How The Elites Are Safeguarding Europe Against Democracy

Co-Opting The "Left" and the "Right"

Italian Fascists Are Always A Tool Of Capital

Now that Giorgia Meloni has been in power for a while we can assess her true colours, in contrast to her campaign rhetoric. As the CBC noted:

When campaigning for national Italian elections in late 2022, Meloni stood in the same historic Piazza del Popolo in Rome. There, as leader of Brothers of Italy, a once-outlier party with neo-Fascist roots, she railed against the left, migration and a European Union she said was intent on destroying Europe's Christian identity. Shortly after, she became Italy's first female prime minister.

But instead, she is becoming part of the EU establishment while attempting to develop a cult of personality along the lines of Mussolini (who was a creation of the Italian elite to push back the gains of Italian Socialism):

A year and a half later, Meloni's look is more polished, her tone more measured, her approach more personal: she's encouraging supporters to think of her simply as "Giorgia" and to write her first name only on the ballot.

As Losurdo details in his excellent Democracy Or Bonapartism, one of the elite’s tools to blunt the possible political economic effects of electoral democracy was to personalize politics in the shape of the “Great Leader” and members of parliament that represent individual constituencies; akin to localized power brokers. In this way the political parties would be reduced in power, and the public driven to vote for personalities rather than politics.

Meloni has swiftly made allies with senior EU functionaries and the capitalist elite, who have shown enough flexibility and compromise to help Meloni cover up her mendacious behaviour. Again, the CBC:

Consequently, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission who has made it clear she will not work with Orban and the likes, says she would team up with Meloni — putting the Italian leader in position to become queenmaker.

"She is clearly pro-European, against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, she's been very clear on that one, and pro-rule of law," von der Leyen said last month during an election debate. "If this holds … then we offer to work together."

Already the two have worked together to seal controversial deals between the EU and North African countries to block migrant departures.

If Meloni were to back von der Leyen's centre-right European People's party (EPP), the choice would be one to calm markets and protect Italy's more than $300 billion Cdn in EU pandemic recovery funds, the lion's share of EU help.

Showing their true colours, the EU leadership will give a free pass to Meloni to implement illiberal domestic cultural policies. Just like Berlusconi (the multi-billionaire media oligarch who lead Italy from 1994-1995, 2001-2006 and 2008-2011) before her and who was central to the neoliberalization of Italy, she will practice economic neoliberalism paralleled with illiberal culture war; while handling the EU much more deftly than Berlusconi.

Italy will continue to decline economically while she and her backers make out like bandits. Meloni has made no attempts to reverse the self-harming anti-Russia sanctions which are having a devastating effect on parts of the Italian economy. It will be interesting to see if she falls in line with any self-harming EU actions against China.

German CDS/CDU Goes Fully Capitalist Tool

This article by Conor Gallagher, The War Racket In Germany, is excellent in covering many aspects of the increasing financialization of the German economy and the increasing dominance of US investors, corporations, consultancies and law firms. He also covers the profiteering of the German (specifically Rheinmetall) and US defence industries off the increased German defence spending. Just as in the US, such increases in defence spending tend to more lead to increased profits than a better equipped and able military. He also points to the creation of US energy dependence after the cut off of cheap Russian gas; with the identities of those that blew up Nordstream 2 still a mystery that the German government is not interested in publicly solving. Also, over 20 years of increasing neoliberalism has produced an increasing concentration in wealth and public and private squalor.

More startling is his finding that “Blackrock, Vanguard, and Capital Group are now the three biggest players in the German economy” and that the “leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and as of now, the odds-on favorite to be the next chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, is a former Blackrock executive.” Just like President Macron previously worked for the Rothschilds. He quotes Werger Rugemer:

The power of capital in CDU governments was always more or less hidden, and it never aspired to direct representation in the top political positions … But that’s different with Merz. The fact that the most highly paid lobbyist of BlackRock is not just going to the chancellery and saying, ‘Please don’t make such tough laws,’ but that he himself wants to be CDU leader and chancellor — that’s the difference.

