Re: Milk and honey in the EU parliament

["John Gelles" <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

	Trond Andresen, as worthy an advocate for labor
	and our environment as one can find, has little faith
	that the EU is on a path to enhance the lives of
	ordinary people, especially those most in need of
	government intervention on their behalf in the
	markets that are today so powerful.

	He raises the question of allowances and practices
	of actual representatives of government who serve
	in the European Parliament.

	Although I am no scholar in the matter, I believe
	the "father" of my country, George Washington, was
	known for obtaining expense allowances that were
	remarkably generous to himself. The context for
	such allowances is the need do what rich people
	do in the society one serves.

	There is good reason to side with Trond -- to be
	distrustful that men who live rich will ever serve the
	poor.  Especially when an evolved social order
	includes a great many relatively poor people and
	none of the modern power of manufacturing to
	come to the rescue of all.  But what would
	Washington do today -- after sustaining his own
	good fortune?  Perhaps, seek good fortune for even
	the poorest of the poor because this is so doable.

	The rarest gift in society is power.  Washington
	gave it away.  That power is today, after the
	one man, one vote revolution in our time, vested
	in people.  We do not have to curb all the habits
	of the rich.  We must however curb our foolish
	shortchanging of the poor.

	Now Trond may be dead on -- it may be that
	the greed of the rich and their representatives
	knows no limits.  It may be that the vast changes
	the euro will bring do not offer an opportunity for
	great improvement in labor and environmental
	standards.  It may be that something quite
	different is needed.  But I do not think so.

	               Thatcher's complaint, (that clogged
	arteries developed under more rather than less
	socialism, prevented society from reaching
	levels of production necessary for all of us,)
	was not without some merit.

	In all events, the abuses Trond points to are
	common to the US Congress, the United
	Nations, and all governing authority.  They
	ought to be criticized -- as he has done.
	(He may remember how extreme such abuses
	were under Chinese and Russian communist
	guides for supporting the opulence desired by
	ruling cliques.)

	But such abuses of lifestyle may not be
	significant indicators of where society can go
	under the institutions we have at hand. It is
	abuses of power that count most -- and the
	power over mindless markets that the EU is
	installing will be ours, where in the past
	international competition made such power
	more difficult to assemble.

		John Gelles

-----------------------------

From: Trond Andresen <t.andresen@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: POST-KEYNESIAN THOUGHT   <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Milk and honey in the EU parliament
Date: Monday, June 01, 1998 11:40 PM

..... [the EU Parliament is overly generous with its perks
 and lax work requirements for members] ...

What does such a system do with possibly honest and
idealist (at least initially) representatives?

A «social Europe» through the European Union???
Give me a break.

Trond Andresen