Hugo Radice

The national economy: a Keynesian myth?

This article argues that the capitalist world economy is now so thoroughly integrated across national boundaries that an autonomous national economic strategy is no longer possible.

The Developmental State under Global Neoliberalism

Abstract The developmental state remains one of the chief points of reference, both analytical and political, for those who reject the current neoliberal global order. In this paper the validity of this approach is examined theoretically and historically. After a preliminary description of the developmental state, the paper investigates in turn the four terms contained in the title—neoliberalism, globality, the state and development—from a historical materialist standpoint. It is then argued that any approach that aims to provide an effective roadmap for a progressive alternative to neoliberalism needs to centre its analysis on the Marxian concept of class.

Cutting government deficits: Economic science or class war?

The financial crisis of 2008 was widely blamed on reckless and predatory behaviour by the banks, and public debate therefore centred on supporting employment and reforming the financial system. But during 2010, the focus of attention has shifted to the deficits and debts of governments, which are widely believed to be excessive and unsustainable. It is argued here that cutting government deficits is not an economic necessity, but a strategy for justifying attacks on the living standards of workers and heading off reforms that might threaten the power of the ruling classes.

Enforcing Austerity in Europe: The Structural Deficit as a Policy Target

In December 2011, the European Council proposed a Fiscal Pact for member states which would impose a binding limit on their structural deficits (SDs), as part of the wider set of measures intended to resolve the Eurozones sovereign debt crisis. The proposal, adopted by 25 states in the course of 2012–2013, requires that this limit be imposed on each annual budget, with strict rules governing any breaches, subject to sanctions imposed by the Eurozone authorities. The paper examines the economic and political foundations of the measure. It is argued that the SD is meaningless as a policy target, since it is impossible to measure objectively, while politically it reinforces the depoliticisation of economic policy, under which technical experts replace elected governments in managing the national economy. The purpose of the Fiscal Pact is primarily to reassure business and financial élites that there will be no return to the state interventionism and excessive public spending that supposedly characterised the Keynesian era.

‘Globalization’ and National Differences

This paper is concerned with the extent and significance of the ‘globalization’ of capitalism, and in particular its implications for some commonly-identified national variations in capitalist institutions. The hypotheses are that there has been a real change in the structure and functioning of world capitalism, and that this has begun to erode national differences. The first point is explored through an examination of the historical foundations and limits of the modern nation-state as an economic entity within capitalism. The erosion of national differences is then studied through a review of debates on capital markets, technology and corporate governance. The paper finds considerable support for both hypotheses.

State, Capital and Labour in Transition: The Political Economy of Capitalist Diversity in Eastern Europe - Introduction to special issue

As we put the final touches to this special issue of Competition and Change an ultra conservative, neo-populist government in Poland have forced the resignation of another ‘informer’ for the communist secret services, the repercussions of neo-Nazi violence during Hungary’s fiftieth anniversary celebration of the 1956 revolution continue to reverberate around Budapest, and the Russian oil company Transneft is threatening to cut off oil supplies to Europe. These are ‘interesting’ times for the former communist states of Eastern Central Europe (ECE) and a reconsideration of the region’s relationship to globalization, which would be of interest at any time, seems particularly apposite at this juncture, stimulated as much by European Union (EU) accession as by continuing global economic integration. It now seems clear to many that, like the construction of socialism after 1945, so the reconstruction of capitalism after 1989 has not just been a matter of applying a proven blueprint for the construction of a New Jerusalem on each national territory. Rather it has been the result of intense social conflicts whose outcomes were importantly shaped by the specific historical context of the global political economy. For the most part, ‘transitological’ studies of ECE, and the Soviet bloc as a whole, since 1989 have only incidentally acknowledged the significance of the global context in which capitalism was restored. Uniquely in the world, ECE has built democratic capitalism at the same time as it has become integrated into the globalizing and regionalizing world economy. For us, and the contributors to this special issue, this has generated the following set of research questions that we attempt to address: what types of capitalism have emerged from this unique challenge? How have global and European constraints and opportunities shaped the local political economies of ECE? How have local actors made use of these constraints and opportunities?