Gallagher also notes that the new generation of economic elites are much more interested in financialization than continuing to run medium and large German manufacturing industries, helped by the limits placed on bank financing to the sector; in the case of Commerzbank (previously a very large lender to the sector) by the US private equity firm Cerberus.

With the CDS/CSU polling about 30% of the German vote just over a year before German federal elections, they may well dominate any right-wing German government in coalition with the AfD and the Free Voters parties. On the surface things may appear to have changed, but in reality little will have changed.

Bigger Changes In France?

The disastrous results in the European election triggered President Macron to call for legislative elections on June 30th and July 7th. These look to sweep away his coalition and sweep in a new right wing coalition of National Rally, The Republicans, and Reconquest who combined got 44% of the French vote in the European elections. The question is “is Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally, for real?”. In her public statements she has very much been a Euro and NATO skeptic and very much a nationalist. Anyone thinking that Le Pen will be a friend of the common people though should read her party’s policy documents, she is much more in the mould of the national capitalist De Gaulle than a real populist; again possibly a Bonapartist resolution to the French political-economic crisis. Within the area of foreign policy her positions in power (if she gains power) with respect to Ukraine, Russia, Israel, China and the EU bureaucracy will be telling.

As William Bouchardon states, as the National Rally gets closer to power its “top officials are trying to seduce business leaders — and show them that Le Pen’s agenda isn’t a threat to the wealthy.”

Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National is today laying the groundwork for its potential arrival in power. We see the change in its leaders’ lunches with top French entrepreneurs, in its increasingly Atlanticist geopolitical stance, and in its softening of its past opposition to free trade. Its hobnobbing with business chiefs is surely turning the page on the past era when Le Pen’s advisor Florian Philippot pushed the call to abandon the euro.

Still, whether the Rassemblement National leadership is meeting with these figures, changing its program, or reworking its alliances with other far-right parties, it remains rather discreet about these developments. It knows that its working-class electorate will be the first victim of this shift.

The sheer mendacity of the party’s leaders are shown in the last paragraph, as with its domestic policy positions with are totally at odds with its stated stance of “Economic Populism”, with it being

resolutely opposed to wage increases, even though it claims to defend French people’s purchasing power. It has systematically opposed raising the minimum wage or indexing wages to inflation, instead promising to boost incomes by lowering social-security contributions. This is in fact identical to the position of the Macron camp. Le Pen’s party also opposes the price freeze proposed by France Insoumise and its allies, and abstained from a vote on introducing a minimum price for agricultural products — this being a central demand of the farmers who mobilized in early 2024. We could also mention the party’s opposition to the Net-Zero Artificialization law and to environmental rules more broadly, which bosses constantly complain are holding them back. The Rassemblement National has also repeatedly adopted the demands of lobbyists, for example in the health care, construction, and automotive sectors. Finally, despite declaring itself in favor of a partial return to retirement at sixty, it never supported last year’s union mobilizations against Macron’s pension-age rise.

If it smells like a near carbon-copy of Meloni it may very well be one, perhaps with some wilder rhetorical flourishes to cover up their traitorous behaviour toward their mass of supporters.

The Conservative Head Of The UK Labour Party

The fix has been in for a while with respect to the UK, deftly carried out through the political assassination of the real socialist Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his replacement with an establishment Tory “Manchurian Candidate” Keir Starmer. The Labour Party will continue with its true role of blocking and dissipating the British public’s support for significant political-economic changes. While waffling on about the dangers of Chinese Communism/Russian Authoritarianism, Starmer has carried out an extremely effective Stalinist purge of anyone with the thought crimes of believing in real socialism or supporting the Palestinians. Electoral popularity and success is no protection against this purge.

