Arbeiterbund für den Wiederaufbau der KPD

Central Comitee

The last stadium of European Economic and Monetary Union and the starting of European Common Currency (Euro)

Looking onto European Economic and Monetary Union and the "Euro" and onto the impact all this will bring to the life and the future of the working classes and the peoples of Europe and all over the world, we strictly have to distinguish between two things: what does the "Euro" pretend to be; and what will it really be?

It is said that the "Euro" is an economic answer to latest economic developments of capitalism and of capitalist world economy.

That's what the "Euro" pretends to be. In reality it is a political answer to the degeneracy of capitalism. It is an attempt to cope with the deep contradictions of dying capitalism. To cope with all that at the level of money and of circulation. It is an attempt to postpone the eruption of imperialist war. It is an attempt to achieve for the time being without war what finally can only be achieved by the means of war. So "Euro" and "European Economic and Monetary Union" are some sort of imperialist agreements, deeply undermined by contradictions from the very beginning. They are of that sort of agreements that are pregnant with their own destruction.

"Monetary Union is a historically unique project." This was claimed by the German "Bundesbank" on March 26, 1998.

As far as some of its manifestations are concerned that's true. The "Euro" and EEMU are the most developed attempts of European finance capital to regulate economic relations at the level of currencies and to regulate the circulations of goods and capital. The "Euro" is the first attempt to create a supra-national money not being the money of a single state and also not being derived from world money, i.e. from gold.

But if we take the real nature of that attempt we see that this is not a "historically unique project" at all.

What is the very nature of all this? It is an attempt of parts of international finance capital to use European nation states to cope with the degeneracy of capitalism, at least for some time and in some parts. Imperialist economy really has the tendency to destroy itself by its own means, and "Euro" and EEMU are an attempt to hinder it in doing so. For that purpose the most powerful parts of finance capital try to shove the problems and contradictions onto the peoples, onto the non-monopolistic bourgeoisie and onto the imperialists of other countries or continents. What's behind all these attempts is the destruction of social labour in the interest of ongoing capitalist reproduction for the biggest and most powerful groups of capital.

These sharpening imperialist contradictions are the mother of "Euro" and "EEMU". Among the fathers we see: German capital's plans for the European continent; its aspirations to get at the head of all those attempts to overcome the described contradictions and to benefit most from that; the attempts of all the other imperialist powers in Europe to hinder German imperialism by agreements and treaties to achieve its aims; and last but not least the attempts of the smaller capitalist powers of the continent to remain at least at the stage of capitalist exploitation and to achieve that by collaboration and subjugation.

"The real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself. ... The capitalist mode of production is, for this reason, a historical means of developing the material forces of production and creating an appropriate world-market and is, at the same time, a continual conflict between this its historical task and its own corresponding relations of special production." (Karl Marx, Capital, Volume III, London 1959, p. 250.) Since capitalism had reached its final stage and the world is shared out among the monopolistic groups and powers this contradiction can no longer be solved by subjugating more and more parts of the world to capitalist exploitation. (Late imperialism is even not capable to exploit the fact that his historical enemy has been defeated for the time being in many countries of the world; and this shows the deepness of the general crisis of capitalism. We will speak about that later on.) This contradiction may only be solved for some time. That is why capitalist wealth has to be destroyed again and again. The normal economic crises are not sufficient to do this job. Not sufficient the enormous destruction of social wealth in the former socialist countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe and in former Soviet Union. Not sufficient the actually ongoing destruction of that kind of wealth in great parts of Asia. The deepest possible crisis of imperialism, the war, rises its head in front of imperialist society. All those political and economic agreements and alliances between imperialists attempt to regulate these destructions or to turn them away to others. They are, and they only can be, temporary agreements on dominance, on subjugation, on achieving or postponing interests - until economic and political power have changed again. The real barrier of my own capitalist production is the capital of the others - that's how the contradiction Marx spoke about is seen by the imperialists.

The German-British agreements concerning the sharing up of colonies and of the East in the time before 1914, the imperialist blocks of power in the time between the two world wars, the establishment and also the destruction of a world-wide economic and monetary system dominated by US-imperialism after 1944, the establishment of "European Monetary System" (EMS) in 1979 and its failure partly because of the annexation of German Democratic Republic by the Western German state in 1992/1993 - all these events show how the imperialists by establishing those alliances and agreements are in a situation as Oedipus was: the more they struggle to escape their destiny the more they are condemned to fulfill it.

