Don Quijones — Death By A Thousand Cuts: The Silent Assasination Of European Democracy

Neoliberal coup d'etat over national sovereignty — hence democracy — in the EZ. Capitalism and democracy are antithetical. The market state is a plutocratic oligarchy.

Even before the crisis began, the imperial ambitions of the eurocratic elite were plain to see — at least for those who dared to look. In a 2007 press conference Manuel Barroso proudly, indeed smugly, proclaimed the establishment of the first ever “non-imperial empire” (see video here):

“The empires were usually made through force, with a center that was imposing (sic) a diktat, [that is], their will on others. But now we have what some authors have called a ‘non-imperial empire.’ We have by dimension 27 countries that fully decided to work together, to pool their sovereignty.”

What Borroso neglected to mention was that the people of France and Holland had already soundly rejected the notion of “pooling their sovereignty” in their respective referendums on the EU constitution. The response of the Commission was a portent of things to come: a commission of unelected representatives redrafted the constitution into a new treaty, sneakily slipping in the most controversial points as amendments. No repeat referendums were held in either France or Holland and when the one country that offered a referendum on the new treaty, Ireland, rejected it by an overwhelming majority, it was told in no uncertain terms to get back to the ballots until it got the right answer.

By far the EU’s most audacious attack against nation-state democracy took place in 2011, when it decided in the space of just a few weeks to replace the elected governments of both Greece and Italy with technocratic regimes headed by highly connected, former European commissioners and, to boot, one-time international advisors to Goldman Sachs — Mario Monti in the case of Italy, and Lucas Papademos in the case of Greece. As the British Conservative MEP noted at the time, the true face of the European project was suddenly there for all to see:

“Apparatchiks in Brussels deal directly with apparatchiks in Athens and Rome. The people are cut out altogether, their elected representatives sidelined. The lamps are going out all over Europe.”

Of course none of this would be possible if it weren’t for the abject failure of modern nation-state democracy — not only in Europe, but across the globe. As Mair wrote in the first paragraph of his book, although the political parties themselves remain, “they have become so disconnected from the wider society, and pursue a form of competition that is so lacking in meaning, that they no longer seem capable of sustaining democracy in its present form.”

Raging Bull-Shit
Death By A Thousand Cuts: The Silent Assasination Of European Democracy
Don Quijones