> Forty percent of
>Germany's banking system is state-owned. Is that irrelevant to the class
>struggle?
I'm not sure. What relevance would you say it had? A long time ago Karl Marx scoffed at those who saw state-ownership as synonymous with socialism, citing the German state-funded tobacco industry.
>Daimler's co-determination system is giving the UAW more clout
>than it ever had before in running Chrysler.
I'd be interested in the detail. The history of 'co-determination' in industrial relations is pretty poor.
> The EU regularly gives tons
>of money to its semi-peripheries, via grants, cheap loans and access to
>markets, whereas we regularly bomb the living hell out of pretty much
>anyone we can.
The EU also bombs. It was German agitation in the first instance that led to the break-up of Yugoslavia, and a green minister, Joshka Fischer who won the government over to supporting the war in Kosovo.
And European aid is not really a positive sign. The Agenda 2000 budget re-direction is designed to keep funds out of the hands of newer Eastern European member-states, once the EU realised that the existing conditions would have meant all the cash going east. German funding for French and Southern European regeneration is not exactly disinterested.
>France's Government mandated a shorter workweek, not a
>longer one. Etc. etc. etc.
France has an historically low rate of unionisation, around ten per cent. Dirigisme has led to the demobilisation of independent working class activism. It was noticeable that some of the most militant action in France was either outside of the official union structure (railstrikes some years back) or in the formerly yellow-dog (is that the right phrase?) unions.
>The only thing the Euroleft has lacked, I
>think, has been radical cultural theory, where the US scene has been much
>livelier in many ways.
There I think I must defend my fellow Europeans. Most US cultural theory is derivative of European post-structuralism and phenomenology. American scholarship is good on empiricism, but sadly follows British in its militant hostility to theory.
Yours, in mildly contentious mood, -- Jim heartfield