Europe's Deflation Torture is a Gift to the Far LEFT [View All]

[LBJDemocrat]

" Perma-slump has already chipped at the left flank of the ruling Socialists in Portugal. The Communist Party (PCP) and the Maoists and Trotskyists of the Left Bloc together won 18pc of the vote in September 2009, leaving premier Jose Socrates with the lonely task of enforcing yet more austerity by minority government. ...

Portugual is not unique. I spent Saturday delving into the subcultures of Italy’s Rifondazione Comunista, Spain’s Izquierda Unida, Olivier Besancenot’s Parti Anti-Capitaliste in France, and Germany’s Linke (Left). While it is too early to talk of a pan-European revolt against EMU-deflation, the Left is starting to offer the only coherent critique of what has gone wrong with monetary union and why there can be no durable solution until the EU creates full fiscal union (which creates its own problems of permanent subsidies, as from Ostrogoth Padania to Berber Sicily under the lira) or until this latter day Gold Standard is broken into viable halves. ..."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7756879/Europes-deflation-torture-is-a-gift-to-the-Far-Left.html

At least Europe's Left has the ability to push and pressure their neoliberal Third Way governments for progressive reforms outside a two-party duopoly.