Even when the Council is able to reach agreement it has shown itself unable to impose its decisions on These limitations of the Common Market reflect the limitations of the economic development that gave rise to the EEC in the first place - the growing internationalisation of big capitalist operations in Europe.
DEVELOPMENTS
The last twenty years have seen some hig developments in this respect. There are now, for example, big Europe wide businesses — like Dunlop-Pirelli or Agfa-Gevaert - that are not owed or controlled outright by the capitalists of a single country, but divided between capitalists or groups of capitalists from several European countries.
But these developments still have a long way to go, and there have been some important moves in the other direction, The attempt to establish a multi-national automobile giant out of che italian Fiat and French Citroen fems, for example, broke down.
In most industries, firms under the contrel of particular 'national' caputalisis extena their operations on the international plane by taking over firms and cooperating with the "national monopolies in other Red Weskly 1 Augest 1974 Page 4 dilemma at a time when the econom•ies of almost all the European couptries are running into serious difficulties - in otber words, at a time when the actions of the state are of first-rate importance in trying to ball out the capitalist system.
CHOICE
The big monopolies in each of the Common Market countries now face a clear choice cither to build a real European super-state capable of working out and implementing a Europe-wide policy for the crisis, or fall back onto individual, national policies. In either case che Common Market as it now exists must go by the board.
In the first case it would be replaced by a federal capitulist stato taking in all the countries prepared to taice this step. This "superstate' would have a single, common curreney, a common government, coolmon hudget, and common economic and social policies In the second case, the Common Market would break up into pieces as the different countries that make it up run to set up new barriers to trade in order to protect their own capitalist industries from forcien competition.
Obviously the superstate soluBon would be the choice of the the Common Market actually is. The move of Wedgwood-Bene to get a conterence of the labour Party on the question of accepting ur rejecting "renegotiated" terms for Britain's memborship of the EFC will help to bring the Common Market right back into the centre of political dehate. This means that the nationalist and chisuvinist arguments of the Communist Party and the Labour left, who will blahber on about "national sovereignty" and the rule of Parliament, will he given a good airing.
In this situation it is very important that the revolutionary left, who are the only people who will fight against this rubbish, group round the slogan For a United Socialist States of Europe. But the left must have a clear view not only on what programme to put forward in opposition to the nationalist arguments, hut also on what attitude to take do the EFC and why.
WHAT IS THE EEC?
Any position on the Common Marker must start from a clear analysis of what ch EBC i. Purely subjective considerations such as "the working class is against it ther fore we shook be, or "nationalists and chaurinists are ngainst the EBC therefore we shouldn't oppose it or Britain's entry are quite false. There are many positions which the woeking class at present holds to which the left must he vigorously opposed. Similarly there are some issues on which, in a purely fornial sense of couter, socialists and extreme reactionaries seem to share the same position (eg opposition to incomes policy). These subjective questions affeet facties but they cannot determine a POston on the BEC - that can only be deried from an objective analysis of what One view of the EBC which Is quite prevalent but which can be rapidly dispensed with is that it is essentially a large market. The real crux of the REC is its role in permitting the concentration and interpenetration of Earopean capital. The heart of the matter, as always, lies in production and not in the market.
A second widely lied view on the EFC is that which sees it in terms of the competition of United States imperialism and European imperialism. This view is often correct on the question of the central role of the concentration of capital in the EEC. but unfortunately it only sees the BEC in terms of the relations between the imperial at countres and not in terms of word economics and politics It is, of course, true that the EBC is a mechanism of the competitive struggle of European imperistisen against LS imperialism. But this is only part of the story. Con sidered on a world scale the EEC is not simply a competitor of the US but also an essential complement do it in the defence of the imperialist system as a whole.
No European power alone is now si the defence of the imperialist systemi a нера тоз шла знаск wnia, ! of defending by itself the world imperi far from opposing the creation of the analysis wond conclude, not merely s a fair amount of effort to try to get Br strengthen iS imperialism vis a vis its 1 wow wroken the imperin/s system o position on questions which affect the ist system as a whole and those forces WHAT ATTITI The confusion of the left on the qu not as serious as the quite wrong starti socialists should oppose the EFC and l Almost the whole left starts from e EBC and Britain's entry into it on the who argue for support of entry on the alist consciousness in the wurking class it will lead to attacks on the working e the grounds that all the attacks on the regards the Jocks the latter point of vie But the starting point cannot be th British working class, but on the strug that point of view, as analysed above, i the relation of forces against the wark Therefore, as well as advancing the Furope and proposing # programme cl Europo, socialists must also be activels and opposed to Britain's membership ship and on the dehate in the working this fact.
ALAN JONES