From the start, the euro was an artificial currency with elementary design flaws. Formally, it does not correspond to a single political sovereignty. However, this does not make the European Central Bank (ECB) more independent; instead, its monetary policy becomes a bone of contention between conflicting interests. In essence, the construct is even more precarious. The euro has been imposed on completely different national productivity levels and capital strength. But this inherently contradictory monetary union was the only way to stand up to the other major economic blocs in the process of globalization. This only worked as long as the global deficit economy, fed by financial bubbles, could flourish. After the overdue financial crash, the crisis was nationalized everywhere. Now the second wave is coming in the form of a general crisis of state credit, as the central banks’ flood of money has to subsidize an economy that is no longer self-sustaining. The wildly fluctuating currency relations no longer reflect a relationship of economic strength and weakness, but rather the situation in the decay of monetary policy at that moment. This is evidenced by the fact that all currencies are losing dramatically against gold. Because of its contradictory construction, the euro is only the weakest link in a global process of devaluation. This weakness corresponds to the imbalance in the European domestic economy. National chauvinism is hopeless, because the deficits of the denounced “sinners” are only the flip side of Germany’s export surpluses. The enormous rescue package will either inflate the euro as the first central currency or trigger a deflationary shock if, in return, extreme austerity measures suffocate the intra-European deficit economy. Either way, the euro is unsustainable, but there can be no return to the old national spaces either. The collapse of the euro is the next stage in the disintegration of capitalism. Its sorcerer’s apprentices are fleeing from one monetary catastrophe to the next.
Originally published in taz on 05/15/2010
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