7 Repairing capitalism in Europe ?
nance capitalist madness . The egoistic policies of the nation states to antagonise the peoples of Europe and the other parts of the world cannot be conceived from inside a ring-fenced European entity . I thought you are the one who teaches this , for example in the “ Minotaur ”. In the “ Modest Proposal ” I cannot find any of these aspects . Let ’ s remember : “ Brothers , you have only one enemy - the private capital – may it be Prussian , English , French or Chinese .” 18
7.2 “ A Modest Proposal ” to advice the political establishment
You blank out the international impacts of the state of Europe and claim to see through the “ nature of the Eurozone crisis ”. You insist on “ Europe as a whole will need to be ring-fenced ” 19 as a precondition for getting European capitalism stabilized . Consequently you have developed your “ Modest Proposal for Resolving the Eurozone Crisis ” 20 with European blinkers on .
For a “ ring-fenced ” Europe you offer four expert policies apposite to the four main crises ( Banking crisis , debt crisis , investment crisis , social crisis ), which nobody will succeed to explain to common people let alone to wow them for . You keep to the central EU-institutions and advocate the nation states in full sovereignty . The special European crisis allegedly developed due to the incompetence of the European politicians in charge , or as the Manifesto reads “ a confederacy of myopic politicians , economically naïve officials and financially incompetent experts ”. Unmistakably the “ Modest proposal ” was designed to show them the right way out of the Eurozone crisis . Yanis , you have done what is the most prominent task of Professors of Economics , what they are payed and even honoured for with Nobel Prizes : to advice the political class and their institutions ! You advise them how to “ stabilize European capitalism ” and “ save it from itself ”. Indeed , you advertise a magic political formula of clever simplicity :
” While broad in scope , the Modest Proposal suggests no new institutions and does not aim at redesigning the Eurozone . It needs no new rules , fiscal compacts , or troikas . It requires no prior agreement to move in a federal direction while allowing
18 See p . 18 .
19 Yanis Varoufakis : The Future of Europe , at the Institute for New Economic Thinking : Paradigm Lost : Rethinking Economics + Politics , Berlin 2012 , ( youtube 13.04.2012 , 2:11 ).
20 Extracts from the Proposal as Appendix in “ And the Weak …?” Also in German : Yanis Varoufakis / Stuart Holland / James K . Galbraith , Bescheidener Vorschlag zur Lösung der Eurokrise , München 1015 .
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