A Marxian Analysis of the European Construction II: Contradictions

Abstract

Analysing the post-World War foundations of the European Union and following in detail the history of this construction until today, Jean-Christophe Defraigne focuses, in two chapters, on class domination, the absence of the European working class, and the conflicts between the elite classes of different European nations as well as with the American bourgeoisie. The major advances of the institutionalization of the European Union and the Eurozone corresponding to the regression of worker movements, Defraigne argues that it has ended up favouring reactionary and extreme-rightist “solutions” to crisis scenarios, aligned with a rampant euro-scepticism symbolized by Brexit, that prevents the creation of a supra-national European State with the capacity of resolving at least some of its internal contradictions.