European Realities and Left Illusions
Channel: Havens Wright Center for Social Justice
Date: 2022-09-25

A lecture by Leo Panitch discussing the possibilities and contradictions of trying to transform the European Union in a progressive direction. Panitch analyzes the EU within the wider perspective of the changing dynamics and interpenetration of global capitalism, and explores the structural constraints placed on left electoral projects by the institutional organization of the EU, and the ways in which the logic of capital has subverted democratic processes within it. Contrary to the "illusions" presented by some progressives, Panitch argues the US should not attempt to emulate elements of the "coordinated market economy" of the EU, and that the possibilities of left governance are constrained in a variety of ways by the structures of global capitalism.

This event was co-sponsored by the Center for European Studies and Institute for Regional and International Studies at UW-Madison.

Leo Panitch is the Canada research chair in comparative political economy and distinguished research professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto. For the past three decades, he has been editor of the Socialist Register. His book (with Sam Gindin), The Making Of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy Of American Empire (2012) was awarded the Deutscher book prize in the UK and the Davidson book prize in Canada. Among his many other books are In and Out of Crisis: The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives (2010); Renewing Socialism: Transforming Democracy, Strategy and Imagination (2008), and The End of Parliamentary Socialism: From New Left to New Labour (2001).