It is because of imperialism itself that agreements and alliances have to be extended beyond the regulation of the turnover of goods on the world market. They have to be extended to regulations on the monetary and currency level. This is because of the dominance of capital export over the export of goods. It is because of the development of the productive forces and because of the difficulty to hold these productive forces within the narrow barriers of capitalist exploitation. It is because of those parts of the profits working as borrowed capital.

In the end we see here how close all this comes to communism. The development of the productive forces has driven that theft of someone else's working time which is the basis of the actual wealth (as Marx claimed) to an extent, where the production based on exchange value threatens to collapse. And indeed it collapses in part now and then. However, as long as there is private ownership of the means of production these collapses happen in the capitalist form of destruction and devastation.

The stolen working time is not able to break the chains of the form of value, of value dedicated to further exploitation. More and more this value tends to adopt its purest form of "money - more money", i.e. the form of borrowed capital. It stays in the form of money, and this money does not serve its employer to start new production or to accumulate more productive capital; it is only a leverage to accumulate surplus value stemming from living work force which relatively diminishes. But even more: a rising part of it turns into fictitious capital (mainly fed by the national debt of all capitalist states). According to this the role and the form of money changes: more and more it turns to be credit money which is not based on real relations of exchanging goods but on the ability we spoke about: the ability to serve as a leverage to get an ever increasing part of the surplus stemming from exploitation.

In the long run, however, economy doesn't take place in the realm of "swaps" and "futures", of shares and of national dept. All economy may be reduced to economy of time. An economy based on the given and permanently developing state of dealing with nature by men. The time disposable for a given society is divided into working time and leasure. The working time again has to be divided according the production of the very material life of society, how ever that society may be organised. "The ultimate reason for all real crises always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses as opposed to the drive of capitalist production to develop the productive forces as though only the absolute consuming power of society constituted their limit." (Karl Marx, Capital, Volume III, London 1959, p. 484) These real crises catch hold of all the relations of capitalist production and reproduction: production itself, the relations of money and credit, the relations of currencies. In capitalist societies the credit is "in the one hand, an immanent form of the capitalist mode of production, and on the other, a driving force in its development to its highest and ultimate form". (Karl Marx, Capital, Volume III, London 1959, p. 606) In the late imperialism not only the means of production of single capitalists and the working power of some hundred thousand or even million of workers are sacrificed to this credit; the means of production and the lives of the populations of continents are sacrificed. (See Latin America in the eighties, called the "lost period of the continent"; see the latest crisis emanating from South East Asia; see the fate of former socialist countries sacrificed to the credit when the dictatorship of the working class was betrayed.)

In this way the crises become more and more devastating. The general crisis of capitalism sharpens, and in this same process are produced "surplus profits" on the one hand and "surplus people" on the other. It is infantile to imagine that you only have to find methods to bring these two "surplusses" together and everything will be okay.

It is demonstrated that modern productive forces are able to produce so much wealth, that these productive forces can only be run by the whole society. Life and work of mankind can be run according to a world-wide plan of an association of productive workers. There is no need any longer to run them by the ridiculous means of money and market. (You can see every day that these means have come to their borders already; see the fact that one third of the world's trade is done inside the big monopolistic firms.)

This is what happens in the world of rotten capitalism. There is no strange "globalization" or any thoughtless "liberalization" of the markets for goods and capital. Correspondingly the agreements on economy and currency mean: not to prevent the destructions of materialised labour, emanating from that deep and general crisis. (This is impossible!) But to regulate it according to the interests of imperialism and to canalize it by agreements and domination without further steps - for the time being - to open military conflicts about the spheres of capitalist investment and about the conditions for capitalist exploitation. And to shift that destruction onto the concurrents and onto the weaker participants in capitalist world economy. European Economic and Monetary Union is such an attempt. For different reasons (especially for reasons found in the history since 1945) this attempt has some characteristics of an open conflict between the European imperialists and US-Imperialism. But it would be misleading to limit it to these characteristics. (In the range of other imperialist agreements and alliances - for example in the fight about "Multilateral Agreement on Investment" - European Imperialists work together with US-imperialism or fight each other; see the contradictions between German and French imperialism in all that.) European Economic and Monetary Union is only one, albeit the actually most spectacular imperialist agreement. And this does not rule out but rather includes the fact, that this agreement is a battle ground, too.

