The European Union’s disproportionate pressure for trade liberalisation risks exacerbating political strains in the last democracy of northern Africa. Tunisia is the only country in northern Africa in which a democratic political system still prevails. The country has been undergoing a difficult transition since it initiated the ‘Arab spring’ in 2011. More recently, the tense […]
Social Europe articles on the economy
Social Europe is an award-winning digital media publisher that publishes content examining issues in politics, economy and employment & labour. This archive brings together Social Europe articles on the economy.
How the market is betraying advanced economies
The idea that ‘the market’ must be the organising principle for collective decision-making should be abandoned. Despite ever-improving conditions for millions of people around the world—documented by entities like the University of Oxford’s Our World in Data and highlighted by scholars like Steven Pinker—popular discontent is on the rise in many places. The reason is simple: whereas the first trend […]
Modern monetary theory: the dose makes the poison
Can government deficits be financed directly by central banks, as modern monetary theory suggests? The question should not be if but how much. All things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison (Paracelsus) Modern monetary theory (MMT) has in recent weeks been strongly […]
The future of manufacturing—is it in Europe?
Europe can remain a manufacturing hub if it ensures early adoption of game-changing technologies, engages with global supply chains and manages the green transition. Manufacturing is dead, they said. But after four years, ten research reports, 47 case studies, an analysis of 27 policy instruments, countless seminars and debate, the Future of Manufacturing in Europe […]
The sustainability imperative—how really to assess the European economy
The European Semester process of macroeconomic country analysis by the European Commission has been driven by economic orthodoxy in support of austerity—when sustainability should be the watchword. It was during the climax of the so-called euro sovereign debt crisis that the independent Annual Growth Survey (iAGS) was initiated, with the first report published in November […]
The new spirit of postcapitalism
Capitalism emerged in the interstices of feudalism and Paul Mason finds a prefiguring of postcapitalism in the lifeworld of the contemporary European city. Raval, Barcelona, March 2019. The streets are full of young people (and not just students)—sitting, sipping drinks, gazing more at laptops than into each other’s eyes, talking quietly about politics, making art, […]
‘Full and good employment’ and reviving the European ideal
The logic of a Euro-Keynesian recovery, towards socially useful full employment, leads inexorably to a rediscovery of wider European political ambition. Within the Democratic Party in the United States there is a flourishing of initiatives, promoted by Bernie Sanders, regarding ‘guaranteed work’. This recognises the urgency to concentrate every effort on the revival of public […]
EU competition policy: a more holistic approach needed
The European Commission looks at mergers only through the narrow, consumer-price lens of its competition policy. The wider public interest is not being served. Last year’s merger of Monsanto and Bayer created the world’s largest integrated seeds and pesticides supplier. The merger was approved by the European Commission despite concerns expressed by citizens and NGOs […]
The apogee of capitalism and our political malaise
At the heart of the crisis of trust in politics lies the corrosion of public service by the ethos of private gain. There is little doubt that the western world is going through a serious political crisis, which can be best described as a crisis of trust in its political institutions and governments. Two things […]
European recovery: we need both joint debt and taxes
Carlo D’Ippoliti adds to the Social Europe debate on a European recovery, contending that the proposals by Varoufakis and Piketty each have merits and should be synthesised. Regardless of its electoral fortunes, the pan-European DiEM25 party of Yanis Varoufakis is driving a debate within the European left, parallel to that within the centre-right ignited by Emmanuel […]
Green money without inflation
Funding an ecological transition in Europe via ‘green money’ bonds would be economically justifiable. To what extent can the money created by the central bank be used to finance investments in the environment? This is a question often asked today. The green activists respond with enthusiasm that the central bank—and, in particular, the European Central […]
Could Europe face the next recession?
The eurozone lacks the scaffolding to withstand the symmetrical shock of the next recession, which could imperil the euro itself. That the eurozone is incomplete is an assessment shared by almost all economists and economic policy-makers. The prevailing opinion is that the European banking union is the most important missing part, in connection with a […]
