A. KKE’s standpoint on european capitalist unification and the developments within
1. Theses of KKE on the character of the EU
The CPG (KKE) took its stance towards the class nature of the process of European capitalist unification in time, right from the beginning of the European Economic Community (EEC) and after that with the Single Act of the internal market and its evolution into the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), known as the European Union (EU).
KKE analyzing the Greek and European reality, starting from the Leninist theory on imperialism and Lenin’s thesis on the slogan “United States of Europe”, ended up with the following estimation:
The EU is an advanced capitalist Union, that is to say an advanced form of alliance of capitalist states in Europe, which went through several stages of development. The French-German cooperation has been the leading core , known as the “axis”, its goal being the after-war reinforcement of its monopolies partly against the somewhat more limited American-British alliance. Generally spoken, it was the economic and political alliance of the stronger western capitalist states to shield capitalism against the socialist part of Europe, against the socialist perspective of Western Europe.
The EEC’s course towards the EMU (EU) is an expression of the common interests of its capitalist member-states. Its incentive and its goal is to enlarge its monopolies in conditions of growing competition, of periodical economic crises, of reshufflings in the international balance of power caused by uneven capitalist development (appearance of the so-called “miracles” of Japan and the “Asiatic tigers” etc).
It is an alliance of member-states of the EU to generally readjust the conditions of payment of salary work taking away achievements, which had been obtained in completely different domestic and international balance of power conditions between the forces of work and capital.
The EU’s course is a course of common goals of big capital, of monopolies having their seat in European states and at the same time it is a course of competition amongst themselves, amongst the member-states of the EU, amongst their monopolies. This is so, because the absolute need of their alliance to meet international capitalist competition doesn’t remove capitalist uneven development, its competition, the contradictions between the member-states of Europe nor the fact, that they are organized on the basis of nation-states, on which capitalist accumulation is grounded.
The strongest element of cohesion of this alliance (union) between capitalist states is their common approach in applying policies legalizing the reduction of labour force price related to the new levels of work productivity. As a consequence these policies mean, that wages remain behind the increase of productivity, negative changes in working conditions, a direct payment of what is needed for the reproduction of labour force as a piece of merchandise etc. (privatization of education, healthcare, welfare, assurance). Measures are being taken as well to increase the percentage of women in paid labour, from which surplus value is drawn.
The CPG (KKE) took its stance towards the class nature of the process of European capitalist unification in time, right from the beginning of the European Economic Community (EEC) and after that with the Single Act of the internal market and its evolution into the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), known as the European Union (EU).
KKE analyzing the Greek and European reality, starting from the Leninist theory on imperialism and Lenin’s thesis on the slogan “United States of Europe”, ended up with the following estimation:
The EU is an advanced capitalist Union, that is to say an advanced form of alliance of capitalist states in Europe, which went through several stages of development. The French-German cooperation has been the leading core , known as the “axis”, its goal being the after-war reinforcement of its monopolies partly against the somewhat more limited American-British alliance. Generally spoken, it was the economic and political alliance of the stronger western capitalist states to shield capitalism against the socialist part of Europe, against the socialist perspective of Western Europe.
The EEC’s course towards the EMU (EU) is an expression of the common interests of its capitalist member-states. Its incentive and its goal is to enlarge its monopolies in conditions of growing competition, of periodical economic crises, of reshufflings in the international balance of power caused by uneven capitalist development (appearance of the so-called “miracles” of Japan and the “Asiatic tigers” etc).
It is an alliance of member-states of the EU to generally readjust the conditions of payment of salary work taking away achievements, which had been obtained in completely different domestic and international balance of power conditions between the forces of work and capital.
The EU’s course is a course of common goals of big capital, of monopolies having their seat in European states and at the same time it is a course of competition amongst themselves, amongst the member-states of the EU, amongst their monopolies. This is so, because the absolute need of their alliance to meet international capitalist competition doesn’t remove capitalist uneven development, its competition, the contradictions between the member-states of Europe nor the fact, that they are organized on the basis of nation-states, on which capitalist accumulation is grounded.
The strongest element of cohesion of this alliance (union) between capitalist states is their common approach in applying policies legalizing the reduction of labour force price related to the new levels of work productivity. As a consequence these policies mean, that wages remain behind the increase of productivity, negative changes in working conditions, a direct payment of what is needed for the reproduction of labour force as a piece of merchandise etc. (privatization of education, healthcare, welfare, assurance). Measures are being taken as well to increase the percentage of women in paid labour, from which surplus value is drawn.
e-mail:cpg@int.kke.gr