It looks like Labour (now at 44% of the polls) will win the UK election on July 4th, with the Conservative Party (now at 22% and falling) possibly experiencing a wipe out, but nothing will really change as one Conservative PM hands over to another Conservative PM. The path may have also been opened for the right-wing Reform UK at 13% and rapidly rising. After a term of Starmer with no real change and still declining living standards will the stage be set for a rightward lurch to Reform UK, or will the Conservatives be transformed into the equivalent of Reform UK? The one thing that can be guaranteed is that no viable left-wing alternative will be allowed. This article describes well the role of Labour with respect to supporting US hegemony for example, against the wishes of its members and voters:

The position of Starmer — vehement in his opposition to the left, spaniel-like in his allegiance to the Americans — is not new, but a reversion to the party’s historic line, which it has maintained with only slight deviations since it first came to government a century ago. Central to Labour’s outlook since the post-1945 era has been the idea that American leadership is synonymous with peace and security. This worldview emerged out of the embers of a declining empire which sought, as best as it could, to recreate a balance of power favourable to the West — or opposed to the emergence of democracies willing to assert the interests of their populations over the West’s. However, without a critique of the American-led order and its chief tool, NATO, no coherent left-wing foreign policy can be launched … The strongest challenge to the assumption that American global leadership was the solution to all conflicts to emerge within the Labour Party came in the 1970s and 1980s; their failure goes a long way towards explaining the inability of the left to launch any coherent challenge to Starmer’s hawkish stances

The position of the UK is stated accurately and bluntly:

Under the thumb of the US and lacking a strong economic fraction with an interest in carving out an independent path, Britain has been unable to develop a political elite which could think seriously about global politics. The milieu out of which Corbyn — a heroic figure on any account — emerged was the A to B marches of the Stop the War coalition, a tragically failed movement which organised the country’s largest ever protest shortly before the invasion of Iraq. The dilemma is that Britain lacks any coherent set of class interests which could be tied to an anti-war project. Unlike France or Germany, which can legitimately claim to have defence or trade interests of their own, the UK, a financial entrepôt affixed to a faltering state, is rudderless.

A “financial entrepot affixed to a faltering state” which may turn farther and farther to the right as Britain sinks beneath the economic waves. As Angus Hanton puts it, “America Run Our Country”.

What About The Belgians?

After his own disastrous party result in the European election, the Belgian PM also resigned. This will not result in new elections, but rather perhaps a many months long set of negotiations for a new electoral coalition to rule Belgium. The greatest possibility is one centred on the right wing New Flemish Alliance (which took first place with 22% of the vote); a neoliberal party somewhat to the right on cultural issues of the UK Conservatives. So no real change there.

Although Marine Le Pen may be a little bit of a wild card, the internationalist and Eurocentric wing of the European ruling class seems to have successfully “stitched up” European politics with the backup plan of fake populist parties and leaders, together with co-opted senior politicians. Funding for Ukraine may fizzle, but that may also reflect a grudging acceptance of reality by European elites (which will not limit increased domestic defence spending); mirroring a possible election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Real change will not come from within Europe, it will be forced upon Europe from without, short a full blown economic and financial depression that opens up political space; but even then that may simply be met with Fascism as it was in the 1920s and 1930s.

As Jonas Elvander notes there is no contradiction between an economically neoliberal and socially and culturally right-wing or even fascist EU:

the far right, who often have few or no problems with the EU’s neoliberal rules, can calmly focus on restricting migration further and curbing the rights of people they deem undeserving with the help of the EU, as long as they tow the Commission’s geopolitical line. It is against this background one has to understand Von der Leyen’s recent attack on the parties in the Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament – from which the German AfD was recently expelled after their top candidate relativized nazism – which she described as ”Putin’s proxies”; it is not because they are far-right that they must be opposed, but because they are still against the euro and pro-Russia. Should these parties change position on those two issues, one could expect them to be invited to the main table of European affairs, should they come to power, just like Meloni was.

And for a bit of final amusement, it has come out that Argentina’s President Milei has a very rich father that greatly benefitted from state subsidies (US$33 million!) and who completely subsidized Milei’s lifestyle into his 40s. Basically a spoilt rich brat who is cosplaying as a libertarian so as to destroy the income and power of the mass of working people. The stories of corruption are already multiplying, as he and his elite friends fill themselves from the state trough; socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor! A rerun of the Menem disaster from the 1990s.