Staggering...

A nice little piece in the New Statesman 2 days ago which I saw on Facebook (see--it's not all bad). It sets out to demolish the myth of the EU as held by left British Remainers and thus contributes to my long-term project of trying to find out just what is so bloody wonderful about the EU  for these people.

The myth addressed is that the EU operates in a 'European social democratic sea', contrasting with a still-Thatcherite Britain. The authors say this is 'a romanticised and outdated view', ignoring the major neoliberal changes in recent times which include a new and growing precariate. In Germany, the 'Harz-Vier' reforms have brought the usual 'flexibility and more part-timeworking',and, 'For years job creation in France has been via fixed-term contracts, often ofless than one month long', in contrast to the better-known examples  of 35 hour weeks and decent holidays. Capitalist growth has also produced low wage growth for German workers, and 'declining levels of social cohesion' in France.

The EU is a 'serious impediment' to any policies of reform (such as 'state action, institutional constraints and new models of corporate governance'). Although the EU itself did not dismantle social democracy ('national governments and companies' were to blame), it provided the institutional context' and now underpins the system with legal guarantees, the famous 'four freedoms'. These cannot be changed 'without a comprehensive renegotiation, in which each country would have a veto', and, meanwhile 'the judges of the European Court of Justic determine policy'.

In strict legal terms, the EU is agnostic as to whether economic activity is carried out by the state directly or by the private sector. In practice, the EU’s development since the mid-1980s has had to privilege market competition as the desired framework for all economic activities, simply because the four freedoms define the single market as an arena of free competition...Market integration is central to the existence of the EU. It is not for member states

As an example:

Take the famous Cassis de Dijon case of 1978. This was a dispute between a German importer of the French liquor and the German government, who sought to restrict the drink's sale on grounds of public safety. The German authorities argued that this liquor fell below the requirements on alcohol content designed to limit the spread of low alcohol drinks in Germany. The ECJ decided that such public safety arguments amounted to an unjustified form of protectionism. As long as a good had been lawfully marketed in one member state – in this case, France – it could be sold without restriction in another member state. 

 More centrally:

Were the UK to create a regional investment bank in an effort to tackle the massive over-concentration of capital in the City of London, there would be a clear impact on the free movement of capital within the single market. Indeed, that would be the whole point of the exercise: a regional bank of this kind would provide loans only if certain conditions related to boosting the regional economy were met. But such overt political control over the movement of capital would also make it likely that such a policy would be in violation of the state aid rules....Something similar would occur with a policy to nationalise the railways: EU rules would not prevent nationalisation as such but they would require that any newly constituted public service comply with the requirements of market competition that are the bedrock of the EU’s legal framework. This makes the goals of nationalisation – such as the creation of decent public sector jobs with good wages and defined benefit pensions, or the rolling out of a rail network determined by need, instead of just profitability – almost impossible to achieve. 

The EU's own regional development initiatives are feeble compared to what an independent radical national government could do (if only we can get one!), and can actually inhibit development as with the newer members.

Some social democratic elements remain and 'Europe still leads the way in terms of social equality, mainly thanks to its social democratic heritage and the development of national welfare states.', but the problem lies in the particualr notion of social equality embraced by the EU -- neoliberal abstract non-discrimination.This serves both to expand markets and to create some kind minimal social protection at the European level, and it will oppose any attempts to redress inequality more radically since this would count as discrimination.

Overall:

What is, therefore, at stake in the Brexit negotiations is the balance between politics and markets in a post-Brexit United Kingdom. The question at the heart of it all is whether a democracy has the power to shape its political economy. The EU acts as the principal constraint on the exercise of that power if the democracy chooses to depart from the commitment to reducing barriers to the movement of goods, services, labour and capital. There is little evidence that something can be put in place at the European level that would replace the reduced capacities of the national state...Leaving the EU is not a quixotic project pursued by utopians. It is a necessary step in building a national growth model that benefits a majority of citizens through democratic decision.