> Dennis seems to avoid the precipitate fall in union membership in the
> eighties and early nineties in Europe, its long-term decline in union
> density, and the political collapse of the working class left.
In the UK and France, yes, but unions in the rest of Europe have held up surprisingly well. Golden Ages of activism, on closer inspection, always turn out to be Years of Lead; even at the height of the 1960s and 1970s radicalisms the European Left remained pretty limited (i.e. nationalistic) in its goals, utopias, gender and cultural ideologies, and organizational forms. What's happening now, though, is clearly a turning of the tide.
> Most obviously, the conditions of European unification
> are decidedly not welfarist, but market-driven. It was the elite
> consensus around reduction in state-spending and deficits, as well as
> the liberalisation of markets that made the current round of unification
> possible.
Which is precisely why it's important for the Euroleft to seize the high ground of the EU, to push for new forms of multinational socialism, instead of retreating to national particularisms. Today Genoa, tomorrow London, the day after that, Moscow!
-- Dennis