The Left Case Against The EU | Aaron Bastani Meets Costas Lapavitsas

[@klubsvetnikov8290]

Spot on! Great economic thinker! Unfortunately he is correct in declaring EU unreformable in a citizen friendly way. The only way to go is reforming individual sovereign states first and build mutually acceptable cooperation. Away from imperialism!

[@zasddsaf]

ah I wish I had him as my lecturer, Economics at university nowadays is apolitical, ahistorical and full of elaborate systems that feed into the myth of a self-fulfilling free market

[@stegemme]

ah, you're talking about the mythematics that currently pervades economics

[@mike-wi8wm]

Agreed. I'm studying a few courses in Prague university at the moment and the avoidance of economic factors is huge. The neoliberal order combined with nasty communist national memories means that nationalism, rise of the far right, rise of the left etc are all described in ways that ignore the growing inequality in Europe (and the world) and the privatisation of Europe.

[@Mo-uc7vg]

stmarriott of course mathematics is not a myth. But it is a myth to say one can build a mathematical model that fully describe the economy and not have major flaws.

[@Mo-uc7vg]

Or at least it hasn’t happened yet....

[@minivergur]

I don't think economics can be apolitical

[@darrenalevi3006]

Thankyou Aaron for having Costas on. I hope you can educate your fellow Novara Media hosts that the EU is nowhere near their progressive ideals it is more closely aligned to Tony Blair. Many countries want to leave the EU not just Britain due to imposed Austerity and Neoliberalism by the EU .

[@CRAPA832]

Absolutely fascinating.

[@johnrafter8870]

Read the book. If you like economics, you will like it. If not, join it at page 85ish. I agree, this is the best thing about the brexit discussion

[@lemondirector]

What a great interview

[@0211brucetube]

Imagine how recent political history would've been different if Labour members agreed with this position instead of supporting a second referendum...

[@AlbertoGarcia-wd7sc]

Indeed. And Starmer and the rest of blairites knew well what the second referendum proposal would achieve. They never cared about anything other than destroying Corbyn

[@GeneralMe100]

incredibly balanced and intelligent interview.

[@ac1dP1nk]

Meanwhile in Aaron's front room

[@pancakehouse2900]

This guy is da man!

[@DaboooogA]

Germany is only successful because of repression of its labour class?

[@kabelongegebe6187]

www.dw.com/en/the-ticking-timebomb-of-german-poverty/a-41379481

[@MyMpc1]

Why are older left wing academics are always hot?

[@shivb8312]

Paul Away gammon.

[@MyMpc1]

@Mansoor Ayub Well I wouldn't necessarily say he's left wing, but what a daddy!

[@trockfield77]

Or the Greek ones anyway...

[@YaketyYakDontTalkBack]

Creating a nation is hard, let alone a nation of nations. I do say this. In the US, the switching from a confederation to a federation occurred from the wishes of the elite which found the confederation untenable. They only got this done by two major compromises, the federation took on the individual states' debts and the 3/5ths to limit slave states power . For Europe to become a nation, it would have to take on/forgive debts from debtor countries like Greece and Italy, while finding a way to limit the political influence of economic powerhouses like France and Germany over Eastern and southern European countries It's possible, but it only happened in the US in a elite counter-revolution after Shay's rebellion. You'd really have to scare the elite that their losing power to make them form a union.

[@opanike87]

Pretty solid interview. I voted remain, I probably would vote remain again but there is a strong case for Brexit. It requires Britain being sustainable and self-sufficient which funny enough most of the technology required to do so already exists. However the general population and politicians not to even mention the elites and bourgeois are too lazy to phantom. Laziness is what is stopping Brexit, you want to leave yet still expect the same.

[@lukusridley]

Good interview, solid questions Aaron. It's a solid presentation of one very particular perpsective but I think a little fatalist and too grim in assuming that there is no possibility of serious change in either the ideological capture of the european machinery or of the population of europe itself...! Even now I think you find a very different distribution of opinions about what the EU should do in senior policy circles than 10 years ago, especially on things like eg the Euro or the role of the ECB. I also think many of these critiques matter less for the UK than poor Greece - the risk staying in the EU poses to the UK is vastly smaller.

[@AlbertoGarcia-wd7sc]

I revisit this interview quite often and I have the feeling that the guys at Novara didn't listen to him at all.

[@AlanTrickman]

The argument that the EU is an unreformable bastion of neoliberalism I find inherently conservative and unuseful. It simply cedes the international battleground as unwinnable territory and begs the question, if we recede from international institutions to national battles how do we win against international capital. The British parliamentary system of government and the British civil service are foundationaly colonialist, created to secure the power of an emergent laissez-faire liberal mercantile class. Yet by the 1950s the Labour movement had secured a parliamentary majority and implemented a massive overhaul of the civil service in the construction of the NHS and the welfare state. You would have been called utopian in 1900 if you'd said this was a possible future worth fighting for. The EU is a neoliberalism bastion no doubt, in no small part due to the predominance of neoliberalism in the politics of its constituent nations. The battles have to be fought on the national and international levels to bring revolutionary reform to all public institutions that support the current power structure, otherwise we lose. Simply saying reform is impossible is defeatist.

