The Euro-alternatives
The Euro-alternatives
Chris Wright
Chris Wright is the author of The Sufficient Community, Green Books, Bideford, Devon
Keywords European Union, Money, Regionalism
The train has left the station and, sooner or later, will reach the end of the line. We are all passengers, with but two options to carry on to the terminus (wherever that might be), or get off and continue in some other, equally uncertain,direction.
The railway metaphor was much loved by politicians at one stage in the debate about our European future. There is a certain grandeur in departures and arrivals, much bustle, energy and power, all directed to a single end. And, in that sense, the image is a false one. It is a safe, familiar picture that we can all identify with. A railway line presupposes that there is an identified destination, that other people have been there, and that it is considered important enough to have warranted the construction of a line in the first place.
The truth is that, in the great European adventure, we are setting off into the unknown and a better analogy might be the exploration of a new continent. There is the promise of increased wealth for all but, as with all such ventures, it will be at a price,a price that may not become fully apparent for generations to come.
There seems an overwhelming logic to pushing on, to hacking our way through the jungle of preconceptions, prejudice and the desire to preserve our national status quo. We exist in the global economy and the only way to compete effectively is to smooth the passage of venture capital, reduce costs and create a large enough domestic market to guarantee a healthy trading position vis-à-vis other competitors. Europe provides such a launching pad.
The most obvious price that will have to be paid is in terms of a further erosion of individual liberty, and a weakening of democracy as political accountability is inevitably diluted in the creation of a European super-state. The examples of a Brussels bureaucracy riding roughshod over individual and even national choice by imposing uniformity and conformity across the continent are already legion. We laugh at them but that only masks the lack of power we feel.
The truth is that we live in an increasingly institutional world where you and I count only insofar as we conform to the organisational agenda. If we try and assert our individuality outside that framework, the reaction is already predictably unsympathetic and restricting.
Within Europe, the ability of the individual to take on the establishment will be further stifled in the coils of a serpentine legal process that attempts to reconcile differences across a continent, to produce a judgment that can be defended in Dresden as well as in Dundee or Doncaster. The solutions to life's problems will become increasingly black and white as a consequence.
Whether there is greater integration in Europe or not, these are the inevitable consequences of the growth of a globalised money economy. It is the direction in which the train is already heading and has been for some time. A European super state is simply the logical next step along the way. In that sense, the problem is not Europe so much as the triumph of an economic system that has brought us to the brink of a world order for the first time in human history.
Within that system, going it alone as little England is as inconceivable as the corner shop being able to compete with the supermarket. The other alternatives, of becoming the 51st state or paying our way by finding some kind of niche market like Panama or Andorra Britain as the historical theme park of Europe, anything from woad to stove pipe hats and Battle of Britain pilots?! don't hold much attraction.
So, is there a choice, or are we doomed to follow the high speed track we're on?
Once we recognise that it's the money economy, not Europe, that is the villain of the piece, it becomes much easier to see in what direction the alternative might lie. The money economy has effectively de-humanised much of what passes for life. Our relationships are increasingly based on roles determined by the institutional world that deploys them, our triumphs are unidimensional reflections of the limiting world of work and we have lost any sense of community in the stampede to better ourselves: giving ourselves that illusory sense of self-importance by trading up to a better house and car and by being able to avoid obligations to anyone outside the immediate family.
Those, believe it or not,are the rewards of playing the game. The penalties come when your firm goes bust or is relocated, when your house is compulsorily purchased to make way for the new motorway that will speed goods and services to their destination, or when you suffer a disability that effectively makes you an also-ran in the race of life. You realise then that you have little control over your destiny and that whatever control you thought you had was a mirage. "We" becomes "you" because you're on your own, chum. We don't want to know, just as you didn't when all was going fine for you.
To counter these trends,which joining a Europe based on the money economy will only magnify, we need to re-visit what it means to be human.
The considerations that become important when looked at from this perspective include having the opportunity to realise oneself as a unique individual within the context of a network of relationships that are mutual, loving and creative. We feel important by being part of a community of others who value us for who we are, not for the role we play or the amount of money we earn. We want to feel in control of our lives, a sense that comes from being able to exercise personal responsibility in all areas of our life, by accepting the consequences of the choices we make. And those choices will naturally take account of not just ourselves and ourimmediate community but also our environment, because we will feel ownership for and partnership with it. For the first time we see a hint of how a sustainable future might be achieved.
These aspirations are the exact opposite of where the money economy is taking us. That fact alone should alert us to the need to find a radical alternative and that alternative has to start with ourselves.
We are responsible to ourselves, and to no one else, for our actions. We can change the way we act and relate to the outside world and in doing so we can change that world. That means looking at our lives and seeking to find opportunities to:
enhance our relationships and thereby our own personal development;
support local economies and learn, in the process, to be more truly ourselves; and
create communities and discover a sense of belonging.
In the process we are likely to find our lives shifting from consumption to creation, from detachment to participation and from personal impotence to personal responsibility. Rather than life becoming more black and white, it will deepen and become increasingly complex as we realise that, in coping with the messiness of everyday life, there are no simple answers or quick fixes. We will no longer look to "them" for solutions or recompense, but to our own inner strengths and resources and those of the community of which we are a part. We will feel in control of our lives.
If all that sounds a long way from the debate about Europe where we began, it is because we have failed to ask what sort of Europe we want. We know the sort of Europe we are likely to get and that is what ordinary people across the continent are instinctively reacting against. Once we recognise what kind of society we are looking to create, Europe itself becomes altogether less threatening.
Just as no man is an island, so no community can exist in isolation. Each community will be part of wider regional, continental and, ultimately, global structures. Europe, whatever that is, will be a part of the jigsaw without taking the focus away from individual people and their communities. That is the direction in which we ought to be heading. The Europe of the money economy is a branch line. We should be going full steam ahead to our real destination.
