center-left coalition governments in Europe

["natriley" <natriley@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From an article in Le Monde Diplomatique for December

Robert A.  Mundell, a professor at Columbia University and recognised
specialist in economic and financial affairs, puts the  position bluntly:
the function of centre-left governments in Europe is to follow centre-right
economic policies because they have scant margins for anything else.

     You need to be either short-sighted or complacent to detect the
beginnings of a Keynesian shift in all this, never mind radical reformism.
The neo-liberal social policies of the past two decades have destroyed the
tools that used to be available for intervention. Monetary management has
been delegated to the directors of the European  Central Bank, who are
independent of Europe's governments. Systems of social protection are being
dismantled.  Privatisation has destroyed the classic lever of
interventionist industrial policy. The employers have been handed tax
concessions without being asked to do anything in return. The wage
relationship which was the basis for the  Keynesian policies of the post-war
period has been reversed by the abolition of index-linked wages, the
localisation of wage bargaining, a flexibility of working hours and the
weakening of trade unions and collective bargaining.

Nathan Riley