>
>You really buy into this Kautskyite idea of inter-imperialist collusion,
>don't you?
I don't think you need to be a Kautskyite to understand that capitalists (and even capitalist states) collude in the common struggle against the working class. It's built into the tendency to an average rate of profit. Capital necessarily 'assumes the form' of many capitals, but before that is a social relation.
Witness, for example the Italian ruling class's abolition of the scala
mobile through the expediency of blaming the conditions for entry into
the Euro, as an example of using the threat of competition to discipline
workers. Indeed, it is common capitalist practice to mask austerity
measures behind the impersonal exigencies of competition.
>
>
>As for austerity, there's a reason the last decade has seen the Fed running
>a loose monetary policy and the ECB running a tight one. In Europe, the
>ruling class views permitting economic growth as a surrender to working
>class institutions like strong unions and the welfare state.
True enough.
>Whereas in the
>US, strong growth is seen as an ideological victory for the model of weak
>unions and a shredded welfare state.
From a European elite perspective, US growth is also the condition for world stability.
-- James Heartfield