sue diverse sfere. In società attese da una ricostruzione materiale e spirituale, la questione della giustizia riguarda temi di redistribuzione, ma anche criteri di accesso, tra merito, competenze e tutele. Nel campo ampio delle relazioni tra i popoli solleva interrogativi urgenti sul rapporto tra la pace e la guerra. Tema non solo filosofico e politico, ma anche teologico, per eccellenza, il discorso della giustizia si interseca con quello sul diritto, sulla legge e sulla pena, ivi incluse le questioni di riconoscimento. Nuovi soggetti emergono come destinatari e oggetti di giustizia, ponendo la questione della relazione con le future generazioni. Con : Con Wolfgang Streeck, direttore del Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung di Colonia e professore di Sociologia all’Università di Colonia e Pier Paolo Portinaro, docente di di Filosofia politica presso l’Università di Torino.

Ascolta tutta la discussione su raiplaysound.it

Letter from Europe: Pipe Dreams

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Sidecar, September 12, 2022.

When a famously hard-headed statesman starts believing fairy tales, it may be a sign that all is not right with the world. In late July, former German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble gave an interview to Welt am Sonntag, a centre-right Sunday paper. In it, Schäuble publicly renounced his life-long vision of a French-German Kerneuropa, or core Europe. Apparently, with the war in Ukraine, the possibility of even imagining a sovereign Europe with an independent foreign policy now required more than that. The vision he produced was, however, so unworldly as to suggest – coming from a figure known for his ruthless political realism – the opposite: a subversive admission that, with the war, all dreams – left or right – of a Europe with what Macron calls ‘strategic sovereignty’ are nothing but pipe dreams now.

Continue reading on newleftreivew.org/sidecar

Deutsche Version:
AusgetrEUmt

Makroskop, 9. September 2022

Wenn die Besten den Verstand verlieren, liegt die Vermutung nah, dass die Welt nicht mehr in Ordnung ist.

Ende Juli gab Wolfgang Schäuble, jetzt elder statesman ohne öffentliches Amt, der Welt am Sonntag ein Interview. (…)

Weiterlesen auf makroskop.eu

Versión española:
Desesperación estratégica

El Salto, 9 de septiembre 2022.

¿Hay alguna posibilidad de construir una Europa independiente dotada de una política de seguridad igualmente independiente?

Cuando los mejores son presa del extravío, quizá podemos concluir que las cosas no van realmente bien. A finales de julio, Wolfgang Schäuble concedió una entrevista al Welt am Sonntag, un periódico dominical de centro-derecha. (…)

Continúe en elsaltodiario.com

Letter from Europe: Means of Destruction

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Sidecar, July 2, 2022.

In 2021, the year preceding its invasion of Ukraine, Russia spent the equivalent of $65.9 billion on its armed forces, amounting to 4.1% of its GDP. Germany, with a population of little more than half of Russia’s, spent $56.0 billion, or 1.3% of GDP. The respective figures were $68.4 billion (2.2%) for the United Kingdom, $56.6 billion (1.9%) for France, and $32.0 billion (1.5%) for Italy. Together the four biggest EU member states outspent Russia by a factor of more than three. United States military spending, equal to 38% of the global total, exceeded Russian spending by a factor of twelve, and combined with the big four European NATO countries by a factor of fifteen. (…)

Continue reading on newleftreview.org/sidecar/

Versión española:
Medios de destrucción

El Salto, 5 de julio 2022.

Por muy terrible que sea para el pueblo ucraniano, la guerra de Ucrania no es más que una cuestión secundaria inserta en una historia de dimensiones mucho mayores.

En 2021, el año anterior a su invasión de Ucrania, Rusia gastó 65,9 millardos de dólares (constantes de 2020) en sus fuerzas armadas, lo que equivale al 4,1 por 100 de su PIB. Alemania, con una población de poco más de la mitad de la de Rusia, gastó 56 millardos, o sea, el 1,3 por 100 de su PIB. (…)

Continúe en elsaltodiario.com

Deutsche Version:
Vernichtungswettlauf: Wer, wen, wann?

Makroskop, 06. Juli 2022.

So schrecklich er für das ukrainische Volk ist, der Krieg in der Ukraine ist nicht mehr als ein Nebenschauplatz in einem viel größeren Drama: dem sich anbahnenden Kampf zwischen einem untergehenden und einem aufstrebenden globalen Möchtegern-Hegemon.

Im Jahr 2021, dem Jahr vor dem Einmarsch in die Ukraine, gab Russland umgerechnet 65,9 Milliarden Dollar (auf dem Stand von 2020) für seine Streitkräfte aus, was 4,1 Prozent seines Sozialprodukts entspricht. Deutschland, dessen Bevölkerung etwas mehr als halb so groß ist wie die Russlands, gab 56,0 Milliarden aus, oder 1,3 Prozent seines Sozialprodukts. (…)

Weiterlesen auf makroskop.eu