Since the time of the "Roman Treaties" there have been attempts to install agreements, and there have been agreements to improve and save capitalist conditions of exploitation. (These attempts have again and again been disturbed time by time when the capitalists of Europe fought against each others to save their own skin.) The contradiction between the German and the French imperialism always has been formative for that process. This contradiction was to be seen partially in a very sharp concurrence (e.g. when the so-called "Werner-Plan", a blueprint of the treaty of Maastricht, was rejected in the 1970ies), partially in collaboration (e.g. when the governments of Helmut Schmidt and Giscard d'Estaing installed the "European Monetary System" in 1979). On the ground of the deep general crisis of capitalism already described the most monopolised parts of European financial capital now try to realise their aims. Among the most important are:

- They try to create a European "Großraum" in which there shall be left no obstacles for the exploitation of capital. And this is intended to take place on a continent dominated on the one hand by the most important imperialist robbers (the others are the United States and Japan), but split on the other hand into a great number of national states.

- By a multitude of regulations they try to take into account the fact that in the sphere of mere economy imperialism already has blown up the borders of national state by installing the biggest conglomerates of financial capital. (Among the 100 biggest economic subjects in the world we find 51 firms and only 49 national states.) To achieve this they try to establish the freedom of dealing with goods, services, capital and working force.

- Especially all those barriers und dangers for the free movement of borrowed capital shall be excluded that emanate from the existence of various currencies and from the speculations in currencies executed by financial capital itself.

- They try to take profit from the fact, that the "Euro" will be a real "world currency". No other imperialism in Europe (excluded to some extent the German one) is able to take those advantages alone by itself: The advantages that allow it to borrow in its own currency and to gget credit from all over the world in the form of currency reserves. For the credit has to save the credit. There must always be new credits to pay the old ones. In that way it is supposed that the capitalists can postpone the moment, when exploitation of value is cut down to its real roots: the more and more ridiculous theft of anyone else's working time.

- And last: One tries to set borders to the risk emanating from the ongoing transformation of profits into fictitious capital (national debts). (As we see in parts of Latin America, of Eastern Europe and of South-East-Asia nobody may rule out the possibility of capital being destroyed by national bankrupt.)

All this is an attempt to heal the diseases of capitalism by unsuitable means. These diseases have their roots in capitalist property, in the sharpening of the contradictions between productive forces and the means of production. They are intended to be healed by means within the sphere of circulation, within the sphere of trading and of currencies. The imperialists know very well that the content of agreements like this at least can be the destruction of productive forces, of over-accumulated capital and of credit. And they heavily argue about the place where this destruction shall take place. They fight for the power to decide about the place of destruction. This is shown by the words of Mr. Nölling, a leading manager of Deutsche Bundesbank. He also demonstrates the "love" and "brotherhood" among the imperialists when he claims: "Look at the social problems in France. Monetary Union will bring with it the necessity of great processes of adaptation. What does France expect from this game with Germany? Does she expect to have her fingers in German money? There will be a price for that: namely unstrained competition with German industry. Do you know what that means for French or Italian automobile industry? You may forget about it!"

It was shown at the latest with the annexation of the GDR by German imperialism, that there must be bitter fights among the imperialists when European Economic and Monetary Union would be built up. Instead of the European Economic and Monetary Union there was just another one: the German one. Some time after that annexation and because of that annexation the European Monetary System was to explode (1992/1993). In Maastricht the European imperialists did not only take the last steps to realise the European plan we already spoke about. They also took the last steps towards a new battlefield.

It has been proved that the finance capitalists of Europe may blow up the national state, but they can not do away with it. They really need it to fight for better conditions for the exploitation of capital. They really need it to suppress the people. And above all, they need it to wage war. This is a contradiction, and that contradiction draws through all the agreements of Maastricht and the following agreements. Some parts of national sovereignty are intended to be abolished (e.g. an own currency for every state) or to be reduced (like free disposal of national dept). Other parts, like the state apparatus, organised on the level of national states, are even intended to get stronger.

What is confirmed in all this is what Lenin claimed: Even under these economic conditions of imperialism the United States of Europe will be either reactionary or impossible. This is even more valid the more imperialism proves to be dying capitalism. It is even more valid under the conditions of a more and more sharpening international concurrence, under the conditions of sharpening contradictions within the general crisis of capitalism.

It was openly declared by German imperialism by the annexation of GDR, that the most reactionary form of all that would be a German dominated Europe from Barcelona to Odessa. This is why the agreements of Maastricht also carry the signs of a fight against German hegemony. "Maastricht, that is Versailles without a war" - this was a French position. We can see these fights on all levels, not only at the beginning of the process, when German imperialism hat to give up its illusions of a combination of economic and monetary union with a political union. We see these fights when they argue about the "Stabilitätspakt", when they argue about the central positions of the European Central Bank, when they argue about how surplus of budgets in Europe should be used.

