Looking to the North

August 28, 2018 By LEXIT-NETWORK

by Steffen Stierle

Steffen Stierle is one of the coordinators of the European Lexit network as well as active in Attac Germany and the Eurexit initiative. He works as a freelance journalist in Berlin. His thematic focus is the political economy of European integration.

Cross-posted from Makroskop and Brave New Europe. Translated and edited by BRAVE NEW EUROPE.

According to the economic and political mainstream of the rest of the EU, the Brexit vote is simply irrational. The repeated impact assessments presented to the public assume a loss of economic strength. The withdrawal of the British would deprive its society of a good part of their prosperity – the scenarios range from a strong but bearable decline to the complete collapse of the British economy.

Leftists like to add that the fundamental social rights of the British are also in jeopardy, as they are protected by the EU. Thomas Fazi and Bill Mitchell have already pointed out the weaknesses of the economic forecasts and argued why it is nonsense to view the EU as a shield for social rights.

Looking to the North – above all at Norway, a European nation that twice voted against EU membership by referendum and is now at the top of the global prosperity scale – supports Fazi’s and Mitchell’s argumentation.

Let us first look at Sweden – the former Scandinavian model nation that joined the EU in 1995 – as an example to illustrate the challenges posed by EU membership for the Scandinavian welfare model. Later, we shall examine Sweden’s economic and social developments since joining the EU compared with those of Norway. Finally, in an interview with the Oslo historian and trade union researcher Idar Helle, we approach the question of to what extent the Norwegian experience are applicable in the case of Great Britain.

Continue reading in Brave New Europe.

Why the Left Should Embrace Brexit

May 1, 2018 By LEXIT-NETWORK

Remainers claim that Brexit will be an economic apocalypse. But it provides the opportunity for a radical break with neoliberalism – says a new article by Bill Mitchell and Thomas Fazi, recently published at jacobinmag.com.

Nothing better reflects the muddled thinking of the mainstream European left than its stance on Brexit. Each week seems to produce a new chapter for the Brexit scare story: withdrawing from the EU will be an economic disaster for the UK; tens of thousands of jobs will be lost; human rights will be eviscerated; the principles of fair trials, free speech, and decent labor standards will all be compromised. In short, Brexit will transform Britain into a dystopia, a failed state — or worse, an international pariah — cut off from the civilized world. Against this backdrop it’s easy to see why Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is often criticized for his unwillingness to adopt a pro-Remain agenda.

The Left’s anti-Brexit hysteria, however, is based on a mixture of bad economics, flawed understanding of the European Union, and lack of political imagination. Not only is there no reason to believe that Brexit would be an economic apocalypse; more importantly, abandoning the EU provides the British left — and the European left more generally — with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show that a radical break with neoliberalism, and with the institutions that support it, is possible.

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Euro’s Fatal Flaw

September 12, 2017 By LEXIT-NETWORK

The following text on the Euro and the concept of money is a transcription of the conference given by Jorge Amar at the Attac Summer University for Social Movements held in Toulouse in August 2017. Jorge Amar is Economist, Chair of the Spanish Economic Sovereignty Association (APEEP) and Research Scholar at Binzagr Institute for Sustainable Prosperity.

What is wrong with the Euro? To answer this question, we need to understand first what money basically is, where it comes from, how it is created and destroyed.

There are two main theories on money: The market-metalist approach (“One money, one market”) on which the European Monetary Union (EMU) has been inspired, and the state-chartalist approach (“One currency, one nation”) which explains the usual situation where a currency corresponds to one country.

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