3 research outputs found
Commodification and ‘the commons’: the politics of privatising public water in Greece and Portugal during the Eurozone Crisis
In response to the Eurozone crisis, austerity and restructuring has been imposed on the European Union’s (EU) peripheral member states in order to receive financial bailout loans. In addition to cuts in funding of essential public services, cuts in public sector employment and further liberalisation of labour markets, this has also included pressure towards the privatisation of state assets. And yet, workers have not simply accepted these restructuring pressures. They have organised and fought back against austerity and enforced privatisation. Based on a historical materialist perspective and following a strategy of incorporated comparison, in this paper we will comparatively assess the struggles against enforced water privatisation in Greece and Portugal set against the background of the structuring conditions surrounding the Eurozone crisis
The evolution of monetary policy (goals and targets) in Western Europe
This chapter charts the evolution of monetary policy in the United
Kingdom, France, and Germany since the late nineteenth century. It
shows how the monetary authorities in the three largest European
economies transitioned from the classical gold standard through the gold
exchange standard and the Bretton Woods regime to European Monetary
Union, while dealing with war, reconstruction, and inflation along the
way. It outlines the changing goals of monetary policy and the targets,
instruments, and devices deployed to achieve those goals. In doing so,
it highlights the constraints within which policy makers operated under
different monetary regimes