Has the crisis proved Marx right....

[Beet]

I will post about it anyways.

The Communist Manifesto was a document of the moment, of a few years' zeitgeist. By the Crystal Palace Exhibition it was in deep crisis. By the time the improvement in living standards of the British working class began to be confirmed, the entire theory was discredited. And never would it have emerged from status as an obscure intellectual movement had it not been for one wrong turn in a little city called Sarajevo...

Great article, by the way. The Mandarins at the ECB know that they have short-circuited democracy and to them it is the greatest invention since sliced butter. They fully know what they are doing, to use their power to declare class war on European labor.

[Beet]

Gustaf,

I think you are the one missing the point. Even if you concede that there is an economic case for structural reform, it does not follow that economists should have the right to do anything more than state their case. The ultimate decision should be left up to the political arena. Hence, the debate is really about politics.

The primary apology for the ECB is not that they want to prolong the crisis to force governments to enact structural reform. The primary apology has usually been (1) denials of how bad the crisis is. Go back and look at the official statements from the eurocrats since Spring of 2010... we have always been turning the corner, the worst has always been past, Greece has always been on the right track, and (2) claiming that it's not the ECB's 'role' to care about anything other than inflation, even when whole countries are slipping into recession or even depression. The quotes in the article do contain somewhat of a perspective from these eurocrats and their motivations that, if not exactly hidden, hasn't really been sufficiently questioned either.

[Beet]

Gustaf,

I think you are the one missing the point. Even if you concede that there is an economic case for structural reform, it does not follow that economists should have the right to do anything more than state their case. The ultimate decision should be left up to the political arena. Hence, the debate is really about politics.

The primary apology for the ECB is not that they want to prolong the crisis to force governments to enact structural reform. The primary apology has usually been (1) denials of how bad the crisis is. Go back and look at the official statements from the eurocrats since Spring of 2010... we have always been turning the corner, the worst has always been past, Greece has always been on the right track, and (2) claiming that it's not the ECB's 'role' to care about anything other than inflation, even when whole countries are slipping into recession or even depression. The quotes in the article do contain somewhat of a perspective from these eurocrats and their motivations that, if not exactly hidden, hasn't really been sufficiently questioned either.

As I thought you know I'm not a big fan of the ECB, nor of so-called technocratic rule. Sure, it doesn't follow that economists have the right to do anything more than state their case. Where am I claiming otherwise?

But technocratic rule is precisely what is being attacked; and specifically, a distinction is being drawn between "technocratic rule" as a buzzword used to the describe the fact that technocrats make many of the decisions in democracy, and "technocratic rule" as a conscious decision of said technocrats to directly reverse the verdict of democracy in favor of their own preferences, and to cause massive suffering to achieve that end. The latter being much more serious than the former.

You miss the point because this is not about economics. It's a seizure of power.

[Beet]

I'm talking about the article here. The article is talking about the political side of things. It is not making an economic argument.

[Beet]

So only economic analysis has insight, political analysis can not have insight? This seems to be apples and oranges. An article doesn't have to look at a question from every possible angle to be interesting, it only has to raise a new and significant point from at least one major angle.

[Beet]

They're not arguing the ECB has a political goal, I think they accept that the goal is economic. "Pay cuts" is an economic goal. They are quite aware of it. The problem is not that the ECB has economic goals, but that its goals are in areas where the central bank shouldn't be meddling, and in order to achieve this, hey are deliberately forsaking their serious obligations.

Historically, a central bank has one purpose and one purpose only- to maintain financial stability, the means of which have been to act as a lender of last resort. Later in the 20th century, price stability and in the US full employment was tacked on. But no central bank worth its salt sits there while the entire economy collapses due to financial-sector stresses.

On the other hand, never have central banks been given the authority to set wages, determine labor policy, or decide when privatizations should happen. These decisions should be up to the political arena.