EU & the Euro: Policy, Prospects, Etc.

["John Gelles" <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

	Terence Murphy in Paris, with an immediate interest in
	and knowledge of the European Union, has kindly agreed
	to discuss and debate (if we can) the EU -- and the why's,
	when's, where's and how's, etc., of  it.

	As mentioned before, the Europa site offers one common
	resource for facts:        http://europa.eu.int/index-en.htm

	What the Europa site does not offer is political promises
	by respected authority to enact Keynesian solutions to
	reach zero unemployment and achieve higher minimum
	individual, community, and planetary standards of living

	Nor does it anguish over the weakening of government
	responsibility for individual wellbeing matched to individual
	responsibility to fight and die for the integrity of the land
	government serves.

	Europa is on a path to greater continental unity and
	lessened anxiety over Germany, a nation with a past --
	but for the moment it is not a path back to a future that
	Maggie Thatcher judged a failure.

	We will have to settle on an exposition of ideas and
	policies that PKT'rs are willing to discuss and refine --
	possibly to allow a decent debate on clear issues.

	For the moment, Terence and I favor current progress
	evidenced on the Europa site.  But Terence has made
	decent suggestions regarding my wording of the issues
	that would align a debate very much along the lines of
	Europa's lack of a pro-labor, green, agenda.  He allows
	for such an agenda if its springs from the people of
	Europe	-- without PKT advice -- I think.  I am not too
	happy about that.

	Europe may not need advice.  But we may need to
	offer it.  The disparity in standards of living between
	Europe's richest and poorest may not be the proper
	target.  But the minimum standard of living certainly is.

	And a big part of anyone's standard of living is
	his sense of self-importance.  Jobs and self-
	employment are as necessary as air and water if
	we would be men.  (If and when robots take on
	all the mean jobs, there will still be careers for every
	person in science, art, care, and making the robots
	better.

	A note of welcome back to Jim Devine is in order.
	
	I am sure we are already engaged in discussion.
	We can try to frame a debate or an agenda or both.
	
	I believe Shaheen Fatemi, Terence Murphy and
	John Gelles do have great faith that the detailed work
	of the EU has a momentum and logic of its own. That
	if it gives lip service to "price stability and high
	employment" at the moment rather than to "zero
	unemployment and less than accelerating inflation",
	the end game is, nevertheless,  not foreclosed --
	the game that will make capitalism as democratic as
	many of us think it can and must be.	
	
		John Gelles
----------
From: tmurphy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: POST-KEYNESIAN THOUGHT   <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Euro. Union:  Resolution for a debate.
Date: Monday, June 01, 1998 12:45 PM

Terence Murphy writes:

John Gelles brings the focus back to the European Union. He poses a
resolution for a debate on the euro.

His resolution:

>	     Resolved:  The world needs the euro now;
>	and its purpose should be to reach full, high wage,
>	employment -- accompanied by the prevention of
>	accelerating inflation as a matter of equal priority.

I suggest the following modifications in the resolution:

  Resolved: The European Union  needs the Economic and Monetary Union
now; and its purpose should be to reach sustainable employment and wage
levels as defined by contemporary cultural and political contexts. Price
stability is a matter of equal priority.

I would like to join John on the affirmative team.

Terence Murphy