The Reform of Europe: A Political Guide to the Future

by Michel Aglietta

Overview

A powerful and progressive programme for the Eurozone

Since 2010, the eurozone crisis has roiled the continent, creating political discord and generating a long period of economic stagnation. The cyclical recovery enjoyed in 2017 is no cause for complacency. It should act as an impetus to undertake long-overdue reforms.

At present, there is no future for those incapable of investing. There is no stimulus for innovation in countries that have been converted to the hegemony of finance at the expense of productive investment. Europe must confront the challenges of the twenty-first century by recovering the community spirit behind the Union’s origins.

The Reform of Europe demonstrates the need for a long-term vision with two goals: the reconstruction of a social contract based on entrepreneurial partnership and investment in the transition to ecological sustainability. This political vision will restore to citizens of the member states a sense of belonging to a wider community. To this end, argues Michel Aglietta, one of today’s most important heterodox economists, we must strengthen European institutions at the financial and fiscal levels. This means making the euro a full currency, endowed with democratic legitimacy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786632579
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	01/29/2019
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	886 KB

About the Author

Michel Aglietta is Emeritus Professor at the Université Paris-Ouest, where he is a scholarly advisor to the CEPII and France Stratégie. His previous books include A Theory of Capitalist Regulation and Money: 5,000 Years of Debt and Power.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 What Form Has Economic Policy Taken since the Greek Crisis? 9

2 What Institutional Initiatives Have Been Taken since the Crisis? 35

3 Which Handicaps Have Been Exacerbated in the Eurozone? 61

4 Does France Have a Particular Impairment? 87

5 How Should European Finance be Reorganized? 109

6 How Can Government Finances be Made Sustainable without Stifling the Economy? 141

7 How Can Fiscal Union Be Advanced? 163

8 Can a New Social Contract be Established? 185

9 What Form Would a Sustainable Growth Regime Compatible with the Ecological Transition Take? 209

10 What Is Europe's Role in the New Age of Globalization? 231

Afterword to the English language edition 247

Notes 269

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Michel Aglietta’s Money: 5,000 Years of Debt and Power:

“Believe it or not, money is absent from the economic theories that underpin every policy ever enacted on our behalf! Michel Aglietta’s new book explains splendidly this remarkable absence and, in the process, highlights beautifully the clash between finance and democracy, with special emphasis on how the US dollar’s domination reflects, on the one hand, America’s geopolitical power and, on the other, the inherent incongruities of the financial sector.”
—Yanis Varoufakis, author of And the Weak Suffer What They Must?

From the Publisher