[@Patrick-jj5nh]

well said!

[@5e1enium]

Costas gives his answer to this question at around 20:00

[@Glenbot3000]

What's the point of reform in a system that is, at its core, inoperable within the scope of your political aims and ambitions? Abolish the EU and bring forward new forms of transnational solidarity and democracy.

[@tristanphillips351]

How has China won against international Capital? - by putting strong National controls upon it. "One of the first policy decisions of the incoming Conservative government under Mrs Thatcher was to abolish capital and exchange controls. Overturning a near 70 year consensus, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Geoffrey Howe, said: “The essential condition for maintaining confidence in our currency is a Government determined to maintain the right monetary and fiscal policies. That we shall do. It is right to give an additional degree of freedom to allow the pound to operate in the world unrestricted by restraints of this kind”."

[@AlanTrickman]

@@5e1enium yes and his answers are unsatisfactory. The European Court of Justice simply isn't implacable, laws can be changed and judges can be replaced, indeed the terms the judges serve is relatively short, this makes the nature of the court far more mutable than say the USA's Supreme Court. As for a European demos, I question this, indeed I think there is a cultural shift amongst the younger generations in how they determine their identity and their politics to a more international one. I think in the previous discussion Aaron had last week with Mike Galsworthy it's also noteworthy to point out how invested people in the sciences and medicine etc are in a international cooperation in terms of policy. If you believe that a European demos or is impossible then you don't believe in international socialism.

[@shivb8312]

Saw him at the lab conference. Was quite damning of yanis.

[@Patrick-jj5nh]

Must be nice when you can re-write history at a whim. "In 1950, the nations of Europe were still struggling to overcome the devastation wrought by World War II, which had ended 5 years earlier. Determined to prevent another such terrible war, European governments concluded that pooling coal and steel production would - in the words of the Schuman Declaration - make war between historic rivals France and Germany "not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible". Yes you can say the European Union was at the start practically merely an economical union but this was a means to achieve their aim which were always principally, lasting peace across the European continent. Costas statement is incomplete and therefor factually untrue.

[@5e1enium]

It's not true to say there was any single aim for the EU project. Undoubtedly some involved were concerned with peace. Others (de Gaulle springs to mind) saw it as mechanism to balance and solidify French and German power. There was, of course, a large investment of US capital, with the aim of creating a US-centric bloc in opposition to the economic threat of the USSR. The idea it was just about peace is somewhat rose-tinted.

[@Patrick-jj5nh]

@@Hoxification so i guess in your universe the schuman declaration didn't happen?

[@Patrick-jj5nh]

@@5e1enium a balance of power, which is what you are describing, is the effect of peace and P Carr this is no way validates your point that it was always just about some sort of aimless pre neoliberal pursuit of capital completely devoid of any moral value.

[@5e1enium]

@@Patrick-jj5nh economic imperialism, from both within and without Europe is not the same as 'peace'.

[@Patrick-jj5nh]

@@Hoxification I think the premise is so simple I could explain it to a 10 year old, but those who do not want to, of course never will understand. The treaty that went with the declaration created a common market for coal and steel among its member states which served to neutralise arguments over ground rights of natural resources between European nations, particularly in the Ruhr.

[@elliotwilson2207]

The rules are made in Berlin, I thought they were made in Brussels?

[@zasddsaf]

Yes but Germany is always the top negotiator

[@elliotwilson2207]

@@zasddsaf Okay, fair point

[@vivino100]

Can you be an anarchist and a socialist? Aren't these opposing ideologies essentially, socialism without state intervention is impossible I thought?

[@elliotwilson2207]

Citizen Actually there is a long tradition of anti-state socialism, it has manifested itself in Spain during their civil war and in Rojava today. There is a saying of the anarchist Bakunin; freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice and socialism without freedom is tyranny

[@ebojfmdboojoh4023]

Brussels is a subsidiary of Berlin 😀

[@declanmcardle]

Disappointed to hear the words unelected and unaccountable.

[@thisaccountisdead9060]

I was just wondering - is it worth creating satirical content to popularize the message? It is something I notice KZbin creators do: they may have longer serious videos, but they'll also have shorter videos - a couple of minutes long - with a much greater focus on the entertainment value as a way of bringing people in and broadening their audiance (some apply this to their long form content also - maybe a bit ott). Was just thinking about the Clare Hymer interview with Clare Farrell of Extinction Rebellion this week (chaired by Michael): yes, it's a really serious issue that demands really serious thought and discussion... But it would have been really funny if you opened it with Michael walking into the room to find both Clare's trying to throttle each other with one saying "we're all gonna f*cking die!!!!" while the other comes back with "You're f*cking ruining it!!!! You're f*cking ruining it!!!!!". Anyway. I'll get my coat and jump down a man hole cover back to where I came from...

