Exactly. The likeliest response to a collapse in European consumption is a crisis of overproduction. This will of course have a cascade effect, resulting in myriad other economic crises, culminating in balance of payments crises, the economic equivalent of a heart attack. Each national crisis is in turn an opportunity for its competitors, circling like vultures to seize anything of value from the country in its moment of economic weakness. This, I think, is where the specific nature of the EU’s loose confederation of nations will cause calamity; there is serious disunity between the national bourgeois of the various member states, particularly France and Germany. In the event economic crisis hits Europe there won’t be a truly coordinated, unified response. Instead, individual member states and their ruling classes will jostle for advantage with each other. This has already been heralded by the hoarding of PPE by individual states when supplies were limited in the initial stint of the pandemic, when they left Italy to languish.
Completely agree, something like EU can only be functional in times of growth and prosperity. Once you end up in a situation where there aren’t enough resources to go around then countries that are better off are going to pull up the ladders. We’re already starting to see that happening, and political tensions rising between EU members. It’s going to get a lot worse once the full effects of the energy crisis hit.
Exactly. The likeliest response to a collapse in European consumption is a crisis of overproduction. This will of course have a cascade effect, resulting in myriad other economic crises, culminating in balance of payments crises, the economic equivalent of a heart attack. Each national crisis is in turn an opportunity for its competitors, circling like vultures to seize anything of value from the country in its moment of economic weakness. This, I think, is where the specific nature of the EU’s loose confederation of nations will cause calamity; there is serious disunity between the national bourgeois of the various member states, particularly France and Germany. In the event economic crisis hits Europe there won’t be a truly coordinated, unified response. Instead, individual member states and their ruling classes will jostle for advantage with each other. This has already been heralded by the hoarding of PPE by individual states when supplies were limited in the initial stint of the pandemic, when they left Italy to languish.
Completely agree, something like EU can only be functional in times of growth and prosperity. Once you end up in a situation where there aren’t enough resources to go around then countries that are better off are going to pull up the ladders. We’re already starting to see that happening, and political tensions rising between EU members. It’s going to get a lot worse once the full effects of the energy crisis hit.