--- Dennis Redmond <dredmond at efn.org> wrote:
> powerful unions and Left parties,
<clip>
>functioning welfare states
Dennis, no offense, but your vision of Europe is trapped in 1962.
Schroeder passed the Hartv IV reforms in the face of nothing but one symbolic protest march from the DGB.
What we have are the hollowed, empty shell of a welfare state and cowering, pliant trade unions. The younger generation are used to thinking of a union as a sort of insurance plan for employees. After doing a cost-benefit analysis of the benefits and the dues, you determine whether it is something right for you.
That is just like buying an insurance policy. Not joining a social movement.
Saying Europe is an "unfinished project" may be true, but it is vacuous. It is like saying that capitalism, or the United States, or life itself, are unfinished projects. Not incorrect, but utterly trivial.
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