[@chriswalker7632]

Any perspective on this? I'm lacking in the social sciences - but I'm not sure I'll find the answers I am looking for (if they exist?). Basically, I'm aware of approaches like 'game theory' which suggest co-operation is a better strategy than competition to ensure survival over successive generations. But it's more the 'game' itself that interests me in this comment: I have looked a lot into biology (and neurology) - I don't know everything for sure - but does 'social inclusion' have more of an effect than 'dominance'?

[@malcolmscrawdyke1868]

Nice Godfather reference with the oranges.

[@Taporeee]

Based

[@YaketyYakDontTalkBack]

The case for *Leftixt*

[@Patrick-jj5nh]

they call it lexit

[@rogersimonsz3216]

I was driven to this video because I am very interested to hear a solid left-wing anti-EU argument, one that could even support the notion of Brexit, and, once again this isn’t it. I have yet to hear a pro-Brexit argument that isn’t based on nationalism (or little England exceptionalism) and/or ignorance about the EU. This video falls firmly in the latter mold. Firstly, he completely misrepresents the founding of the CeCa (coal and steel community) and the subsequent institutions as only being in the interests of business and not the people. He has no understanding what drove this small miracle in world politics to happen. Here were two great nations that had been at each other’s throats for centuries, whose conflicts led to two world wars, finally able to look at the causes of these conflicts and try and diffuse them. One major source of disagreement was the, then, coal rich area of northern France, Luxembourg and the Saarland, often referred to as the Saar-Lo-Lux (Lo standing for Lorraine). It was control of this region that had led to punitive clauses in the treaty of Versailles, which France then enforced by invading Germany and controlling its industry, which in turn led to hyper inflation and the collapse of the Weimar republic and the rise of fascism. So to diffuse this European flash point by pooling the resources was an excellent first step in the direction of pooling more. Big business, and particularly the steel/arms industry had done very well out of the various conflicts so it was absolutely not in their interests and in fact attacked it at every turn, which had to be defended through a pre-cursor of the ECJ. This CeCa was also the first economic institution of its kind to have a parliament.

[@rogersimonsz3216]

Equally the necessity of the CAP (common agriculture policy) is falsely represented as being in the interests of big business. It’s not, it was a necessity to find some common goals in agriculture in a continent with vastly differing agricultural methods and means with the aim that Europea would never again go hungry, as so many had starved just a few years earlier. Britain in particular should pay attention here as it has not been self-sufficient in food for the last 200 years so it very much needs a stable and reliable supply from its nearest neighbours. The CAP continues to have many problems, and is constantly under reform and is almost incomparable to what it was at the outset. Yes, maybe some big businesses did profit, they always do, but that was neither the intention nor the only result. Claiming that the EEC was set up to keep Europe as it was, is ignorant beyond words. The proof is already in the reality before us today. He even describes it as "a machine that imposes market discipline” which sounds like a fairly accurate description of communism.

[@rogersimonsz3216]

Although I agree there has been too much neo-liberalism in Europe, this has only been because too many European countries were run by neo-liberals, most importantly the UK which has always wielded an undue influence over EU policy due to it’s veto and inherent arrogance. The only bulwark the socialist Mitterand could therefore offer was forming an alliance with the christian democrat Kohl and have the socialist Delors in Brussels. So to then claim through a series of slogans that the EU “Serves big business against labour” or that the “Single market and single currency are pillars of neo-liberalism” with their “Powerful institutions that protect them", but not naming them demonstrates a total ignorance of reality and history. Frankly, I had to laugh when I came to “France tried to control Germany through the Euro”. Not only was the concept massively supported by Kohl, who proved that if he set out with 1 DM from Germany and took it to each EEC country in turn, he’d come back to Germany with 15 pfennigs, and this was true for every country within the EEC, but a lot of currencies had already fused in all but name. It’s typical that people from countries that are isolated from the EEC either by water or no direct border (like Greece) don’t understand what the life of a farmer on the border of Italy is like, when half his supplies come from one country and half from the other. Obviously, he thinks the Euro is a bad idea because he promotes currency manipulation, which has led to massive problems, including the German recession in the early twenties. It’s being wilfully ignorant of history to try and claim that the Euro is a bad idea because a country can’t devalue in the face of export inequalities. That’s why we need the Euro and strong supra-national governance to avoid one country gaining the upper hand through manipulating their internal economy. That’s why the EU is a good thing and why the EU supports both business AND labour, even though he refuses to say that.

