Editorial

Abstract

As we go to press the summer break is coming to an end and the international battle over austerity is set to resume. It is likely to be a hot autumn. The overall crisis of the system continues to intensify as much of Europe is in doubledip
recession and even the strongest and most successful economies, most importantly China, are slowing down. Consequently attacks on working people will also intensify and hopefully resistance will rise to match them.

In this context we lead with two articles on aspects of the crisis.

Sinead Kennedy addresses the issue of the euro. She argues
that while the crisis is a deep systemic one, with its origins in the US, its epicentre is currently in Europe. She criticises the
tendency on the left to see the European Union as in someway progressive, ignoring or downplaying its undemocratic capitalist
and imperialist character, and calls for a break with the euro in conjunction with cancellation of the debt and an end to austerity.

Brian O'Boyle presents a critical analysis of the economics of John Maynard Keynes. Left reformists and trade union
leaders tend to turn to Keynes for support for a strategy of state stimulated growth in opposition to cuts and austerity. O'Boyle shows that Keynes's analysis of the crisis, although an advance in some respects on the neoclassical economists he succeeded, was both  awed and inadequate. Keynes's aim, he reminds us, was to save capitalism not to bury it and the only solution for working people lies in its revolutionary overthrow.