The European Neoliberal Order and the Eurocrisis: Blame it all on Germany?

Abstract

This article reads the current Eurocrisis going far beyond the classical linear explanations of the dualism between an imperialist core and a victimised periphery. Instead, it mobilises the concepts of social capital and of global imperialist chain to demonstrate the continuum between the agendas of the dominant classes in both the core and the periphery and the use of intergovernmental regional organisations as privileged tools for their strategies of exposing national capitals to international competition. Seen from this point of view, the current Eurocrisis is something far more complex than a mere exercise of domination of a major power (Germany, in this case) over peripheral economies: it is part of a strategy of redesigning the traditional model of welfare state, in which the Euro and the European Monetary Union work as dispositives of an hegemonic approach useful for the national bourgeoisies of the entire European space.