It was made in The Observer, on 31 August, 1997 (Godley 1997), and you can see the crucial passage in the video below (the resolution/quality of the video may need to be increased).
This is actually what we see throughout much of Europe today (though admittedly many parties actively embrace neoliberal austerity too), and what I suspect Greece will discover as it attempts to end austerity and implement some kind of stimulus.
You can read Wynne Godley’s article here, and a good analysis of MMT predictions about the Eurozone here.
We are seeing the failure of the Eurozone not only in the anti-austerity Leftish parties like Syriza and Podemos, but also in right-wing parties like UKIP, the Danish People’s Party (DPP), and the French Front National (FN).
In a recent byelection for the French parliament, the Front National (FN) won the first round, and the French Socialist party only narrowly won the second round, with the National Front candidate taking about 49% per cent of the vote.
The real question: why do mindless left-wing parties continue to support the Eurozone and EU? Why not dismantle both and reconstruct a real progressive EU at some time in the future? Most of the new anti-austerity leftish parties like Syriza and Podemos are only somewhat Eurosceptic, and not clearly anti-EU.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Godley, Wynne. 1997. “Curried EMU – the Meal that Fails to Nourish,” The Observer, 31 August.
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I should say that I worked with Wynne from late 1996 to early 1999 at the Levy. While he was against the rules being proposed for the monetary union, he was for European Union, and pointed out that Tories and right wing conservative in Europe where usually the anti-Europe party. He pointed out that you cannot have monetary union without fiscal union first.
ReplyDelete"The real question: why do mindless left-wing parties continue to support the Eurozone and EU? Why not dismantle both and reconstruct a real progressive EU at some time in the future? Most of the new anti-austerity leftish parties like Syriza and Podemos are only somewhat Eurosceptic, and not clearly anti-EU."
ReplyDeleteSyriza wouldn't have won the last election if they had advocated an exit during its campaign. Greek savers prefer to have their savings denominated in euros instead of drachmas, which is understandable.
Now, if Germany and other european countries in favour of austerity maintain their intransigence, a greek exit could become self-evident and unavoidable.