[@rogersimonsz3216]

So basically he’s saying that currency manipulation is a good thing, and that Germany’s post-reunification resurgence is a bad thing because they did this via wage suppression that only benefited exporting companies. Strangely, German wages far outperform any other country, and they have a very generous welfare state. So something doesn’t quite add up. Also, none of his constant anti-German sloganeering is in any way related to the EU, but Germany’s internal governance. He obviously has a bone to pick, but is not going about it very well. Any German would tell you that they are very surprised by this notion that they in any way run the EU. He certainly doesn’t demonstrate in any convincing way HOW Germany runs the EU , other than to say they have a strong economy, well, they’re also the largest country. That’s why the EU is so important because countries are equal, it doesn’t matter how much you weigh economically, and it’s only been the Brits who have tried to claim advantages based on their economic weight, never Germany. But he’s quite happy to side with Trump by saying that Germany is too big an exporter, without saying why this is a problem. If ever proof was needed that the further left you go, the more you meet the extreme right, this would be a good example.

[@rogersimonsz3216]

When he then says “German social democracy as we knew it in the 60’s and 70’s is dead” , so what? 60’s socialism is dead, communism is dead, military dictatorship in Europe is dead, it proves nothing except that we’ve moved on. He then perfectly describes the reason for the Euro, but then says it was a myth, but without offering any proof or examples why. Fear does not support the Euro, reality does. The economic woes of his country, or any other country, are not because of the Euro, or even the stability pact that comes with it, and which he doesn’t actually mention because there is nothing wrong with asking a country with a shared currency to live within its means. It doesn’t dictate how it should live within its means, just that it should. That’s just makes economic sense, but probably not for someone who thinks currency devaluation is a good economic instrument. As countries borrow on the open market, he should see that unlimited borrowing would therefore perfectly play into the hands of big business and it was that that ruined his own country. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t mention the stability pact. Rather just continue with slogans, sound much better.

[@rogersimonsz3216]

I have yet to hear a more outlandish description of the ECJ. "The ECJ find systematically for capital against labour"? "It has pulled itself up by it’s bootstraps”? "The ECJ is the first enemy against change”? This is akin to the Daily Mail calling high court judges “ennemies of the people” when they didn’t like their decision to uphold democracy. Again, he does not understand the democratic principle of an independent judiciary, and that every country has a judge on its bench, so can’t be controlled by, yep, GERMANY! As for parliaments, he hates coalitions and prefers party rule. The notion that you can change this through political effort does not compute with him. His particular idea of socialism obviously hasn’t managed to get any traction in Europe because otherwise he would have been able to present a single party in parliament. Ignoring history continues when he says “Nations are constructs of reality" Yes they exist, but they are artificial constructs, in a lot of cases still based on lines drawn on a map by Woodrow Wilson, Clemenceau and David Lloyd George. Next he will tell us how real African nations are, this is just laughable. He then displays even more ignorance by talking about civil wars. We had two massive civil wars that spread all around the world!

[@BabelSongs]

I couldn't understand a lot of that, which is a shame

[@elliotwilson2207]

We should leave the single market, stay in the customs union

[@goOTBT]

If you want a libertarian socialist future then why would you cede control over the terms of the UK's trade to a neoliberal institution? Have you forgotten CETA and TTIP?

[@elliotwilson2207]

@@goOTBT If we leave the customs union many jobs will be lost, whereas if we stay in the single market we will be subject to EU rules and will as Costas Lapavitas said still be part of one of the pillars of neoliberal control in the EU

[@ebojfmdboojoh4023]

No, Because the Question in the referendum was "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union" The customs union is a component of the European Union. If you are in the customs union then you have not left the European Union.

[@rolandscales9380]

It might be a neoliberal stronghold now, but that was largely down to the machinations of one Margaret Thatcher. If it could swing her way in the 1980s, why should it not swing back the other way, given a large enough left-wing presence in the European Parliament?

[@gustavmeyrink_2.0]

First sentence and he is already wrong. The precursor of the EU was specifically formed to promote peace in Europe by intertwining the individual economies to such an extent that war between its members becomes impossible. Germany for example is quite fond of such indirect effects: For a very long time it was illegal to bake commercially during night time (Nachtbackverbot). The idea behind this was to make large scale baking impossible and thus protect the family-run bakeries from corporate competition. It worked too.

[@leehumphries7696]

www.consilium.europa.eu/en/history/?filters=2031

[@vivino100]

This interview grossly simplifies the issues. The academic glossed over the origin of the institutions that currently form the European Union in order to explain German hegemony in contrast to US imperialism. This makes no sense. His ultimate point is that labour laws need to change. There you go. Thirty minutes condensed in four words.

[@ThunderChunky101]

He keeps calling the protectionist and profoundly anti-capitalist EU, capitalist!