MANIFESTO NFI 2007 MANIFESTO FOR A NEW EUROPE - ΜΑΝΙΦΕΣΤΟ ΓΙ | Page 7

committed to social justice, solidarity, democracy and peace
Neoliberal hegemony – for a socially just
economic policy
OUR GOAL
A stop must be put to the supremacy of neoliberal economic
policies. A sustainable Europe is characterised by providing life-
supporting creative jobs for all and by a redistributive social
policy including a basic income scheme.
WE KNOW
Globalisation is based on a neoliberal economic-policy percep-
tion, which became the predominant doctrine in both the USA
and Europe in the 1970s. The underlying idea is that the free
play of market forces will result in economic growth and con-
sequently in rising employment, greater prosperity and global
justice. National and supranational policies (e.g. EU policies)
of the western countries are accordingly aimed at opening up
markets, privatising state industries and public services and at
flexibilising employment contracts. The General Agreement
on Trade in Services (GATS) is a core element of this policy.
Market liberalisation has stepped up the (national) competi-
tion for multinational capital, for example in the form of direct
investments; moreover, employment contracts are flexibilised
and social standards lowered with a view to achieving ‘com-
parative advantages’.
Uniform exchange-rate and monetary policies as well as
strict fiscal-policy limits within the European Union have made
income policy the most important tool of international competi-
tion, which is reflected in falling real wages and shrinking wage
ratios, rising direct and indirect taxes on earned income and tax
breaks for capital gains. In parallel, state insurance coverage
of job and life risks, illness or invalidity has been dramatically
thinned out and retirement pay has been markedly reduced.
These developments have been accompanied by the step-by-
step privatisation of social risks.
Global capitalism has witnessed a worldwide increase in the
number of economically active people, but according to the In-
ternational Labour Office in Geneva, the number of registered
unemployed has risen by another 2.2 million to 191.8 million
from 2004 to 2005. In times of neoliberalism, it is especially the
number of people in part-time and precarious employment that
is on the rise, in other words the number of (mostly female)
workers with minimum social security entitlements. Meanwhile,
every sixth job in OECD countries belongs to the category of
‘flexible labour reserve’. According to the International Labour
Office, slave labour, i.e. work enforced by threats and direct
coercion, has increased even in the rich countries.
Public goods, such as natural resources, infrastructure but
also social security systems and educational facilities are increas-
ingly subjected to private sector valorisation interests whereby
new economic access barriers are erected. Neoliberalism reduces
social security to a cost factor; it follows that public services
are dismantled and social risks are devolved to the individual.
For the greater part of the economically active population the
neoliberal system implies discontinuous and in part precarious
employment, insufficient income, higher risk of unemployment
and poverty and less equality when it comes to participating in
social and cultural life, and in particular in education. Hence,
neoloberalism contains an explosive force that may lead to the
social disintegration of western democracies and to an escala-
tion of the North-South conflict.
WE DEMAND
Gainful employment must not be reduced to a cost factor in
international competition, as is suggested by neoliberal eco-
nomic models or by an economistic perception of society. Work
is a sphere of life, even if not the central one. Work leaves its
imprint on people’s personal identities and is the source of
diverse social contacts. Work integrates people into society
and work is the basis of material self-determination and social
participation. Work holds opportunities for self-actualisation
and is the basis of social recognition in all capitalist societies. In
short, gainful employment is a central mode of both socialisa-
tion and subjectivisation.
With this in mind, we demand the right to work and to
labour conditions that guarantee more than just being able to
scrape a living. First of all, measures need to be taken against
rampant unemployment, i.e. structural unemployment that
fails to decrease noticeably, even when the economy is boom-
ing. The political aim must be full employment modelled on
the situation in Austria or Sweden in the 1970s. Since the lib-
eralisation of markets has proved to be ineffective in bring-
ing down unemployment, state regulatory measures will be
required to control labour market processes. This end will be
served by stepping up training and upskilling measures and by
more public investment, for example in infrastructure, in job
creation or an overall reduction of working time. The precari-
sation of work needs to be counteracted, so as to prevent a
rise in the number of working poor, as witnessed in the USA.
This would require a realignment of minimum standards under
labour and social law. Part-time work should not be the inevi-
table result of entrepreneurial constraints, but a free option
for jobholders who prefer shorter working times and conse-
quently lower incomes.
The moderate wage policies pursued by trade unions in
recent decades have failed to achieve the desired increase
in investment and thereby in jobs. We demand that, in our
day, economic growth should increasingly benefit wage-
dependent workers, which implies that the policy of wage
moderation ought to be discarded. The ongoing redistribu-
tion for the benefit of the affluent and the social risks run by
the middle and lower classes are contrary to our perceptions
of social justice. Rising real wages would stimulate domestic
demand in the western countries and as a result boost the
economy at large. Moreover, a fair income policy calls for
a revision of the disproportionate tax burden on earned in-
come. This burden should be shifted from earned income to
profit and capital gains, which is to say that policy-makers
should envisage a replacement of conventional taxation by
capital gains taxes.
In particular we demand a halt to the dismantling of the
welfare state. In times of high risks in the labour market there
is special need for adequate social protection. Collective secu-
rity systems are vital to societal integration. The privatisation
of life risks, such as illness and poverty in old age, on the other
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