Volume 4 Issue 1
The Dawn of a New Era: Social Democracy after the Financial Crisis
A new era is dawning. The financial crisis of 2008 is not the end of capitalism. Capitalism dates back to the Medici revolution, which invented modern banking, but since then it has gone through many different regimes and articulations. The 2008 crisis marks the end of the Reagan-Thatcher counter-revolution. Neoliberalism and monetarism are dead. Even [...]
Interview – ‘The only solution is to refuse to comply with ECJ rulings’
In recent judgements undermining the right to strike and compliance with collective agreements, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has dealt a fresh blow to hopes for a ‘Social Europe’. Political scientist Fritz Scharpf explains the reasoning behind rulings from Europe’s highest court – and explores what can be done to oppose them.
Herr Scharpf, why [...]
European Court of Justice (ECJ) and Social Europe: A Divorce based on Irreconcilable Differences?
In a recent interview with Mitbestimmung, Professor Fritz Scharpf, one of Europe’s most prominent social scientists, spoke about the radicalising effects of the recent ECJ rulings in the Viking, Laval, Rüffert and Commission vs Luxembourg cases: ‘the basic treaty freedoms are now deemed not just to prevent protectionist discrimination against foreign suppliers but more broadly [...]
The European Social Model and the ECJ
When a scholar of Fritz Scharpf’s reputation and standing speaks, pro-Europeans should listen. His warning that the European project represents a judicial entrenchment of neoliberalism needs to be treated with the utmost seriousness. But pro-European supporters of a Social Europe and the idea of a European Social Model, in the trade unions and elsewhere, should [...]
Making Social Europe European
I will limit myself to a short comment, for I want to focus upon one crucial point: what the workers and their representatives can do to make Social Europe more European. It is a crucial point as no other option exists to stop the slow but inexorable decoupling which would otherwise intervene between social protection [...]
How Europe can tackle the Financial Crisis
The financial crisis – and looming recession – is a defining moment and a huge challenge for social democracy in Europe. To those far-leftists who take pleasure in the troubles of capitalism I say it is ordinary, hard-working families who are worried about their pensions, their savings, their homes and their jobs. It is not [...]
Why are we all so interested in American Presidential elections?
The 2008 American Presidential election has captured the attention and enthusiasm of millions of Europeans. Perhaps my little patch of north London is an unusual area, but one sees the occasional ‘Obama 08’ poster displayed in house windows. I am not sure we will see any more posters, for anyone, in the European Parliament elections [...]