On the Nature of Contradictions Ripping Apart Europe
In the "debate" between Samir Amin and Michael Aglietta (see in the previous issue) the first is more realistic in detecting the dynamics of the interests and power structure of the EU. Amin sees well that the "Project Europe" can only be saved if capitalism could be forced to work in a way opposite to its own logic, and this task is hopeless. Nevertheless, at the present development stage of the production forces, leading transnational companies have an elementary interest in maintaining the common market, thus the scenario of the disintegration of the Union, the exit of the individual countries is an impossible scenario. The solution could be the expropriation of the international capital by the people, which is also suggested by Amin, by taking over the control of European institutions and changing them radically.
The Political Economy of the European Integration
The author is expressing his concern that the true essence of the EU is seldom examined. Contrary to its self-definition, which is often accepted by the political left, the EU is not a political union following social principles but a free trade zone. Instead of creating fantasies about the union of national states acting as independent actors, we have to confront the reality of the instability and destruction caused by the expansion of this free trade zone and the neoliberal regulation environment.
No. 98 | (Summer 2013)
Eszmélet is consequent on revealing the global reasons of local social conflicts. This approach is present in this issue by a variety of articles in the joint ideas and methodology, namely left-wing radicalism. As István Mészáros is citing Sarte in his foreword to his monograph on him: "Without falling into manicheism, one ought to intensify intransigence. At the extreme limit any Left-position […] is found to be 'scandalous.' This does not mean that one should look for scandal […] but that one should not dread it: it has to come, if the position taken is right, as a side-effect, as a sign, as a natural sanction against a Left-attitude."
The authors in this issue follow this intention, they briefly but thoroughly analyse the harshest contradictions of the global capital structure, that threat with social unrest: the still living and hurting heritage of Thatcherism, the tensions in the developments in Brazil on the periphery and the political economy of the crisis of the EU. The critiques on the monumental work by the Kapitány couple on the spiritual mode of production point towards searching a future alternative to the present.
Table of contents
- Mészáros István : The Work of Sartre: Introduction (1979), Introduction (2012)
- Emir Sader : Chávez a Reader of Mészáros
- Richard Seymour : Margaret Thatcher an Obituary from Below
- Valerio Arcary : Reform Spirit without Actual Reforms: Lula’s Government from a Historical Viewpoint (2003-2010)
- Artner Annamária : To the Anatomy of Pewripherial Development – the Case of Brazil
- François Houtart : Notes on Brazilian Amazonia and Latin-American Peasants’ Movements
- Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos : Dilemmas of the Government of Rafael Correa in Ecuador: Ecology vs. Capitalism
- Vajda Zsuzsa : Knowledge and Power at the outset of the 21st Century: School, Economy and Globalisation
- Szarka Klára : Disadvantages Multiplied: Photo Essays of Norbert Hartyányi
- Szigeti Péter : On the Alternative of the Intellectual Mode of Production
- Tütő László : Thinking and Production: Remarks to an Important Book
- Bózsó Péter : IMF Credit
- Tütő László : Resignation, ‘Better not to Know’, Being Busy Bees. Variations on Withdrawal No. 4 The Freedom of ‘Better to Know’ and ‘Better not to Know’’
- Artner Annamária : On the Nature of Contradictions Ripping Apart Europe
- Pogátsa Zoltán : The Political Economy of the European Integration
- Decllaration of the Social Movements Assembly WSF Tunisia 29 March 2013
Decllaration of the Social Movements Assembly WSF Tunisia 29 March 2013
The Work of Sartre: Introduction (1979), Introduction (2012)
According to Sartre, the freedom of thought means emancipatory thinking, looking for alternatives and opposing the established structures of life and the institutionalised mainstream reasoning. His search for intellectual and political alternatives always inspired progressive movements to act on personal responsibility. "What is the literature of an epoch but the epoch appropriated by its literature? …You have to aspire to everything to have hopes of doing something."