[lbo-talk] hegemon succession

[C. G. Estabrook]

"...With the decay of federalism and the deflation of inter-governmentalism, the
Union had weakened national, without creating a supranational, sovereignty,
leaving rulers adrift in an ill-defined limbo between the two. With the eclipse
of significant distinctions between left and right, other motives of an earlier
independence have also waned. In the syrup of la pensée unique, little separates
the market-friendly wisdom of one side of the Atlantic from the other, though as
befits the derivative, the recipe is still blander in Europe than America, where
political differences are less extinct. In such conditions, an enthusiast can
find no higher praise for the Union than to compare it to ‘one of the most
successful companies in global history’. Which firm confers this honour on
Brussels? Why, the one in your wallet. The EU ‘is already closer to Visa than it
is to a state’, declares New Labour’s Mark Leonard, exalting Europe to the rank
of a credit card.

"Transcendence of the nation-state, Marx believed, would be a task not for
capital but for labour. A century later, as the Cold War set in, Kojève held
that whichever camp achieved it would emerge the victor from the conflict. The
foundation of the European Community settled the issue for him. The West would
win, and its triumph would bring history, understood categorically – not
chronologically – as the realisation of human freedom, to an end. Kojève’s
prediction was accurate. His extrapolation, and its irony, remain in the
balance. They have certainly not been disproved: he would have smiled at the
image of a chit of plastic. The emergence of the Union may be regarded as the
last great world-historical achievement of the bourgeoisie, proof that its
creative powers were not exhausted by the fratricide of two world wars, and what
has happened to it as a strange declension from what was hoped from it. Yet the
long-run outcome of integration remains unforeseeable to all parties. Even
without shocks, many a zigzag has marked its path. With them, who knows what
further mutations might occur."

--Perry Anderson, "Depicting Europe," LRB 20 September 2007
Full article at <http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n18/ande01_.html>.

Doug Henwood wrote:
> So the EU is refusing a bailout for Eastern Europe, and the ECB is still 
> hanging pretty tough. I dunno, Dennis Redmond - the EU isn't really 
> looking like it has what it takes to be the next hegemon. It sounds like 
> the last bastion of the austere POV that Keynes mocked as "the Treasury 
> view."
> 
> Doug
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