In all these battlefields German imperialism is the most aggressive one. Obviously it is the only imperialism that is prepared to pursue those aims of the Economic and Monetary Union held to be useful in common interest by all the European imperialists by its own means. Its drafts for that are not merely of military nature or of the nature of political alliances, as has been shown by the so-called Schäuble-paper in 1995. Economically the German imperialism is the strongest one in Europe, and so it is allowed to work for the building of a DM-block in Europe. The structure of such a block we can already see: Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, most of the Eastern European countries. Former French prime minister, Giscard d'Estaing, said in the French Parliament: In the case of a failure of the monetary union "we will not only see strong vibrations on the finance markets. We will see something rather embarrassing: The international markets will detect that there really is a European currency: the Deutschmark."

So German imperialism has different options for the future development in Europe. On the other hand, the other imperialists more and more lack any options. (There will be a lot of struggles during the construction of European Economic and Monetary Union; there will be a lot of quarrels about the agreements settled in Maastricht. In all those struggles it seems to be a useful position for us to declare: we will not defend Maastricht against the other imperialists. But we will defend Maastricht against the German imperialism who has - through the voice of its Supreme Court - openly declared that under certain circumstances it will deal with the treaty of Maastricht as one deals with a sheet of paper: it will tear it. And if the other imperialists in Europe will tear the treaty of Maastricht we must not allow German imperialism to take that as a reason of war, as a reason to fight against the peoples of Europe.)

It is not our job to predict who will be right in all these calculations. There is no imperialist economic solution of all the contradictions put on the agenda by Euro and European Economic and Monetary Union. The German Bundesbank is right: in the long run these questions aren't at all economic questions; they are political questions. There is a big crisis of the system based on private property of the means of production. There is no solution for that crisis at the level of money and circulation. This will not give any breathing time for the peoples und for the working classes. There can only be some breathing time in the struggle against imperialist war if the working people destabilize the ruling classes in Europe. If they work for the only possible solution: To give the means of production to the whole of the society, to the working people. For the workers, there is no simple Yes or No to Euro or European Economic and Monetary Union. As long as they do not take their own position, that is: a position of preparing revolution, the workers will always be at the tail end of bourgeoisie.

To look at all this from the point of view of wages, of piggy banks or of Sunday trousers would be no good advice. Why for god's sake should workers defend the Deutschmark, that had come out of the twofold destruction of the basis of workers' livelihood? Do they really believe that the ruling classes would not deflate the Deutschmark once again if necessary? They did already twice in this century! It is really nationalist to place one's hope onto the Deutschmark. Under the rule of the system as it is, workers will end by defending the "Standort Deutschland". And that means: by nationalism. Perhaps German workers will get some advantages if their masters get triumph over their enemies. The receipt for that wouuld be presented to them when they will have to go to war. (Something similar is valid for the workers of other European countries. When currencies in an European "Großraum" will be abolished, there may be some advantages for example for Spanish or Portuguese capitalism, if they are willing to let German imperialism produce on high tech level and confine themselves to the role of suppliers for German industry.)

The place of the workers in FRG and in the annexed GDR will not be side by side with the fighters for European Economic and Monetary Union nor side by side with the nationalists defending the Deutschmark. We have to fight against the imagination of "defending our fatherland" that will be back on stage very soon when the struggles in Europe get sharper. (It may simply start with: "Our Deutschmark is strong, but their Peseta is weak." Or: "Lets defend our independent Bundesbank against the politically dominated French Central Bank." Or: "We try to save all over the society, and all the others waste money and public resources." The end will anyway be: Who will be guilty if all these projects are smashed by reality, and who will have to be punished for that failure?)

It is not the task for German communists to point out the imperialistic aims of the competitors of German imperialism. It is not their task to speculate about the chances of other imperialists to hinder German imperialism from further expansion. All this would be, as Lenin claimed, and imperialistic conspiracy. German communists have to fight for the defeat of their own imperialism and they have to desire that this German imperialism will be defeated. They have to give advice to he workers and peoples of Europe to fight for an alliance against Germany. (There is much evidence that we will have to give that advice also to the governments of Europe.)

It is not money that reigns the world. When "Euro" comes, that will not change the world nor our enemy. Our main task will not change: that the working class has to overthrow the capitalist class, to build its dictatorship, and to give the means of production into the hands that are capable to deal with them - into the hands of the whole society.

Arbeiterbund für den Wiederaufbau der KPD

Central Committee

May 1998