A ‘united Europe’ is blowing apart

Following is an excerpt from a 1992 article by Socialist Workers Party National Secretary Jack Barnes in which he explains the inability of rival national capitalist classes and governments to put together a new and united Europe. The excerpt is from a section titled “Interimperialist conflict and the myth of a united Europe” in the book Capitalism’s World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at the Millennium . Copyright © 1999 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY JACK BARNES

These conflicts between rival national capitalist classes and governments are blowing apart the myth of a “united Europe” at an accelerating pace. Since the end of the so-called Cold War, bourgeois politicians and commentators have had trouble coming up with phrases to describe the world balance of power. They talked about a New World Order for awhile, but that did not seem to fit so well in light of the outcome of the Gulf War, the permanent crises in Eastern Europe and the former USSR, and the onset of depression conditions. So some of them began talking about “the tripolar world” — the United States, Europe, and Japan were the three poles. But that description of power relationships in today’s world has already bumped up against a big problem — there is no Europe pole.

How long ago was it that many ruling-class figures in Europe (especially in Bonn, and to a lesser degree Paris) were insisting that the European imperialist powers — whatever their problems and frictions — were on the road toward political unity? Members of the European Community would pool their funds — so the story went — and give some money to Ireland, to Portugal, to Greece, and even a little bit to Spain, so these countries could catch up and narrow the economic and social gap with the rest of capitalist Europe. They would adopt common social welfare rules, labor standards, and pollution controls. Eventually they would converge toward a common foreign and military policy. They would smooth out differences in productivity and eventually all agree to use the same tokens as a common currency. And then, this new and united Europe — with class differences slowly but surely disappearing for all practical purposes — would emerge big, powerful, and competitive with the United States and Japan.

The opposite has actually happened over the last decade, however. Despite all the talk about unity, the evolution of world capitalism has increased uneven development across Europe and made its character more explosive.

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