EU: Socialism Rises Again – But How Green?
Meanwhile, working people across Europe are starting to rise up, and this is one of the reasons why. Unfortunately, labour’s goals have seldom been environmentally friendly. One of the reasons the Right was able to wreak such damage from the late 70s to the present was that the unions, particularly in Britain, were too closely wedded to the inevitably disappearing world of mid-20th century heavy industry and too unwilling to face the realities of the time. As a result they became an easy target for the Right and were largely wiped out, at least in the UK. Remaining union power is still located in the areas of heavy industry that are left, such as the auto industry.
The trouble is, the last thing we need now are loads of taxpayer-sponsored gas-guzzlers. The only justification for propping up the car industry should be on condition that it moves over now to focusing on emissions-free vehicles and other environmentally-sensible products like sorely-needed wind turbines. Neither do we need additional fossil-fuel extraction and processing – both, once again, former union strongholds. Nor do we need additional airport runways and motorways: instead we need more emphasis on rail transport (but for some reason British rail companies are laying people off. Why?).
There is a significant danger here – but also a significant opportunity. Obviously there needs to be an emphasis on limiting the rise of mass unemployment, and given the opportunity I would far rather bail out ordinary people than bankers – by all means let the latter go to the wall and nationalise the hell out of the remaining useful assets. But we cannot simply reduce mass unemployment by supporting old-fashioned industries whose products we can no longer environmentally justify. Instead they must be obliged to convert to environmentally-friendly products at once to qualify for support. And again, nationalise them if necessary.
The danger is support without change. The opportunity is to convert giant ancient industries to making environmentally-sound products – wind and ocean turbines, for example; or building railways and rolling stock instead of roads, cars and trucks.
Meanwhile, in mainland Europe at least, the Old Left is rising again. Governments must heed the warning that the wave of strikes in France represents, and make sure that the anger underlying them is channelled into support for environmentally-friendly infrastructure and industry investment. And then Governments must take the action required to bring environmentally-suitable projects about.
The building anger among ordinary people should not be underestimated, and it must be channelled in a positive direction to be dissipated. Because at the same time, there is something else to watch. There has been a wave of protest in the UK, too. But that protest has not exactly been from the Old Left – which was largely pulverised out of existence by Thatcher. Instead, it has started with anger against EU workers being (ill-advisedly) drafted in from elsewhere in the EU to work on a Lincolnshire refinery building project. Prime Minister Brown is being called upon to stand by his pledge of “British jobs for British workers”. But this seemingly reasonable concern should raise another potential warning flag: the spectre of right-wing extremism, aka Fascism, with hatred of immigrants at its heart. We must not forget what happened in Europe, specifically Germany, as a result of economic collapse last time – in the 1930s.
Image: French labour organisations take to the streets in 2006 to oppose a new work contract. Source: Wikimedia.
