Extracts from the speech by Ernest Mandel, member of the United Secretariat of the Fo Common Market is all about and what this We first of all have to understand what the referendum is all about.
It is the contention of many people who agitate in favour of Britain remaining in the Common Market that it is just what it says it is: a common market, an agreement between independent capitalist governments to allow the free circulation of commodities, of capital and of migrant labour within their boundaries.
That view is incorrect and purely tormalistic, because it takes the Treaty of Rome by which the EEC was set up-and a lot of institutions which have been set up around it-at face value. It does not look at the problem of the emergence of the Common Market in the light of the dynamics of economic, social, political and military development on the continent of Europe since World War Two. More especially, it dpes, not answer the question why this specific institution arose at a specific moment, why it stays at a given stage of its development, and where it is going.
DECAYING CAPITALISM I would approach the question of the nature of the EEC in an entirely different way-not from the point of view of analysing treaties and juridical forms and contents, but from the point of view of a stage in the development of decaying capitalism.
I would say that what the Common Market expresses is an attempt by the European capitalist class-or at least important sectors of that capitalist class-to overcome within the framework of capitalism one basic contradiction of the system: that between the growing international character of the productive forces, the growing international character of capital and production on the one hand, and the survival of the capitalist nation state as the basic form of political organisation of the capitalist class in Europe.
The fact that capitalism as a world system is unable to overcome that basic contradictionof that I have not the slightest doubt-does not imply at all that parts of the capitalist class can make no efforts towards a partial solution of that contradiction. The longer capitalism survives under conditions of decay, the more such kinds of attempts become absolutely unavoidable.
MULTI-NATIONALS In the context of the present world, this means something very precise. Today you have increasing international competition between multi-national corporations, between the big international monopolies, and in this competi'don't join the Europe of tion the American-based multi-national corporations have a tremendous advantage of size. Their average size is twice or three times that of the biggest nation-based European or Japanese HOLODULGS Under these circumstances the basic historical trend which leads to the emergence of the Common Market is the trend towards international interpenetration of capital on a European scale, the emergence of European multi-national corporations going beyond the frontiers of the former nation states, trying to amalgamate on a semi-continental basis, in order to get the minimum of financial, economic and political power necessary to stand up against their American and Japanese competitors.
If we understand the problem in that way, we can immediately draw a conclusion: that the present form of the Common Market is to a large extent irrelevant because it is completely transitional. The Common Market as it is today is not an adequate instrument of self-protection and self-defence of the big European monopo lies against their American and Japanese competitors. What is lacking is a key factor of imperialist self-defence and self-protection in an epoch of growing economic difficulties and CSS. a SErOLE SLaLC BOWCE When you have expansion, when you have a big rate of growth of the economy, then of course the decisive role of the state for protecting the rate of profit, for defending the particular, specific self-interests of each specific group of the world bourgeoisie, is less pronounced.
But once we understand that the economic climate has changed, then it is clear that the Common Market cannot stay at this transitional stage.
CONCRETE EXAMPLE Let me give a very concrete example to show what I'm talking about. We all know what the British Labour Government is doing today to rescue shattered capitalist combines like British Leyland. But these firms are basically small fry, and it is precisely because they are small fry that they still can be saved by the British bourgeois state. If you go into a higher category-if you look at ICI or Fiat or Siemens or Phillips, and if you look at banks of the same size-then it is absolutely certain that the British Government (not to mention the Italian Government, or the Dutch Government) is absolutely incapable of saving that kind of firm from a threat of bankruptcy. Yet given the economic perspectives which we have, such threats are not at all out of the question in the coming period.
To save that kind of multi-national corporation, with that kind of tremendous capital accumulation, you need such powerful meansmonetary, financial, social, political, and economic means-that not a single European Government as it is today would be able to do the job. Only a super-state on the level of the Common Market would conceivably be adequate to save the biggest multi-national European corporations should they be threatened during the coming economic difficulties of international capital.
POSSIBLE OUTCOME So that's one of the possible outcomes of the trend which has led today to the emergence of the Common Market: the further transfor mation of the Common Market into an imperialist super-power in Western Europe. The steps towards this are very well known: the setting up of a common currency reserve fund in the Common Market, leading to a common European currency - which could even substitute itself partially for the dollar if the decline of the latter continues as one of the props of the international monetary system of decaying capitalism-leading obviously to a common European budget and then to a common European economic policy. All that implies a strong European state power and government, that is to say a political superstructure which expresses the particular interests of these big European multi-national corporations.
Obviously there is also another possible outcome: that confronted with a grave recession of the kind we are witnessing today, the basic trends of European capitalist economic development would be towards a disintegration of the Common Market, with each capitalist class trying to defend its smaller, immediate peculiar self-interest even over and above the interests of the European multi-national corpo rations, leading to a surge of protectionism and economic nationalism.
Up to now this has not happened. I do not say that it cannot happen. It could happen, and I would even say it will happen if the etforts of the multi-nationals in pressing towards the setting up of a real integrated super-state on a European scale are not successful. But these alternatives will be decided by strong struggles inside the capitalist class between the contending interests. And when you look at those interests which stand on the side of the amalgamation, which are rather stronger, and those which stand on the other side, which are rather weaker, then you can make some kind of prediction as to what will occur if-the big if underlying this whole analysis-capitalism continues to survive for a long period, and if all these processes continue to develop without being combatted, neutra"don't join the Europe of the trusts; lised or overthrown by the forces of the working class.
That is the starting point of the analysis. Bu because certain trends under conditions of capitalism are more or less inevitable in the long run if capitalism survives, that does not mean at all that we have to take them for gran ted and do nothing to oppose them. On the contrary, we have to approach the problem not from the point of view of economistic fatalism but from the point of view of an assessment of the political and social relationship of forces.
The basic question is not 'what are the long term economic trends of development of capitalism if it survives, but 'what are the trends of the class struggle today in Britain and in Europe and how, by basing ourselves on these trends of the class struggle, can we intervene in the Common Market debate and referendum in such a way as to help and furthe struggles to overthrow capitalism.
Once you approach the problem in that way the answer is absolutely obvious: the relerendum in Britain today is part and parcel of a political class struggle. It is sufficient to see the facts of life that the British capitalist clas that the European capitalist class (with the exception of a small and completely negligible fringe) stands nearly as one man in favour of Britain remaining inside the Common Market. Nobody can deny that. All the big organisation of the employing class in Britain and Europe ask you to vote "Yes' in this referendum.
And you have a second fact of life which is no less important than the first one-namely that again practically without exception all the militant sectors of the British working class are against Britain staying inside the Com mon Market, and express in however confused and wrong a way a class opposition to this capitalist outfit.
Or you can approach the question from a second point of view-what will happen after the referendum. Suppose by accident-one could even say under the present circumstance by a miracle-the 'No' were to win, it would be a political disaster for the bourgeoisie.
Such a political defeat for the Tories, for the Liberals, for the CBI employers' association, and for the right-wing capitulationist Wilson wing of the Labour Party would help the development of a militant class struggle, not only on the issue of the Common Market but against the attempt to impose a new incomes policy; against the attempt to make the workers pay the costs of the crisis of capitalism; and against all the treacherous policies join the Europe of
may 1975 mandel speech
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