Globalization, labour and socialist renewal

This paper argues that two key issues need to be addressed in seeking to renew the socialist movement. First, the left must respond to globalization by breaking once and for all with nationalism. Secondly, we need to focus again on the critique of wage-labour broached in the 1970s, but neglected ever since.

The Question of Globalization

In their book Globalization in Question, Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson (hereafter H&T) confront the rhetoric of globalization with a robust assertion of the potential for democratic governance in defence of public interests. They promise an effective intellectual response and political rallying point, a prospect of containing and even rolling back the power 0( global capital. To them. not only has the actual advance of globalization been greatly exaggerated, but so has the threat it poses to the nation-states regulatory capacities: we are all like rabbits trapped in the headlights. unable to see that we still have the effective means to escape and even control the oncoming juggernaut. Surely this conclusion should gladden the heart of all progressive citizens: so why is it that I find the book so deeply wrongheaded and even dangerous, despite my agreement with many of their policy proposals? It is because, while travelling from our common concerns over present-day inequality and injustice to our shared belief in the importance of strengthening global regulation and governance, they follow an analytical path which is riddled with empirical, theoretical and political weaknesses, and which leaves them facing in the wrong direction and with the wrong weapons to hand.

Britain and Europe: Class, State and the Politics of Integration

This paper explores the way socialists have deployed Marxist theories in analysing European integration and Britains participation in it. The first section shows how theories of the relationship between nation states and global capitalism opened up new perspectives on regional integration in Europe. The second section looks at later debates about ‘varieties of capitalism’, and argues that these debates have ignored the global constitution of capitalism and exaggerated the range of variation within it. The third section develops this point in relation to the possibility of challenging neoliberalism within the EU.

The European Union after the crisis

The global financial and economic crisis that followed the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market in 2007–2008 struck with particular force at the European Union (EU) and its member states from 2009 onwards. The immediate problem was the knock-on effects of the crisis on their public finances: bank bail-outs imposed a massive increase in sovereign debt on member states, while the economic recession unavoidably led to ballooning budget deficits via the usual mechanisms of reduced tax revenues and increased welfare costs. Above all, what came to be called the ‘European sovereign debt crisis’ exposed first the hidden weaknesses in the monetary and financial arrangements that had accompanied the launch of the Euro; second, the severe economic imbalances between member states, rooted in longer term structural divergences; and third, the inadequate institutional mechanisms for resolving these difficulties. As a result, the EU economies, especially their public finances and financial markets, were plunged into turmoil, albeit to very different degrees. The most hard-hit member states were rescued through emergency loans, subject to conditions usually enforced by the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, collectively dubbed the troika. During 2011–2013, a mix of ad hocmeasures and institutional initiatives gradually restored calm to the financial markets, but at the time of writing (June 2014), the EU economies, and in particular those within the Eurozone, remain becalmed in minimal growth, high unemployment and low bank lending to the business sector. The new institutional architecture aimed at establishing a credible long-term framework for avoiding a repeat of the crisis remains a work in progress. The papers presented in this special section were all written for a workshop held in Weimar, Germany, on 6–7 December 2012, with the aim of assessing the changes taking place within the political economy of the EU as a result of the crisis. Hosted by the University of Erfurt, theworkshopwas part of awide-ranging programme of conferences, networks and publications which took place between 2010 and 2014 under the EU-funded COST-Action ISO902 on the theme of ‘Systemic Risks, Financial Crises and Credit: the Roots, Dynamics and Consequences of the Sub-Prime Crisis’. This Action brought together scholars from a wide range of disciplines to research the origins, causes and effects of the financial crisis: key areas of work included the economics, history, culture and politics of financialisation; the development of techniques for modelling decision-making in the crisis; comparative studies of the course of the crisis, notably in eastern Europe; and regulatory responses in relation to financial institutions and markets, in particular in relation to shadow banking. The Weimar workshop brought together specialists mainly from two of the Action’s working groups, WG1 on The New Global Finance and WG3 on Regulatory Responses, with the specific purpose of assessing how the institutions and actors within the EU had reacted to the global financial crisis that had engulfed the world economy in 2008–2009.